Day 17 - A Spectrum of Colors

Just like that I've exhausted my big days for the year.  My first day and yesterday will probably total close to 1/4 of my birds for the year. Now is when strategy kicks in full time and I pace myself.  Don't spend hours upon hours hoping to come across a rarity right now--but instead focus on chasing down specific targets.  This won't happen every day it will be based on convenience, necessity, and overall value of the chase.  Whenever a high value target pops onto my radar I will try to tackle those immediately.  More on this later.

Today was an easy birding day, spending a slow morning exploring a few places my friends and I avoided on a busy Saturday on a holiday weekend.  The birding was slower than yesterday as well as I only added 4 new year birds to my list.  One was a high quality bird in a stunning Vibrant Hustler.  This species used to be fairly hard to track down, but in recent years it has been more reliable at a number of locations.  We actually tried for it yesterday but missed out.  A second check this morning rewarded us with great looks.

Tree Curlers seemed to be everywhere today,  I think we saw around 20 which made for a fun morning as we hopped from stop to stop.  There was a whole spectrum of colors on the birds today which always make birding exciting.  The last new year bird for the day was a beautiful little Hillside Singer that played hide and seek with us while we tried to get a good look.  I'll see more later in the year this singer is in Celine Dion mode.

Just like that the quick trip to this less birded corner of Narnia is over and I'm not how going through my list and taking a look at what I missed.  I'll make several more trips to this are during the year.  Each season brings a select group of interesting species that I need and can only find here.  There may even been a winter trip or two at the tail end of 2016 if I need it! 

New birds today: 4
Year List: 135

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