Dark-eyed Junco

Even with the onset of a cold the Nerdy Birders still managed to make it out to bird. We enjoyed ourselves so much last week that we decided to head back over to Maumee State Forest. Upon arriving at the park we were berated by a plethora of activity. Downy woodpeckers, nuthatches, blue jays, and to our surprise a large number of eastern bluebirds. My wife pointed out that some of the birds within the mix of bluebirds looked slightly different. I was busy trying to capture as many images as I could but zeroing in on a small bird high in the trees was proving to be quite difficult. After our nearly two mile walk around the woods we hopped in the car and discovered that I had captured the bird my wife was pointing out earlier. She did a little research and concluded that it was a dark-eyed junco. This brought our life list up to 68.

I found using a camera instead of binoculars somewhat difficult this first time around although without the camera we would have never been able to identify this bird.