It’s starting to get hot now and as I do chores in the garden, I’m setting up to do two things at once: water new plants and do some easy birdwatching. Normally, I do my birding while walking the dogs, and we walk for miles around our property. It can be exhausting in the heat, so on these long summer evenings, I’m ready to do something easier: birding while sitting and drinking a Fresca-and-gin (and if you’ve never had one, you really need to try it–it may just be the perfect summer drink) and getting my watering chores done. Since many of us are still hanging around the house and doing “solo” things, birding is becoming more popular and this is an incredibly easy and rewarding way to go about it, assuming you have a yard and a sprinkler.

Last summer, we had a drought and I had to water some new azaleas so they could take hold and grow. While the sprinkler was running, I noticed that all the birds were taking advantage of the cooling sprays of water, too. So I set up a small blind where I could sit and watch them without alarming the birds. Then I armed myself with my camera and my drink and settled in for a few minutes of up-close birding. I was amazed at the birds that came, including entire families of Summer Tanagers, Eastern Bluebirds, and Prothonotary Warblers.

As you can see, I really am not a photographer, nor do I have a fancy camera. (I’m hoping to get a fancier camera eventually, but…) In fact, I have a Canon Powershot SX70 which has the zoom lens built-in so I don’t have to lug around a lot of lenses and weight when I’m out walking and birding. Sure, that camera doesn’t do great in low light conditions and it doesn’t have the detail (especially feather detail) that you can get with a better camera, but it does pretty well for me.

This summer I’ve been monitoring nests around our property and we were really fortunate to have a pair of Prothonotary Warblers raise 4 chicks in one of our nest boxes. In fact, they used a box that was “ornamental” and we never intended any bird to use. Sigh. But the parents were diligent and successfully raised 4 young. The juveniles just left the nest box two days ago.

The last “bathing beauty” I’ll share for this post is a Yellow-throated Vireo. For some reason, the vireos were more shy and retiring than the warblers, but I managed to get quite a few that came to the sprinkler when it really hot and dry.

Hope you are enjoying the summer weather and finding new activities to enjoy!