Timiskaming Birds Forum

 Mark Milton & I went out to check out a couple of Bank Swallow Colonies today. We never reached our destination. First we tried to locate a bird he saw, with no success. I will let him tell you about that one, as well as some of the other birds we saw. We then spent a lot of time trying to photograph some thrushes. I'll post one picture. Mark will likely post others, as I know he got better shots than I did. I'm hoping we can see the back of some of them. I wonder if we had more than one species of thrush around. These were in Beauchamp Twp.

As requested, here is the bird's back:

I also have many photos nearly identical to Serge's, so I'll post ones that give a different view:

These thrushes gave us a merry chase, spending most of their time underneath the ferns, then coming out to chase each other around our heads, lighting for nearly exactly four tenths of a second less than it took to focus.... but it was fun.  We also saw Black-capped Chickadees, a Brown Creeoer, and this, which I took to be a juvenile Sapsucker:

The bird Serge referred to at first was a beautiful, unmistakable male Indigo Bunting that caught the sunlight as he flew in front of the van, and promptly disappeared into the cornfield, leaving me delighted and Serge strangely unfulfilled...

These look like Hermit Thrushes to me.  The shot of the back of the bird was the clincher.  Also, you're correct on the juvenile Sapsucker. By the way, Mark, did you use a flash on that second thrush shot - the eye looks funny, like a reflection from an on-camera flash.

Nice sighting for the Indigo Bunting! Seems we have had an above average number of reports of that species this year.  I'm going to have to start catching up on my species accounts.