Some pretty cool birds

The Tricolored Heron I saw today was too far away to make a photo
worthwhile.  Here is a photo of one from Scarborough Marsh, ME from 2018

 I am attempting not to make every post about birds, but this will be two back to back. Sorry

   The last couple of days a Tricolored Heron has been in Newport. As you probably suspect, because I am writing about it, it is a rare bird for New England. The only reliable place I know about them in New England is Scarborough Marsh in Maine. I have seen them there, but have only seen one in Rhode Island. It was on Block Island last  September.

   This bird has hung around Ocean Drive and Hazard Ave for three days. Unfortunately, I had a couple of long work days followed by really bad (read:expensive) car trouble. I had today off, and figured there was a 50/50 chance it would spend another night. I got to Newport around 9 am. I parked on Hazard Ave and started scoping for it. To my relief I found it in the scope within a minute. Another woman walking her dog was also looking for it in her binoculars. I pointed it out to her, she was very grateful. A few minutes after that a couple fellow birders showed up, Barbara Sherman and her friend Cindy,  I pointed it out to them.

I won't give you play by play of every bird or place I went after that. My main goal was to hike some trails, secondary was seeing birds. I only ended up doing about five miles. I saw another "good" bird walking on the road at Fisherville. It was a Red Breasted Nuthatch. This bird can be common or rare in RI in a given year. This is a rare year. I had only seen one and it was because of a report. So seeing them today, and finding my own was cool.

I didn't really see anything else exotic today. I dipped on Blue Headed Vireo and Northern Waterthrush, both birds should be pretty easy to get in a couple weeks (I don't want to sound like a broken record but... I should see them as long as they don't keep closing down open spaces)

Pine Warblers are very common this time of year. They are in about every forest that has a pine tree. Today as I was "pishing" to call in birds, one came right up to me and I got a half decent photo.