Handicapped birding

In my blog titled, Sora and non-birding in Georgia, I wrote that I fell on April 20th and injured my left knee.  I didn't know that I had an extensive tear of my quadriceps tendon until an MRI revealed this on May 6th.  Given the potential for bad to get worse with this injury, it was treated as urgent and I had surgery to repair my quadriceps tendon on May 7th. 

After ten days of near total confinement, I had my first post-op visit and got my staples removed on May 17th.  On Thursday, the day before this, my birding friend Rodolfo Palma called to ask me if I wanted to go birding by car on Saturday, the 18th.  My first inclination was that I had better not but I begged for a little more time until after I had seen the surgeon.  The surgeon gave me some exercises to do but mentioned very little in the way of restrictions.  With this I called Rodolfo and said, "let's go birding!"  

As we had already done twice in April, Rodolfo selected Magee Marsh for this outing.  The Yellow Warbler above perched and sang for this photo-op on the drive in. 

Shortly thereafter this Willow Flycatcher, above and below, did the same.  

Upon arriving at the boardwalk we set out lawn chairs to bird the edges of the woods near the parking lot.  This lasted for a second; with my crutches I wanted to go on the boardwalk before it became too crowded.  

The back end of this House Wren was photographed along the approach of the lookout tower.  I did not attempt to ascend the stairs to the crowded platform where a Blackpoll and a Northern Parula were singing at the edge of the trees.  I tried for photos of the Northern Parula from the approach, but failed.

We continued to see warblers especially, but others too, and comments of good birds just missed were passed along while the board walk steadily became more crowded.  Less than halfway along I calculated how much longer I still had to go and thought better of it.  I could feel my knee tiring.   I turned around and headed back to our lawn chairs by the car.

Rodolfo positioned our chairs where we would have good lighting for the Baltimore Orioles coming to the oranges that were put out for them. I haven't looked back all the way to 2008, but these may be the first Baltimore Oriole photos I have posted on my  blog.

Me, with crutches and leg brace, soldiering on for the 2013 spring migration season.  Will likely be the last birding I do this spring, perhaps even all summer.

The orange gives the photos above and below a contrived appearance, but these also happen to be in the category of my best shots for the day. In the photo above, I particularly like the way the oriole is perched on the orange.

On the way out this Black-crowned Night Heron flew in without obstructions in the way.

We sat on the bench at the headquarters for lunch and I found it amusing that this single House Sparrow was carefully guarding his condo amongst all the Purple Martins.

The 18th was the third Saturday of the month when the Ottawa NWR is open for driving.  We drove this to end the day.  We hoped for Red-headed Woodpecker and possibly a rail or a bittern, but alas did not see any.  I can never resist a beautifully perched Eastern Kingbird.  

There were lots of Dunlin in a couple of muddy/wet areas along the drive.  We also saw Semipalmated Sandpiper and Lesser Yellowlegs.

Handicapped birding at its best.