birding 2020: awesome week with 2 trips to Tennant Lake

This week I went to Tennant Lake to see swallows.  Twice.  The first time was cloudy and fairly breezy with a definite chill but I got some swallow sightings and got some excellent photos of a couple of Common Yellowthroats having a song duel.  Since this is possibly the second or third time I've seen one, I was thrilled.

Not only did I see a bird which has not been at all common for me, but I got the traditional spring bird singing with his head thrown back pose.   So even with not much in the way of birds, Tuesday, my first day out there, was good. 

So I talked Jeff into going with me on Thursday as I wanted to try the boardwalk.  Between my CFS and my ankles, I was a bit leery of going by myself so I was really happy he came along.  And what a great birding day it turned out to be!

We got swallows, almost immediately, and then heard lots of birds but didn't see so many until we were about halfway through the boardwalk loop in the marsh.  Then the birds just came flocking to us.  A mourning dove, a common merganser, a marsh wren, all good sightings and easy to spend some quality time with.  Then the timer went off so we headed back at a brisk walk since Jeff had a zoom meeting scheduled.  Two twists of the boardwalk later, we surprised a Great Blue Heron fishing from the platform.  He squawked, I squawked (those beaks are big and sharp) and he did a small flight hop away.  I was disappointed I didn't get a chance at a photo but we continued on.  And ran into him again a couple turns later.  This time, he didn't startle, so I got my camera up and focused and we followed him slowly down the boardwalk, pausing for good photo ops.  I got some excellent shots and it was a wonderful ending to our trip.  (Yes, Jeff made it to his meeting with plenty of time to spare.)

I posted the full body shot on Instagram, here's the head shot.

I find birding to be a wonderful stress reliever so I'm feeling great today and looking forward to setting up my backyard birding area this weekend.  I hope your selfcare routines are working as well.