Surprise! It’s a hermit thrush

One of the joys of photographing birds is the unexpected bird that shows up on your computer screen, as happened to me this morning. I was on one of my usual two-mile loops at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, walking the trail counterclockwise, when I spotted a couple of bluebirds in a tree with smallContinue reading “Surprise! It’s a hermit thrush”

A hermit thrush tests my ID skills

As my fifth year of regular birding is underway, my skill at identifying birds has vastly improved. But I still often encounter birds that puzzle me and defy easy identification. Case in point: this morning at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, I headed left off the trail from the parking lot, down the alley ofContinue reading “A hermit thrush tests my ID skills”