Serendipity

This morning I went to the Green Mountains to a management area and did not find the Lincoln's Sparrow that was nesting last year, nor did I hear the towhee as I did last year.

Next I returned to the remote spot where I had gone chasing for a Canada Warbler photo op a week ago. Save for a very brief glimpse, I came up empty. No good looks. No photos.

But serendipity was with me. When I first approached the brushy area by the beaver dam, a bird landed on the dam 20 feet in front of me. The birding gods had smiled! ... a Blackburnian Warbler was gathering tasty caterpillars for his nestlings!!

Swainson's Thrush were singing in the forest around me, and I also came home with my first North American photos of this thrush (I had photos of Swainson's in Belize in March).

So I missed my target species for the morning. So what! I had good birding!