Sunday, May 4, 2014

As I walked out on a May morning

That's the first line of an English ballad;  it fit me today. 

My view, looking west toward the mountain, as I started out.


I started out at 7:30 for the Mount, for the Elizabeth DiNunzio Memorial Trail, created a few years ago in honor of an outstanding Mount student who died just weeks before her graduation, hit by a truck as she was running along Annandale Road.
It's a safe place - a two mile track around the edges of the West Campus - for runners and walkers.


This morning it was a delightful place for birds, and birders.




along the trail...


I saw 33 species without ever leaving the trail ( know I would have seen more if I had ventured closer to the streams and thickets).

Among the highlights:  my first view this year of Baltimore Orioles.  There were many, all along the trail, and they were singing.

 (photo from Casa Panama.com)


Another highlight:  my first ever sighting of a Horned Lark,  just grazing on the track, looking at first like a Mourning Dove.

 (photo from featheredphotos.com)


What else?  Brown Thrasher, Pine Warbler, Savannah Sparrow...


 (Savannah Sparrow, photo from JimBurnsPhotography)


It was 65 degrees, sunny and breezy, a blue sky morning, and I was in my glory.



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