Please excuse the long-winded comments here, but this was just too special not to share with my iNat friends.
I was on the back deck of my house a while ago, adding sunflower seeds to a feeder that the siskins and goldfinches had about depleted. I saw some movement in one of the live oaks which hangs over my deck and saw that it was a Nashville Warbler. This is a common migrant in central Texas, but I had never gotten any shots of one in my yard. I went back in the house, grabbed a camera with a 100-400 mm lens and came back out on the deck to try to get some identifiable shots of the Nashville. I saw it occasionally popping in and out of view, but it would never give me enough time to get an identifiable shot. So, I'm standing there getting frustrated at the Nashville when suddenly...a Golden-cheeked Warbler started singing about 8 feet from me!
Golden-cheeked Warbler is an endangered species which nests nowhere but Texas. I have heard them from my property two or three times in the past years and seen a male nearby a few years ago, but the habitat in my neighborhood is certainly not prime for the species, but I do know they are around this immediate area in small numbers, but can be very difficult to find. Normally I have to go 30 or so miles from here to see this species, and then it is always iffy whether such a trip is successful. So, now this Golden-cheeked cranks up in song at 4 PM on an overcast and windy day right at my back door...AND I'm holding a camera! Long story short, I took 150+ images from as close as 6 feet as this mature male GCWA foraged in my live oaks! The bird seemed totally unconcerned about me blasting away with the camera and was busy grabbing small worms, etc. It was terrifically exciting. The bird spent at least 10 minutes above my deck, and sang 5 or 6 times, then flew off toward the more wooded property west of me. Golden-cheeks are quick to abandon locations where human habitation is too dense, but hopefully a place like my neighborhood where all the houses are on 2-3 acre sized properties, is more conducive to the bird sticking around. Anyway, first time I have photographed the species in this area or even in Hays County. And I never did get any shots of the Nashville. Somehow that is just O.K. :-)
By the way, the "out of range" designation which usually pops up on the iNat maps of any report of this species near Austin, is incorrect. The area of the Edwards Plateau just west of Austin is, and always has been, part of the normal range of this species.
A pigeon in the convention center at the Ecological Society of America annual meeting. #ESA2018
There are five of them. First spotted by @data_nerd on May 12.
"Duluth Penguins."
This is the undescribed species called San Pedro Tanager.
Update: The new common name is Inti Tanager according to the official description.
Upper Sunrise, American R. Plkwy.
March 6, 2024 14:11
Galle, Southern Province, Sri Lanka
Leucismo
I’m curious if this is a steller’s jay, blue jay, or some sort of hybrid?
Bright pink/brown morph rock pigeon. There are 28 variety of morph feathers for rock pigeons. This one is strikingly beautiful in the right light.
Fox Kestrel. Photographed in the Jemma Valley, Ethiopia on 7 February 2009.
6 seen, 4 males 2 females.
Passerina cyanea x Passerina amoena
San Timoteo Creek, San Bernardino Co, CA
Gotta feel bad for two, lone bachelors calling from bush tops for non-existent females in the County. They have each other. :)
1-24-20 Bald Eagle eating a duck or a raven.
This adult had stolen the meal from a small group of juvenile eagles which were squabbling over it. When I walked over to see what it was eating it skreeled & hissed at me to stay back and resumed its repast.
Then, it gave me "The Glare" - the one that drives nightmares so I backed out of its territory - about a foot, and it went back to ripping it's meal apart and gulping down large chunks of meat, bones, feathers.
We have over 500 Bald Eagles here and while both life forms have learned to have respect for each other it is well understood by us lesser creatures that at certain times of year (nesting season) - Eagles Rule. They've been practicing Dino's for a long time, apparently lack any sense of humor and have no compunctions about attacking intruders about the head and shoulders. A bird with a 6 foot wing span and 3+ inch really dirty talons can do a lot of damage.
Some nesting eagle pairs are known to be very territorial and more aggressive so... most folks here - when near those nest sites avoid wearing certain kinds of hats (no one knows for sure which kind since hats and eagle strikes vary from year to year), shiny reflective things or pushing rattling carts out of the Post Office between May and September.
The last two fotos show how the bird will anchor its beak and then extract its talons before moving its foot to a new spot while eating. This helps hold down the prey and prevent it from being stolen by other eagles. If you toggle the images back and forth you can see the action.
The AI had trouble identifying these apparent leucistic individuals.
The ground squirrel pups seemed to frequently stretch and sometimes yawn, as this one is doing.
pictures taken from a hide. Location obscured for conservation reasons.
Taken at All Things Wildlife Rehab
Watched this bittern for >45 minutes tug at this Mississippi Green Watersnake (Nerodia cyclopion) until it finally pulled it free from the clump of grass it was wrapped around.
American Bittern chicks
Observed on a fence in East Harlem.
about 5 minutes after totality
A large amount of hawk movement before and during the eclipse on the shore of lake Ontario today. I counted 54 individuals in 3 hours and I am not a great hawk-counter.
leucistic
The fighting Coots reminded me a bit on fighting kangaroos, as they were pushing and slapping each other with their oversized feet...
Melanistic Song Sparrow. Singing male, ID'ed as Song Sparrow by song, and similar face pattern (visible in photo though muted due to melanism). The bird was also associating with a standard-issue SOSP, possibly a mate.
Anyone know what that orange spot is?
Members of local feral cat colony
Source: 04/26/12
The little guy on the left outracing his cousins :)
White Raven; blue eye suggests it is not an albino