Bird Watching!

[FireFighterZero]

kildeer cerlew





Spring must be here. Starting to spot these guys now.

 

[Altissimus]

...first time I saw one here thought it was misplaced Sandpiper ...there are some Kildeer near ponds here

 

[Cobleskill]

Killdeers like bare dirt to make their nest. You can look at the eggs and not see them they are so well camoed. I love their "i have a broken wing" act.

 

[Limbrat]

The young of the year bald eagles are flying here now. I played softball yesterday afternoon and there was a nest tree just outside the outfield fence with adults and young alike protesting our presence and making a racket. It's amazing what a comeback they've made here. Thirty years ago a sighting was rare, now they are everywhere.

 

[Dave Shepard]

I haven't seen a killdeer in years. I used to see them all the time doing the wing thing. Maybe I'll have to try walking down the road instead or roaring around on a tractor or something.

 

[Cobleskill]

I saw one yesterday driving. It was out in a corn field that had been chopped. We don't seem to have as many as we used to. I like to go for a bicycle ride around the block (4 or 5 miles) every once in a while. It is surprising what you miss when driving.

 

[rbtree]

There's several killdeer images in my birds album:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rbtree/sets/72157626533749950/

Uh oh, i've been spotted

different time, wounded wing antics

 

[FireFighterZero]

These guys are back on my pond. I get a kick out of them.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/heEUPbxmYgQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

not my video.

 

[Altissimus]

...seems like a lot of Mallards made return this awful Spring....my guess is their numbers are up

 

[MasterBlaster]

That would make me dizzy...

 

[CurSedVoyce]

This was cool....

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/YTR21os8gTA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[woodworkingboy]

Beautiful!

 

[Bermy]

We know some bird species navigate by the stars. The Bermuda Cahow is a nocturnal bird and the fledglings start to come out of their burrows a few weeks before they first take off. They come out, climb up to a high vantage point, look around, flap their wings to exercise and strengthen muscles. They do this quite a few times, then one night while you are watching, flap, flap, and off they go into the night. It can only be celestial navigation, and maybe some magnetic thing too...the only time the young come out is in the dark, they never see their surroundings during the day.

They stay out at sea for two to four years then start to return to their nesting island and begin courting. They don't usually lay eggs the first summer back or if they do they tend not to be fertile. My mate Jeremy who's now the Conservation Officer likens it to teenagers 'testing the waters' before marriage and a family!

I was very fortunate to be an apprentice during the peak of the recovery project and got to spend some night watches out on the islands waiting for fledglings to emerge, then in later years helping to weigh and measure and tag them.
One of the world's rarest seabirds...were down to 7 nesting pairs when they were rediscovered in 1951.

Now they have satellite trackers on some of them and the flight data is amazing! Also 'CahowCam' in a couple of burrows during nesting season, which is now.

 

[GemCutter]

I've been spotting a Scarlet Tanager in my woods the last few days. I haven't seen a female yet and wonder if she is already on a nest. Seems like I only see one every few years.

An earlier thread mentioned the Pileated Woodpecker. There's always been a pair around here for the last 20 years. It's a poor photo, but I found this one checking out the house several years ago.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Great stuff everybody! Lots of ducks on the pond today.

Mallards, northern shovelers, green winged teal, and widgeons. I loves me some birds!

Geeze, who da thought this would go nine pages! I shall do some research on the Cahow Bermy, and I dont think that is a bad photo Gemcutter.

Cool vid Stephen.

 

[Cobleskill]

I heard my first Baltimore Oriole this morning. We have a lot more of them than we used to. They come back later than most and feast on tree pollen making very happy noises.

 

[old irish]

We got a foot of snow here yesterday. A lot of the birds have come back to Red Rock Lakes Refuge and these spring storms are hard on them. I dug up some bird seed and opened the shed door to the sawmill for them. The first to the seed was an Orange Headed Blackbird that tried and succeeded to boss the smaller Species away.

 

[old irish]

Sorry, I should have said "Yellow headed Blackbird" not Orange Headed.

 

[Reddog]

A Rose-breasted Grosbeak showed up today. Along with some White Crowned Sparrows waiting to move north.
Hummingbirds are back also.

 

[rbtree]

Just a few from this morning. Now I'm headed over to Andy's (Lakeside57 from AS fame) to hopefully catch the osprey pair catching trout...Lake Tuck was stocked this past Tuesday...and have him check out my 660, which may have an air leak..and maybe get his ripping chain and 36" Alaska mill for a project which I'll elaborate on in a few days.

I also captured some kind of pigeon I haven't seen, a duck momma and her chicks, Canada Geese landing on the water, killdeer, and red wing blackbirds and saw glaucous gullls swallows, starlings and robins, and of course, crows

Being a lousy bird id'er, I don't know what this is. It doesn't appear to be an American Goldfinch:

The Anna's Hummer that always hangs out here, never came close except for once. this is a tight crop

Here he is up close, rousting out the yellow bird that was posing for the camera...heh!

The thee closest were shot handheld, as the birds were too close for where I had the tripod set up. I had a 1.4x teleconverter on the 500, so these shots were all at 700m, or 14 power, with the full frame amazingly good Canon 5D Mk III. I think the hummer is one of my sharpest images yet.... which pleases me, as the lens and teleconverter are outdated by 18 years. I'll be soon buying another 70-200 version II, which is the sharpest and best 70-200 ever made, to replace the stolen one. Hard to find a used one for $2100 or less, as they get snapped up pronto. Retail has jumped up a tad to $2500. I never had the version III 1.4 or 2x teleconverters either, but am looking. They sometimes gio for under $400..new is $500... a big chunk of change for a tool that needs to be mated with a lens to work! But the version III's are needed to keep all the incredible optics of the new version II super telephoto lenses. Doubt I'll ever be able to afford one, as they all cost from $7200- 12,000.

 

[Cobleskill]

I had a bird fluttering around the window in my shop trying to get out. I left the door open thinking it would find its way out. No good. I reached over the bench to try to slide the window open. Couldn't get it.
So I snagged the bird to carry it out. I thought it was a sparrow but it seemed pretty small. Cute little thing. I told my sister about it and she said Mom had identified it as a Kinglet. Right she was.

 

[Mick!]

More great pics RB, look forward to the osprey ones.

 

[rbtree]

No ospreys this time....But there's a rufous hummingbird pair at Andy's. Didn't see them either, but I'll be back. We went over to a neighbor who has several Anna's that overwinter at their place. Light bad again..more future photo op's.

And he checked the 660. Needs a fuel line, but it tuned up fairly well, so may or may not be OK. Hope so. Picked up his Alaskan Mill, with 42 inch rails, to mill a maple log, which is 36 at its widest.

The yellow bird is a female goldfinch

 

[FireFighterZero]

Good call!

The finches are a couple weeks away from showing up here. They just pass through, which sucks.

 

[Mick!]

Here's the European goldfinch