Warblers and Friends from Shawnee State Forest

One of my favorite trips (if not my favorite trip) of the year is going to Shawnee State Forest in southern Ohio. Warblers are the prize and it is just so much fun. I went down two days that had marked different weather. Friday was spectacular. The kind of days where even if I wasn’t seeing anything, I’d be happy just to be outside. Lighting was awesome! Amazing what the sun does. Unfortunately in Ohio, we’re lucky to get one or two days like this a week. Saturday it was the overcast with a couple showers that we had to sit through. But I have been trying to learn how to use flash more effectively for days like this. I ended up only needing it for the last two birds (Black-and-White, and Cerulean) we saw and I got nice results!

Friday:
The first place we stopped was really the best place of all. It was still pretty early and I screwed up the flash on this try. Messed up some of the best bird poses, but I got lucky that a couple shots did come out.

Click on any photo to bring up a bigger picture.

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Pine Warbler (This was a “A-List” target bird for the trip.)




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Blue-grey Gnatcatcher (Common, but still a very cool bird)

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Eastern Towhee (I love Towhees, even if they are a dime a dozen)

The next stop was to photo one of my favorite Warblers. These guys always put on quite the show, and they are so pretty. Even though I already have great shots of them, I can’t resist getting more. The light could not have gotten better!


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Prairie Warbler




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Lastly we were hoping to find a Blue Grosbeak, but none was the luck. However, we did find this beauty! These guys are known skulkers. But he was so cooperative. Light was fading at this point and I turned up the ISO in lieu of flash. A little skittish from the morning…


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Common Yellowthroat




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Saturday:
The Saturday pictures just don’t have the same pop because the lighting was simply not as good. These first ones were close call, either crank up the ISO or use flash. These were higher ISO. Good or bad, here they are…


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White-eyed Vireo (This was a “B-List” target bird for the trip.)






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Blue-wing Warbler




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It poured down rain for a while. We used this opportunity to move from one end of the forest to the other. As you can see in the second picture, he was soaking wet! I did use flash on these.

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Black-and-white Warbler





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Lastly another a “A-List” target bird for the trip! By this time is was really bad light. I used flash and was very happy with the results. It really was either flash or put the camera away.

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Cerulean Warbler




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That's it!

Thanks for looking!