Feathered Visitor from Siberia

Boo-hoo, not my photo of Siberian Accentor (that's a bird species, not a condition)

Last week I got word through the birdie grapevine that on Thursday, February 6th, a Class 4 rarity showed up in Woodland, Washington. The rarity is a Siberian Accentor. The way I see it, if the bird was kind enough to fly in all the way from Siberia, the least I could do was go and pay my respects, right?

Stenerson Road, Woodland, WA; where the Siberian Birdie hangs out

I stayed put over the weekend as I knew there would be a circus of birders coming in from all over Washington and the surrounding states (yep, there were 40 - 60 birders present at all times last weekend). The Siberian Accentor has been seen in Washington only twice before, the last time was 1991.

This morning I took the 3.5 hour drive down to Woodland. On my arrival at 1:40 PM only 3 birders were present. They said the bird hadn't been seen since noon. Just then, as the bird apparently knew I had arrived, it promptly flew in, perching in a convenient apple tree. SCORE!

Lucky guy who got the photo
up top  on his high end camera

Must say the lighting was atrocious. I realized no way I would get a photo of the bird. After a sparse 3 or 5 minutes, the bird took of into the pines. The guy I was standing next to got photos - I asked if I could take a photo of his photo and he kindly agreed. His photo is the one at the top of this post.

Next I asked if I could take his photo for my 'Birder buddies' photo in my cell phone. I take photos of people I bird with. On running into them, sometimes years later, they remember me, as I tend to stick out like a sore but never remember from where they remember me. On such occasions, out come my iphone 'Birding Buddies' and I show them the photo of themselves, and we all get a nice chuckle out of it. Amazing how often I run into the same birders at different rare bird sightings.

Stupid lighting!

Only about a half hour later, the bird reappeared. This time it perched - for quite a while actually - in the tall pines opposite the big empty field. It sat happily while stared at it with my binoculars  - to make sure I was on the correct bird - then with my camera, I took like a zillion photos - all dreadful, as the bird was back-lit.

Can almost sort of see some details... almost

Couldn't make out a single detail of  the bird's plumage. It had a skinny bill though so we all knew it wasn't one of the sparrows that I was looking at. AHA! I then set my camera's ISO super high, with hopes of lightening up the bird enough to see some detail. My idea worked... just not very satisfying results. Rats!

digiscoping: spotting scope and cell phone camera

After about a zillion more horrid photos, the bird flew... right back into it's favorite tree - the apple. There it sat.

A drastic ploy was needed. I walked back up the road to my car, ditching camera and binoculars. I got out my itsy bitsy spotting scope. Then trotting back up the road I set up the scope, using my iPhone for some digiscoping! Here's one of the many 'raw', that is un-toyed with shots I digiscoped to the left.






And miraculously, here is what a digiscoped shot looks like when you 'cut out' or rather, blow up the subject.

 Not too sharp, my shots aren't perfect, but damn it, they're a sight better than a poke in the eye, right? Am so happy I managed to get shots of this incredible bird from the far east.