It was a good weekend. Well, the times I got out into nature were good. Not that the rest of the weekend wasn't good,
but it wasn't good for photographing birds. So, this morning, I was able to make it out to Spring Valley Nature Preserve after an aborted attempt at Ceasar Creek, which was crawling with 200-400 bicyclists and no shore birds. I decided to try the boardwalk, first, but didn't make it all the way out to it before meeting a couple of folks who reported it was slow, with very little bird activity at all. Ah, well, so we all headed out in our separate cars to the same place -- the main preserve, which proved to be MUCH more fruitful, photographically speaking.
Our first stop was
the Pileated Woodpecker nest which, as of now, is empty -- all the young have fledged. Nif-T. In the area of the nest were several calling Warbling Vireos, Eastern Wood PeWees and a bunch of Yellow Warblers. We, the other fella and I, walked out to the boardwalk, where we headed towards the stand of craggy trees that attracts much bird life. On the way, we were treated to Baltimore Orioles and Cedar Waxwings hanging about the treeto
ps. As we came upon the stand, there were two other birders, cameras aimed towards a specific point that we would see, shortly. I'm not sure what they were looking for over there, but they soon turned their attention to the Red-headed Woodpecker and, almost as soon as we arrived, one of the newly fledged Pileated Woodpecker young. He was quite the clumsy bird, falling off the tree a couple of times, landing awkwardly others and looking generally perplexed as to how to go about foraging in logs for food. Watching the birds learn is amazing. You could almost see the wheels grinding and 
starting to fetch loose. Really neat.
An Eastern Wood PeWee was very cooperative for me and I got a couple of good shots. They're really quite neat little birds and able to give the stink-eye with the best of them!
On the way out, we got some good looks at a Yellow-throated Vireo. He was very cooperative and came close enough for a good couple of photographs. They are also nifty birds.
Speaking of the stink-eye -- I got the most a
mazing glare from an Osprey on a previous trip to SVNP, late the previous week. It was pretty slick; you could almost read his mind...it is no repeatable in polite company. I think I was interrupting a fishing expedition by my mere presence. That's OK. They're magnificent birds.
Back to the present. I also got a chance to go to Seibenthaler Fen, which is one of my favorite close locations as it has a wonderful diversity for such a "small" little place: the loop is only about 1.2 
miles. At any rate, and the info "kiosk," I was able to get some really nice shots of a pair of House Wrens hanging around their nest. How that much noise comes from that small a body is just amazing, is it not?
Well, that's enough out of me. Peace, love and fantastic birding.
