First, I managed some ok light on this male RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD that has taken claim to one of our hummingbird feeders here in the yard:
The Armstrong's who live west of Des Moines have a RUFOUS/ALLEN'S visiting their feeders. Ashley and I spun down this morning to take a look:
I tried to capture some shots of the inner tail feathers but that, as it always is, proved to be rather difficult:
Moving on from hummingbirds though, warblers are FINALLY starting to trickle through. Lately we've had:
American Redstart
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Tennessee Warbler
Canada Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Also:
Red-eyed, Warbling, and Yellow-throated Vireos
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Baltimore Oriole
Least Flycatcher
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
While down at Saylorville, we stumbled on 15 CASPIAN TERNS the other day. I don't think I had seen quite that many at one time here in Iowa. No Royal's though. :-(
Speaking of terns though, we had a treat while at Hendrickson Marsh in eastern Story county. We were scanning through a handful of BLACK TERNS when we saw a juvenile LEAST TERN mixed in. This species is usually pretty tough to find away from their breeding grounds (usually only far western IA). Sadly, a visit a couple days later yielded no LETE.
