Noel Wilson said:
Bruce Chandler said:
and some with just Red or Ruby head with Greenish Blue body’s.
Male Anna’s hummingbird.
This guy started showing up after the flower sprinklers ran, bathing in the puddles. So we bought him a birdbath, which he seemed to ignore until one day…ta, ta! After checking my bird guidebook I thought it was a bluebird because it had no crest like the jays we’d seen in the So Cal mountains. But a neighbor who builds birdhouses told me it’s a scrub jay, a noisy buggah, which is how I know he’s around and sends me in search of my camera. At 480-mm (300-mm with a 1.6 crop factor on my Canon 50D), I still had to crop to zero in on the image. Plus shooting through glass and handheld doesn’t ensure the sharpest images. But I love the pose, ready to cannonball into that birdbath.
Nice photos guys. Birds are great. This year we put out seed cakes for them and I was really surprised at the variety of birds that came to it.
I took photos of them and put together a slide show movie. The mystery bird is a white breasted nuthatch and the yellow one is a finch.
Check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtQEaZLrZX4
Nice Todd.
Our house finches (rose finches) are multiplying like crazy and their numbers have trippled (offspring) since I put out the feeders just a few months ago.
We had a new visitor, the likes of which I had never seen before. This is a pacific region, band-tailed pigeon. They are fairly rare and tend to live in colonies of up to 80 birds in pine forests. He is probably just passing through.
These suckers are largest of all pigeons and are HUGE! This thing is easily 25% larger and twice as massive as the common domestic pigeon (rat with wings). It has to be the size of a duck or small chicken. Prior to this pic, he was on the back brickwork at the feeder with the other birds and dwarfs them.
Note the distict band on the back of the neck, the yellow feet, and yellow beak made for ripping and not eating popcorn. Also note the foot span relative to the light pole. BIG!
Ever seen a Merlin?
This guy decided to take up residence nearby and like to bathe in the water dish. These are in the falcon family. This guy has a span of ~30 inches when he “swooped” me. Note the size relative to the dish. The other birds perch on the rim.
Merlins ! Yepper every summer for about the last 6 . across the Cdn prairies surprisingly in the cities. Like to see more of them … they tend to keep the crows away and the magpies looking over their shoulders.
Actually shot video of one merlin 4 yrs back in one of the back yard evergreens, gutting/feeding on another bird it caught. Had noticing it ‘snowing’ feathers so went out to track down the origin.
Also last year the first flight of a couple fledgling merlins had one of them fly thru the backyd real low overtop of my head and thru the yard then circling back to their nest half a block away.
doug c
Linda got a few more shots of the Merlin through the screen door at about 10-12 feet with the Nikon D750/Tameron 150-500. While you would think that would ruin the picture, it served to soften the background AND serve as a “star filter” catching the shine in the birds eye.
The picture is so clear and in focus that when blown up, you can clearly see that there is a band on the bird’s leg AND you can clearly read the letters and numbers on the band. The bird is #666 (mark of the beast)! Well, maybe #1666. But it could also have a Chevy 327 small block.
I’m done with birding and it’s all Bruce’s fault !
2 Eastern Doves entering the house was enough. However he did identify a Carolina Wren for me…what a neat bird!
That Merlin is beautiful.
Its winter in N. Idaho and that means the annual Bald Eagle migration. Might have to go take a look, but I don’t have a long enough lens usually to get good pics. It used to be that we only had Bald Eagles in N Idaho during the migration now we have a very healthy year round population but the migration is still very cool when 50 of them show up to feed on salmon. One of the true success stories of the Endangered Species Act, the Bald Eagle is no longer a rare sight in my neck of the woods.
That Merlin looks very much like a Peregrine (both falcons) which roams my neck of the woods. If anything like the Peregrine I can see why the crows would run for cover, they are bird eaters. I had the pleasure, and yes it truly was a pleasure, to watch a domesticated Peregrine hunt pheasant. Lets just say I was glad I was not a pheasant that day. They are efficient predators.
David Russell said:
I’m done with birding
Says the rooster
I was on a research ship near the Bahamas after a storm and a swallow and Falcon both sought refuge on board. After a rest the Falcon decided it was lunch time… You should have seen the aerobatics! Both are superb fliers and well matched. It went on for a long time and I never saw a conclusion.
We had an Albatross follow us for days, once or twice. Flying fish would occasionally fly across the fo’c’sle. A flying fish is a sort of a bird, right?
Steve Featherkile said:
We had an Albatross follow us for days, once or twice. Flying fish would occasionally fly across the fo’c’sle. A flying fish is a sort of a bird, right?
I had the very fortunate opportunity to take a Tiger cruise on my sisters ship from Hawaii to San Diego when I was 15. We picked up an albatross on day two and he was faithfully behind us until just outside Coronado.
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.
It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine."
`God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus! -
Why look’st thou so?’ -“With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross.”
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Moral of the story never kill an albatross.
And while on the subject of birdie poems another timeless classic
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
The Raven-Edger Alan Poe
I am not a poetry nerd really, I swear.
I walked among nesting albatross (I stayed on the wooden walkway) on Campbell Island way down south, I did a cruise of Antartica in '91.
Fish that fly are not birds and if you are trying to sleep on the deck of a fishing boat making a pre-dawn run, you’ll quickly find out that they are torpedoes! One nice thing about El Nino is it brought the big tuna to SoCal waters.
Devon I love the focus you are displaying … trains, nothing but trains… tic toc, tic toc. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
John
I took this shot of a baldy on my last UTV ride.
Beautiful John
This morning we heard a bunch of commotion in the back yard, then a bird hit the kitchen window. There were California towhee feathers stuck on the window.
When we looked out, five towhees had the scrub jay surrounded on the brick patio while a few other towhees were doing an aerial assault on the jay. The towhees that had him surrounded crouch real low and puff up big and take turns attacking the jay from all sides. This was before I put their breakfast out.
Was quite a sight and lasted for several minutes at least.