New Bird

Last Sunday, my Dad and I went on a father's day canoeing trip with some friends from church on the conastoga river.  To my great surprise, I actually saw a new bird while on the river.  Not that there aren't plenty of common birds that I haven't seen, but it's hard to see birds from a boat anyway since you're moving and it's hard to keep binoculars steady, even when you can drop your paddle and get your binoculars in time.  Fortunately, the bird I saw was easily identifiable without binoculars.  The Red-headed Woodpecker is a very distinctive bird with its all red head and distinctive black and white markings in flight.  Although the conastoga is well within the birds range, it has been declining due to habitat loss.  Anyway, it's always nice to see a new bird, and this one is a particularly beautiful one.  To top this off, we also got a great look at a Black-crowned Night-Heron, which is a beautiful bird that I don't see frequently.  Finally, I think I finally figured out how to distinguish Tree Swallows from Northern Rough-winged Swallows.  Although they look really similar, sometimes the light doesn't catch the tree swallows blue color and I'm preparing for when the juvenile Tree swallows appear, which are colored brown like the Northern Rough-winged Swallow.  Bottom line, I had a much better trip than I expected (also thanks to the beautiful cool weather).