With the harshest parts of the COVID-19 pandemic finally behind us, we’ve been able to resume travel around the holidays to see family in Virginia.
Some of my family lives in a heavily wooded area and I decided to bring my birding lens, only the second time outside of Northern California with it.
I was lucky that despite the cold weather the sun was shining most days and over a week I ventured out to capture morning and sunset light. I took over 800 pictures over about a week and it was a bit of work to go through, especially identifying birds that I’m much less familiar. 20 bird species, not bad!
On my first day I spotted Tufted Titmouses flying around with nuts. They must know all the neighborhood bird feeders.
The American Goldfinches were pretty social too, quickly hopping from branch to branch.
My family said that foxes, red and gray, and owls often visit. While I wasn’t able to spot any owls (often a challenge even when right in front of you), a red fox gave me a few chances to get its picture. Most of the time it’d see me and run off, but twice it stopped to look back at me!
I must not have been out when squirrels were active as I only saw a few, perhaps because it was cold.
I enjoyed seeing regional differences in birds between the east and west coasts. The Eastern Bluebirds were easy to identify due to their bold colors, but Dark-eyed Juncos had a much different variation in color than I’m used to seeing.
Some birds of prey. I didn’t realize that two types of vultures are common in the area, Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures. Hopefully I guessed right on the Sharp Shinned Hawk, which is very close to Cooper’s Hawk.
Although I often heard woodpeckers working in the forest, I only got a few photos as they were often too far away.
I’m always happy to see robins and cardinals with their bright colors. A female Northern Cardinal wasn’t shy in front of the camera.
Some sparrows and finches, I think they look about the same in Northern California.
Lastly a few really small birds foraging for bugs.
