We visited the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Northern Virginia this afternoon. As usual, we saw many beautiful flowers as well as a variety of birds. The highlights of this visit were seeing an Osprey catch a fish as well as spotting Baltimore Orioles.
We arrived at the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in the afternoon after having a late lunch. It was rather hot and a bit humid. While there were some big clouds in the sky, there was typically still quite a bit of hot sunlight and it did not rain.
Maybe this has always been here by the entrance, but we’ve never noticed this Hakone Grass before. We also never knew there is a kind of grass named after Hakone before!
As usual, we enjoyed the large variety of flowers in the gardens. While we know what some of them are, many are just pretty flowers to us!
This clump of pink flowers was pretty nice.
Whenever we enter the gardens, we always hear the sound of birds. The first one we actually saw and identified today was this American Robin perched on a branch.
We next found Red-Winged Blackbirds. Our first photo of a male that we saw wasn’t great but we did get a decent photo of a female on a plant with the Lake Caroline gazebo in the background.
A few minutes later, we photographed both a male and female in the grass.
We spotted a Tree Swallow by a pair of nest boxes. It seemed to chase away another Tree Swallow before returning. Or maybe the other one chased it away? They move so fast!
The Tree Swallow went into the nest box.
We soon saw it, or maybe the other parent, pop its head out of the nest box’s opening.
We also saw Tree Swallows perched on trees next to Lake Caroline.
We had commented that it would be nice to see a heron. And then, while walking on the southern side of Lake Caroline, we spotted a Green Heron perched on a tree by the pond! It was perfectly motionless.
While looking at the Green Heron, we spotted a fast moving bird and then heard and saw a huge splash!
We managed to get one good photograph of the bird that created the splash as it circled low overhead. It was an Osprey with a fish!
The Osprey landed in a tree nearly directly above us! It perched on the tree with the fish for awhile and was looking around. It seemed to briefly look directly at us.
The Osprey started to eat the fish.
We backed up a bit to try and get a better perspective. We watched for a bit before moving on.
The lotuses on Lake Gardiner, the eastern pond in the gardens, have begun to grow.
We spotted this little Chipping Sparrow at the edge of the path as we walked to the north between Lakes Caroline and Gardiner.
The Purple Martins were enjoying their hanging nest boxes! While we didn’t see any enter or exit, we did see a head popping out of one of the entrances.
We spotted a single Barn Swallow on the ground that seemed to be collecting dry grass. There were others flying around though.
We saw this Tree Swallow land on a tree during a particularly windy period. Every time it tried to preen its feathers, it would end up getting blown about by the wind.
As we approached the northern end of Lake Gardiner, we spotted a bit of orange color in a distant tree. A Baltimore Oriole!
At times, it was pretty hard to see as it moved around in the tree. But, its bright orange feathers really do give it away. There is a second bird here though!
The other bird, which appears mostly yellow, is a female Baltimore Oriole!
After losing sight of the distant Baltimore Orioles, we continued clockwise around Lake Gardiner. We spotted a yellowish bird by the Tea Garden as we passed the bridge that leads to the small island in Lake Gardiner. This is a female Baltimore Oriole. According to All About Birds, the females can have quite a bit of variation in the exact colors and patterns on their feathers. There is an example that looks just like this one!
We continued walking around Lake Gardiner. There is a large tree by the Tea Garden that is extremely popular with orioles. We’ve seen their nests in this tree before. Looking back, we spotted a male Baltimore Oriole in this large tree.
We also spotted a female House Finch with its dull colors.
As we headed back to the entrance, we found a male Red-Winged Blackbird on the lotuses in Lake Gardiner.
As we got closer to the entrance, we noticed this yellow plant in the distance. From afar, it seemed like it might be a clump of flowers but it was bright yellow leaves.