Didn't know this thread was here. My late cousin was an avid birdwatcher and photographer. One page has been removed, but this one still exists. I always thought the pics were pretty amazing. I doubt these are for sale anymore, for obvious reasons, but I thought you might like to see them. http://chickadeecards.com/
The winter weather last weekend appeared to convince a yellow bellied sapsucker that he needed to modify his preferred eating habits and try and take some nourishment from the remaining tiny red crab apples on a tree in my front yard. Not something that he was adept at doing, from the awkward manner in which he tried to perch on the tree's thin branches. A resident robin kept trying to shoo him away; birds are even worse at sharing than people are. Anyway, I'd not seen one of these woodpeckers in a quite a while. Cool bird, and very willing to let me get up close (though I didn't have my camera handy):
Regarding the previous eagle discussion, but otherwise presented without comment... http://news.msn.com/offbeat/iowa-fish-launcher-ensures-dramatic-eagle-photos
http://news.msn.com/videos?videoid=761d921c-af83-31c4-108a-42e9aebe729c Snowy Owl hit by a bus in DC. Unsure if the snowy owl is supposed to be in the area. They are pretty rare in DC
We went out looking for Eagles today. Up on the flats we've had hundreds of Swans, Thousands of Snow Geese. and countless ducks. All made for a "Gathering of Eagles" Must have spotted at least a hundred today. So much hanging fruit. Tree top by the river. Then they let me walk closer. Young 'un. Takes about 5 years to get the white trim....Took me about 60. More hanging fruit. They hate it when I call them fruit.
Damn I though our place between Illahee and Brownsville had a lot of Eagles. We regularly have 8-10 Balds, and a couple of Goldens. But that is just nuts.
scouser, if i were you i'd delete those photos. some well-intentioned person is going to see them and decide bald eagles are not a protected species but a nuisance pest and start shooting them.
People in the Northwest seem to be a little more enlightened than most, it's rarely heard of up here. Then it's out on the salt marshes too far for a lot of people. Wish we had some Goldens up here, I love them.
Dull day but Mrs Scouse and I took an afternoon ride and a picnic lunch. Nowhere near the amount of Eagles as Monday but some still posing if you can get close enough. 1/ Sitting in the tree doing preflight checks at 300 mm 2/ Take off at 200 mm before he turned his white butt my way
by a strange kind of coincidnce i've just learned that three sea otters washed up dead on asilomar beach in CA and when they were autopsied it was found they had been shot.
Now that is just criminal. Should be a hanging offence. Proving that not all Californians are as enlightened as they like to think.
Not a great shot, just grabbed it though the window onto the deck. My first sighting of A 'Varied Thrush' this year. I'll try for a better one when I can. Varied Thrush. cousin to the American Robin who in reality is also a thrush.....With a red breast.
95% of california is texas. hell, 75% of monterey county is texas. but asilomar is not normally in that 75%.
yhis might be the most beautiful bird i've ever seen. i love the black edges of the flank feathers and the tile effect of the coverts.
Pretty bird isn't it. Has a pleasant song in the evenings as well. Don't know if you guys have seen this..... http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
Tried some more 'through the window' shots the other day. I put a branch I'd trimmed from the Himalayan Birch up on the deck rail to try some better looking perch shots and got this bugger..... He licked the branch clean of peanut butter. The wood peckers are funny. they just have to fake picking insects off the deck post, then they drop down onto the suet cake (Bottom right corner) and hammer big chunks off that. We get 5 different types of woodpecker here. Downy, Hairy, Lewis, Northern Flicker and the Pileated. The pileated don't hang on the suet cake though. This looks like the female hairy. The Oregon Junco waits for the woodpecker under the suet cake to get the bits flying off. They spend their time on the hanging feeder with other small birds when they get crowded off the table by the doves and banded pigeons. The Steller's Jay, smart and clever. Usually flies in making a sound like a hawk on the hunt. Clears the other birds away from the food in a hurry. He's trying to make jumps at the suet cake, not smart enough or just too big to perch on it. At least he perched on my birch branch.
This time of the year is for swans. 10 years ago they were all but wiped out by brave, intrepid hunters, feeding their starving families....Oh wait.... They put limits on shooting them and now they've come back. Hard to pass a field these days without seeing flocks of them. Wonderful birds. Couldn't get really close to these guys and had to shoot from afar.
I stumbled onto it while walking home from work, which is usually how I run into wildlife. And figured I'd spare everyone pictures of the pigeons I regularly encounter.
That's the parking garage level under 3 story town homes - apparently there are ~110 of these across the city, so a fairly common bird here.
something got all my fish again. a friend said it could have been a crow but i doubt it; there were 6 of them, the biggest was over 15cm, and most the pond is 60cm deep. i know crows are feisty bastids (i saw one kill a starling a couple of weeks ago) but i don't think they can fight underwater. i've never eve seen one in the water. on the starling front i heard one yesterday doing a pretty good imitation of a tit.