One of the things I love most about bird-watching, and which, kind of surprisingly, comes through really well with the birdcam, is the unexpected surprises. You never know what you’re going to see. If you’re not looking you’ll never know what you missed. But if you are looking you get a real treat.
That’s what happened to me a few minutes ago. At 4:28 p.m. I glanced at the birdcam’s image of the ball feeder and saw what I’m reasonably confident was a first-year male Hooded Oriole climbing around on it. He mostly kept his head facing away, which was a shame, because none of the three shots I got let you see the black patch around his beak and extending down onto the throat that he showed when he turned briefly toward the camera. Anyway, here’s what I got:
noho_bird_club was on the system at the same time, but he either didn’t take or didn’t keep any shots, which seems a little odd, since he was moving the camera, and appears to have a number of shots leftover for the day still. Maybe he’ll chime in and let us know what he saw from his perspective.
Anyway, I’m happy to get another chance to view what could well be the same bird that was on the right end of the T-bar in this shot from May 8 at 5:43 p.m. (which I talked about previously in Is That a Hooded Oriole?):
With a little help on the ID, we’ll hopefully get the bird officially added to the system. And in the meantime, keep your eyes peeled around the feeders in the afternoon. That guy likes to land on there once in a while, and he’s pretty hard to miss when he does — as long as you’re looking. 🙂 Now we just need a better shot of him.
Update: Thanks to kryptonkay for pointing out in the comments that at 6:40 p.m. user shirley got this shot of what looks like the same bird, on the far-left deck railing:
That’s great that we got a frontal shot, even if it’s a little fuzzy, so people can see the black I was was talking about.
Also, in his comments on one of the earlier shots, #13924, noho_bird_club wrote:
i wasn’t looking at the camera, but when i did I saw the bird, then it turned – WOW! after i picked myself off the floor it had flown. I’m glad you got a few pix anyway!
So that explains that mystery (as to why he didn’t get any shots at the time).
I think picture #13968 is the front of the bird taken later in the afternoon. I saw the side view for just a second and it did look black. Everyone was moving the camera around so fast that none of us really got a good shot. I think if we see a good bird like that and someone is zooming in on it the other watchers should leave the camera alone. Otherwise no one gets a good picture and people get angry and won’t want to come back for a while. Birdwatching should be fun not frustrating. Ok I got it off my chest. I’am happy for your pictures elanus and they are great! My Mom told me the Orioles come out during the hotter months , so if it warms up we’ll see more of them.