Species 119 and 120: Summer in Swing Part 2 - Patience is Hard

Today I had approximately 90 minutes to speed through Sunken Meadow State Park before I had to go back west to get my significant other from church. When speed is of the essence, it works against a birder. You have to be willing to part with a potential sighting for the sake of other commitments or other birds. This is not one of my strong points - I make notoriously slow progress down a trail when there are birds to be seen in the bush.

So, there I was on the higher elevation forested trails of Sunken Meadow, already having seen Tufted Titmice, Chickadees, Cardinal, and a VERY loud Eastern Towhee who was still calling in my ear. I stood frozen while other hikers passed me by and probably made some odd looks over at me. I heard a very different call than usual - it sounded like "DIP baby DIIIIP," coming from a skulker who didn't want to be seen. Minutes ticked by, and I kept looking at my phone to see my time of departure get closer and closer - 25 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes. Mind you, I was about at the halfway point of my walk and thanks to closed roads on account of molting Canada Geese, had a long distance of parking lot to walk before I could get back to the car.

Finally after about 20 minutes of walking back and forth over 30 feet of trail, I spotted my target, a White-Eyed Vireo, for about 45 seconds. I guess sensing my intense concentration, a hiker stopped before crossing my line of sight to the bird and waited at least 30 seconds before I stopped muttering self-congratulations and told him he could walk past. What a bird though - the name is right about the eye - it has a very distinctive ring of white in the iris, and is just attractive all around. It looks like someone painted it using only black, white, and yellow. Just as I was getting into a full moment of admiration, the secretive vireo at last accommodated my wife's plans, and dove back out of sight into the bush. I double timed my way back, having to be satisfied for now.

Row #	Species	Count	Location	S/P	Date
119	Black-crowned Night-Heron	1	Sunken Meadow State Park	US-NY	13-Jun-10
120	White-eyed Vireo	1	Sunken Meadow State Park	US-NY	13-Jun-10