Re-visiting Newton Cemetery

All of the pictures that I have taken for Wild Newton and Nahanton Park blogs have all been using my camera phone held up to my binoculars. While I have quite enjoyed taking pictures like this, I was starting to feel its limitations and recently got a Nikon DSLR and wanted to take it for a spin. I fortunately have an older 70-200mm telephoto lens from my 35mm SLR which I was able to use with the new camera,  so I headed out to Newton Cemetery hoping to try out this new method of photographing birds.

Red-winged Blackbird

Cedar Waxwing

Mostly we had the same birds as last time with lots of blackbirds, Baltimore Orioles, and kingbirds. While the kingfisher was absent I was able to pick up a female brown-headed blackbird. By the back pond there was a flock of cedar waxwings calling with their soft high pitched songs that I could hardly hear. But as soon as I saw one, I noticed the rest of the flock. I even caught a bird I didn't recognize at first, whose breast was a deeper color than a robin's and had a black back. It took me a minute to realize that this was an orchard oriole!

White-breasted Nuthatch

While I was watching the orioles and waxwings I noticed a white-breasted nuthatch on the trunk of a huge old oak. Though I'm not quite sure why, but he drew in my attention and I watched him traveling around the trunk. This bird was definitely the male as the cap on his head was such a solid dark black (females have a lighter cap).

Then suddenly a second nuthatch appeared in what I had previously assumed was a knot in the tree and launched herself into the air. I was lucky enough to catch the changing of the guard!

As she soared away, the male entered the cavity only to re-appear after a few moment before he too flew off.

They were probably both off for their evening dinner before settling down with their eggs or young. I was quite amazed at my fortune for stumbling upon this nuthatch cavity nest. These white-breasted nuthatches are a common backyard bird in Newton and love to visit feeders in the winter, they prefer insects when they are available.

While I'm sure the new camera was much faster than my phone, many of the pictures were blurry, I almost think I might have done better with my phone and binoculars. Because this is an old lens, it doesn't auto-focus meaning I'm trusting my eye to focus on a small bird in a small view finder.  It also isn't a very high quality lens, but I think there may be more tricks to help coax crisper shots out of it. All in all it was a great evening walk in Newton Cemetery.