Alley Pond Park

This morning I headed to Alley Pond Park in Queens for the first time since i had to be in that area anyway for Mother's day festivities.  I got to the park at around 6:45 AM and wandered past the ponds and along the trails until 9 AM.  While I was not as successful as I was hoping (mostly due to the significant leaf coverage and my inability to ID warbler calls) I photographed a few new species and had a nice morning hike.

The first new species I came across was the Red-eyed Vireo (below) which was at about eye level on a trail that unfortunately was not being touched by the sun yet which made for a slow shutter speed and noisy, not-so-sharp image.

The next bird I got nice looks at was the ubiquitous Yellow Warbler which posed nicely but was nothing terribly captivating.

Shortly after leaving the Yellow Warbler I was stopped in my tracks by the buzzing song of the Northern Parula (though I admit I had to ask a birder later on what species I'd photographed).  The Parula, it turned out, was right in front of me - a little lower than eye level actively calling out.  Again the lighting was awful and the images I got were not ideal but good for a new species.

I heard several species of Warbler - Tennessee and Canada to name two.  A few Thrushes dotted the trails and were wary of me and Baltimore Orioles were busy squabbling with one another.  As I made my way out of the forest and back toward the parking lot I saw a flash of color above me.  A female American Redstart wouldn't cooperate, so I was stuck with this:

For those of you interested in how I get my photos from my camera to the web, I import them using Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom where I can easily process them and catalog them.  Check it out here: