Saturday I joined the Webster Warbler Walk sponsored by the Capitol Chapter and led by Bob Quinn. We visited the beautiful Knight’s Meadow area. I stopped there before the walk to get some early scenic photos. Here are two of Knight’s Meadow Brook, one of Mount Kearsarge seen across the marsh, and one of the sky as I headed to the meeting place.
After some introductory discussion and listening to a distant Cuckoo at our meeting place, we car-pooled to Knight’s Meadow Road. Everyone started scanning for birds, but the first thing I saw was the interesting clouds that had formed.
A group of Song Sparrows provided an opportunity to test my camera before we got to the warblers.
We slowly walked the road seeing little at first except a Gray Catbird.
High in the trees I got a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.
And in the bushes some Common Yellowthroats lurked.
Then the action suddenly got fast and furious. We were surrounded by fast-moving warblers.
There were several Chestnut-sided Warblers.
Black-and-White Warblers were part of the very mixed flock.
There were Black-throated Green Warblers, some with blacker throats than others.
I got a few quick photos of a Blackburnian Warbler,
and a couple of cute Magnolia Warblers.
There were other warbler species that I missed. Regrettably, one miss was a Wilson’s Warbler, one of my favorites.
When the warbler show ended we were entertained by a Tufted Titmouse. It dropped a caterpillar. Then it chased it by dropping straight down among the branches. Bob yelled, “watch out for the falling titmouse”.
Near a newly-constructed wooden bridge, we had long looks at a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.
Nearby were Cardinal Flowers.
Bob led us to the marsh where we got nice views of Mount Kearsarge.
Bob suggested that we stand on the shore for a while to see if anything flew by. I am rarely patient enough to do this, but I did. While waiting I made this nine-photo panorama.
Some Wood Ducks lifted off and circled, a Turkey Vulture flew over Kearsarge, and a Red-shouldered Hawk flew over — all way too far away to get photos. But then a “single” Solitary Sandpiper landed fairly close by and worked the marsh for many minutes.
Mount Kearsarge is one of my favorite mountains. It was the first mountain in NH that I tried to climb — and failed. We hiked the steep Winslow Trail with our two daughters on my back and shoulders. I was not in shape for hiking, especially with wiggly loads. I had been spending most of my days in grad school in Cambridge. Since then I have hiked Kearsarge over 40 times.
More recently, it is the namesake for a great local magazine for which I do a lot of photography. A photo I took from the top of Mount Kearsarge was used on the cover of Kearsarge magazine’s 10th Anniversary book. And this year, two of the magazine’s covers are my photos. The fall issue has a feature that I wrote and photographed called, “Kearsarge from Afar”.
Here is a photo of Mount Kearsarge across Knight’s Meadow Marsh taken in October 2007.
Here are a few Saturday photos of Mount Kearsarge from across the marsh and some along the trail leading to the viewpoint. It is interesting to see the same scene as the light and clouds change during the day.
If you would like to see recent photos of a Pine Warbler family, a Broad-winged Hawk, an Eastern Giant Swallowtail and other flying things, you can check out THIS BLOG. And you can subscribe to these blogs if you want to be notified of posts that are not announced on a list serve.