A rare day when everything worked out - beautiful comfortable day, several shots of subjects I've never/rarely seen before, followed by lunch with the wife.

It started out with an innocent stop-over between my morning meetings. I saw that this park had a Rose-breasted Grosbeak (first time I've ever seen one). I immediately hopped in my car and raced home to get my camera (I wasn't driving my camera equipped truck :p :( ). I returned 20 agonizing minutes later to find that they were still around. I eventually counted 4 males and 1 female.

Shortly afterwards, my wife joined me and helped be my spotter. Good thing because she found this Pileated Woodpecker in the shadows. My shot isn't as sharp as I would like - my adrenalin must have been flowing :) Minutes later, she spots a male/female pair of Eastern Bluebirds. Finally, she spots a Gray Catbird in a small sapling behind me. All these I've seen only a few times before but now shot within an hour. I need her help more often!

A few more of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak and the ever-present Red-bellied Woodpecker.

Then off to lunch at Ruby-Tuesdays to review the images with the wife. A nice break indeed :thumbsup:

SWEEEEEET!!!! I'm soooooooo jealous! It's been two and a half years since I've seen a RBG, great catch Loupey!

These are all outstanding as usual, the RBG has to be my favorite just due to its rareness.

Nice work Loupey. I have only seen a RBG a few times, but never come away with a nice photo. I had one land about 10 feet from me once, and I had my 170-500mm mounted right in front of me. I messed up the shot beyond repair, and the bird didn't stick around for a second shot. :mad2:

I have yet to see a piliated.

WOW! What a day! Hard for me to pick a favorite here. I'm leaning toward the Pileated, but I know how hard the Gray Catbird is to shoot, so I have to give points for species difficulty :-)
At the end of the day, I think the nod goes to the RBG. Have never had one in my viewfinder, but look forward to the day!

Wow Loupey you sure had a nice day. Isn't awesome when the aplanets align for you just for those few precious moments like that. I have never seen an RBG before. What a beautiful bird. The Pileated is well above my standards so I don't know what you're complaining about :P And the catbird is perfect all things considered. One day I will shoot was well as Loupey... the ninja master ... and then I will be happy... of course I mean as well as you are shooting now since by the time I achieve that status you'll be still miles ahead of me lol.

Well as I'm sitting here reading Jaedon's reply... I look out the window, and what do I see? :D My second (ever) Rose-breasted Grosbeak :D I know what I'll be doing today.

Got a couple of pics, but nowhere as good as Loupey's.

Hey, Copy - something must be up with RBG's this year. When we returned home this afternoon, we had a message from my wife's father who had just had a RBG on his feeder earlier in the day. He too had never seen one before - and he lives on the other side of the city and has been a bird enthusiast long before I arrived on the scene :p

We hadn't yet told him of our experience yesterday.

Hopefully, we'll all see much more of these beauties.

So I was reading that the RBG's will be fairly common until they pair off. So I figured I better shoot the angles that I want now before they become scarce again.

So this morning, I spent 2 hours (first time I brought a chair :p ) in the crisp, cool, beautiful morning waiting for them to show up. I counted 4 males and 4 females this time. The females would come closer to me than the males. Couldn't get much so I went for a walk to get the tree swallow.