I had spent an afternoon looking for an American Dipper (also known as the Water Ouzel) in Yosemite National Park, without success earlier this year. In Yellowstone, I saw one on my first hike, without even trying!
The bird, which fishes in mountain streams, was the subject of a chapter in John Meir’s The Mountains of California. John Heir’s writings helped create Yosemite National Park.
Today, I finally found the reason why there had been such aggressive behavior by two Northern Mockingbirds against the Riverside Red-tailed Hawks, a nest carefully woven into a Pine tree to protect the young Mockingbirds.
These photographs are way off topic for this blog, but Yosemite was too beautiful not to share! Birds included a Western Tanager, Bullock’s Oriole, Red-winged Blackbird, Acorn Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Steller’s Jay, White-headed Woodpecker and a Black-headed Grosbeak.
The Spring migration will be winding down soon and bird watchers attentions will turn to nesting parents in Central Park and their offspring. We already have plenty of babies, including ducklings, goslings and baby Robins.
Here are some baby and nest pictures from the north of the park. Despite the “Geese Police”, a pair of geese has four goslings on the southern section of the Reservoir. The nests are of a Gray Catbird and an American Robin near the Wildflower Meadow.
While at The Oven (an U shaped cove of The Lake in Central Park), I saw a Green Heron stop on a branch while moving from the Lake to the Azalea Pond. It had a stick, so it might be thinking of nesting around the Azalea Pond area.
When I caught up with the bird at the Azalea Pond, it was fishing. The video shows five catches.
A Scarlet Tanager, a bird usually seen high overhead, was at a reasonable height on the Point at The Lake in Central Park today. It was my first good look at one, although I’ve seen at least twenty in the past few years!
