Not Quite Digiscoping

If I were rich, I'd buy myself some good optics to watch birds. Like a spotting scope. And then I'd hook my camera to the scope and take bird pictures like the pros. They call it digiscoping.

In the meantime, I'm trying to take photos through one side of my binoculars. Here's the photo without the binoculars:


Here's the same photo through the binocular lens:


Of course, trees stand stiller than birds, and trying to make this technique work with a real bird is quite a bit harder! If you look hard, you'll see a chipping sparrow.

A Full Nest (but Abandoned)

I hope this post doesn't gross any of my readers out. I have a fairly strong stomach and also a strong curiosity, so I'm posting these photos of the abandoned bird nest.

You may remember that not too long ago I posted a video of two wrens madly building a nest. Shortly after that video was taken I noticed there were no birds around anymore--apparently the nest was abandoned. I wasn't too surprised, actually, because at the time it didn't seem like the best place for a nest. Yes, it was well protected, but I knew it would be very HOT inside there once the weather warmed even a little.

I still waited two weeks before I peeked, but today I opened up the cover to the gas tank. I found a huge and messy nest with 5 eggs inside.




I'm pretty sure these eggs overheated, but another problem was obvious too--there was a smell of gas when I opened it up. That can't be good for baby birds, and not good for my gas bill, either!



I looked up photos of Carolina Wren and Bewick's Wren eggs, and I'm wondering if these are Bewick's? I think both wrens are in my area, and they look pretty similar.

The babies inside were about an inch long:

Birdwatching on My Way to Chruch

There were a pair of scissor-tailed flycatchers just in the church yard this morning. First I've seen this season.