A good friend of mine lives up the hills a few miles North of me. While it's not exactly Deliverance Country up there it is part of the Appalachian Mountains a stones throw from the Appalachian Trail and there's quite a few Rednecks up there. He lives just off Moonshine Road so it wasn't too long ago that it was real Hillbilly Territory. More of which later. As it was real bright harsh sunlight I had intended to photograph at a water drip we had set up under the trees to keep out of the harsh light. As he'd had a Kentucky Warbler at his waterfall I set up my blind (hide) there instead. It was SLOW, I've been photographing here for years but it's never been this slow before. I was falling asleep to sound of the waterfall and the heat and lack of birds. The only thing keeping me awake was his redneck neighbors about 1/2 mile away setting off loud fireworks all afternoon. It was bright sunshine! Who sets off fireworks in the middle of a 77F afternoon? I won't go into the politics of this area but there's still lots of blue 2020 Election signs in some of the yards. I think that say's it all. Anyway in just over 2 hours I'd photographed a Chipping Sparrow, a Chipmunk and a Blue Jay. I was even considering photographing a distant ant running circles on a rock when a Tennessee Warbler flew in immediately followed by a Canada Warbler followed by a Chestnut-sided Warbler. The Tennessee was obscured by a rock and the Canada was in harsh light so I concentrated on the Chestnut-sided and he was almost at eye level and in partial shade so I took lots of him. Then less a minute later a male Scarlet Tanager flew in. I was now wide awake. A couple of minutes later a female Tanager flew in and that was the last bird before I had to pack up. It's getting into the high 80's later in the week so I'll be back up and see what I get at the water drip. Maybe I'll get a Kentucky.
More photo's below.
More photo's below.
