I knew this one was going to appear in this category and purposefully held onto it for this week. This is a summer tanager (Piranga rubra,) and it was photographed two years ago, coincidentally on the first day of summer (which doesn’t fall on a Wednesday this year, so this is as close as we get.) It was during an outing with Mr Bugg and, despite the brilliant red color, we could have missed it easily but I realized I was hearing a call that I’d never heard before. I’m not very well versed in songbird calls, there being far too many that I know I’ve heard before yet can’t put to a species, but at least I recognized that this one was new to my experience, and carefully tracked its location until we could get a clear view. This habit has produced more than a few photos over the years, and I strongly encourage any nature photographer to develop it as much as possible.
Then again, most birders would be far better than I in pinning down the species by sound, familiar with the various calls, so I could use the work myself. But hey – you’re seeing the pic, so it worked for me, right? Okay then.
We won’t talk about the number of species that I might have missed through inexperience, because it’s my blog. It’s all about the ego.