As a birder & photographer, I’m always excited to see & photograph a new species whenever I get lucky enough to add a lifer to my list.
Weirdly enough, it seems that every time this happens my photos aren’t very good lol!

I don’t know if it’s the excitement of seeing something for the first time that throws me off my photo game or just bad luck with lighting and angle but this happens to me a lot.
Case in point, my first photos of a Cerulean Warbler that I found while on a birding trip in eastern KY.
While I was very, very happy to finally lay eyes on this gorgeous bird, it stayed high up in the canopy of the trees, backlit under bright sunshine or perching in the shadows of the leaves. Not great conditions for getting quality portraits but certainly good enough for an ID and the making of wonderful memories

The aptly named Cerulean Warbler is indeed a handsome bird with adult males sporting that light (cerulean) blue, white and black plumage.
Females are equally as lovely adorned with a greenish blue upper body plumage with a yellowish green underside.
From a distance or in poor lighting conditions I’ve found it’s possible to mistake a male Cerulean with a Black and White Warbler until the bird comes out into the sunlight.

With populations of this species in decline (due to habitat loss) it can be somewhat challenging to find these shy warblers.
Your best best to spot one is to search the mid to high canopies of the trees during the summer breeding season on the east coast. Ceruleans prefer to hang out in mature deciduous forests throughout the eastern United States, but are particularly abundant in oak-dominated forests that contain canopy gaps and a complex canopy structure.
Look for them in Kentucky from late April through early August.

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my beloved full frame 50MP beast, the mighty @canonusa #5Ds

The post A Cerulean Warbler in Lexington, KY appeared first on Best Life Birding- Birdwatching Tours.

Here’s another shy species of warbler which I was stoked to see in the woods while birding at Indian Creek in the Red River Gorge area of eastern Kentucky, a Worm eating Warbler!
Yeah I know he’s not as brightly colored as other species, but I think they’re elegant birds which are interesting to watch while they hunt for a meal.
This little guy moved fast along a brushy steep slope, working the cover nearly as quickly as a Ruby crowned Kinglet does when looking for a six legged snack.
It was pretty challenging to photograph this bird since it was hanging out in a dark patch of the woods. Still it was fascinating to see one of these little beauties up close, plus being able to add him to my yearly eBird list was a definite win.
In the end, patience paid off and I did get off a couple decent shots when it flew up a little higher out in the open to perch on a sparsely leafed sapling in better light.
Success!

As it so often goes with other species of birds, the Worm eating Warbler IMO is misnamed lol! They do not pull earthworms from the soil as American Robins do, rather this insectivore gleans its diet (insects and their larvae as well as spiders) from foliage.
A hungry Worm eating Warbler uses tactics such as probing curled live or dead leaves for hidden prey while hanging (sometimes upside down) from a twig or small branch, probing crevices, fluttering from limb to limb in order to grab flying prey while picking off slow-moving insects from open leaves and young twigs.

Worm eating Warblers breed in the Appalachian mountains and despite their shy disposition are relatively easy to find from late April through early October.
Their seasonal range extends from southern New York, west into southern Michigan and east Texas, all along the mid Atlantic states of the US and down into Central America.
Look for them in large tracts of deciduous and mixed forest, particularly in those with moderate to very steep slopes and patches of dense understory shrubs.

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my beloved full frame 50MP beast, the mighty @canonusa #5Ds

The post A Worm eating Warbler at Indian Creek in eastern Kentucky appeared first on Best Life Birding- Birdwatching Tours.

Last year I was tasked with assisting @isaacmcshanephoto in an effort to help him reach 200 bird species on his 2021 eBird list.
It came down to the wire on December 30th with success found in the form of a Virginia Rail at the Roanoke Island State Gamelands.
Happily, Issac was able to return the favor last week in getting me my 200th bird for 2022 with these adorable Eastern Screech Owls!

We were so excited to spot the little fluff balls in their nest box at the University of Kentucky Arboretum (bike path). Although I’d heard their calls over the years, I’d never seen a Screech Owl before so this encounter was truly special, one I’ll never forget.

Yet, there was more owl fun in store for us…
These birds are small and are pretty hard to spot during the day so imagine my surprise when I randomly found a third one (an adult) perched in a mass of vines while hiking a trail later that same day. We spent about 20 minutes photographing the adult who didn’t stir a inch from his resting spot. In fact, the bird only moved once briefly during the entire encounter to get a better look at us before closing its eyes to rest.
So cool!

As their name implies, Eastern Screech Owls are found throughout most of the eastern and central parts of United States from Florida to New England and west from Texas to the Dakotas.
As widespread as the species is, you’d think that they would be a common sight, yet their small size (only 6-10 inches in length) and nocturnal habits make them a difficult bird to find in any region.

Screech owls occur in a wide variety of habitats, particularly wooded suburban neighborhoods and parks, riparian areas, orchards, and woodlands near marshes, meadows, and fields.
My best advice is to listen for their distinctive, whinny-like calls /low-pitched trills and look for them moving between the open areas of fields into wooded areas at dusk and after dawn.
Or, just head over to the UKY Arboretum this month and enjoy the little ones while their still here

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my beloved full frame 50MP beast, the mighty @canonusa #5Ds

The post Eastern Screech Owls in Lexington, KY appeared first on Best Life Birding- Birdwatching Tours.

By far, one of the prettiest birds I was lucky to find last week while birding in eastern KY was this Blue winged Warbler.
I’d been trying to photograph one for years without success so it was super exciting to finally add this lifer to my list!
Funny thing was that the first one I saw (at Lakeview Park in Lexington, KY) I actually missed my shots completely resulting in blurry unusable photos.
Happily though I got another chance a couple days later in Bowen, KY to grab this series of portraits of a Blue winged hunting for a meal in the brush.

During the spring and summer months, you can hear a Blue winged Warblers familiar call of “beeee-buzzzz zzza zzza” song when walking in a grassy field lining a wooded area containing thick underbrush. They’ll often pop out from the dark thickets at the woods edge into the open to flutter on the edges of trees and bushes in an effort to glean insects hiding in the leaves.

In the past their breeding range extended from the open woodlands of Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia northern Alabama, and northern Georgia.
Today, Blue-winged Warblers have been expanding northward and now can be found throughout southern New England, southern Ontario, and the southern portions of the Great Lakes states.
In fact some of the highest breeding densities of Blue wings can be found in the higher elevations of the Appalachian Mountains, in the norther tier of the mid-Atlantic states, and even as far west as Wisconsin and Michigan.

Aren’t they lovely?

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my beloved full frame 50MP beast, the mighty @canonusa #5Ds

The post A Blue winged Warbler encounter in Bowen, Kentucky appeared first on Best Life Birding- Birdwatching Tours.

Eastern Kentucky is a wonderful place to go birding in the spring because you never quite know what to expect when you step outside.
While visiting there last week with @isaacmcshanephoto I saw a White Pelican and two species of Sandpipers (a Spotted & Solitary) at Jacobson Park.
That’s strange right?
But, by far the weirdest bird encountered on our trip was with this gorgeous Purple Gallinule.
It was surreal to stand just a few feet away taking pictures of this feathered gem (aka a Purple Pigeon Chicken lol!) by the side of a road in a random suburban Lexington KY neighborhood.
Crazy!

The reason why it was such a treat to spot a Purple Gallinule in KY is because they are usually found in south-eastern United States, from South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, down to Florida southwards through Caribbean and into Central and South America.
Seeing one all the way up here was truly special!
That being said, this species boasts the greatest pattern of vagrancy amongst rails, with individuals recorded as far west as California and the Galápagos Islands , as far north as Iceland and Labrador, as far south as Tierra del Fuego, and as far east as Great Britain, Portugal and Cape Verde.

Purple Gallinules are best found looking for a meal in freshwater marshes, ponds and swampy areas, especially ones containing an abundance of aquatic vegetation & Lily pads.
Dedicated omnivores, Gallinules eat a wide variety of foods including plants, insect, seeds, small crustaceans, amphibians and even the eggs and young of other birds.
One of their favorite snacks are earthworms. Although it was a shock to find a Purple Gallinule in a suburban neighborhood in eastern Kentucky, perhaps the more surprising thing is that there aren’t more here on a regular basis given how many juicy earthworms are found in those lush lawns spanning the blue grass state.
If I was a Gallinule I’d never leave lol!


Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my beloved full frame 50MP beast, the mighty @canonusa #5Ds

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