Birding and Bird Photography

That's pretty good, though. I've been bouncing back and forth between northern California and Southern California, so I've seen birds in coastal sage scrub habitats (socal) and central valley wetlands here up north. I suspect the rate I'm counting new ones will be pretty low now, though...I've recorded most of the regulars.

I just joined eBird so we'll see where that takes me. I've previously only used the yahoo groups list serves to hear about rarities.

 

I'm just downloading the Ebird Merlin bird ID app right now

 

So far this year in my yard and to/from work:

American Crow
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Northern Mockingbird
Mourning Dove
Dark-Eyed Junco
American Robin
Tufted Titmouse
Northern Cardinal
Carolina Wren
Eastern Bluebird
Carolina Chickadee
Chipping Sparrow
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Red-Headed Woodpecker
Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
Red-Tailed Hawk
American Goldfinch
Pileated Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Red-Bellied Woodpecker

I've been using the Audubon Birds App for Android.
I do need to get more pics this year though. Still fun.

 

And I'll be thankful when I can replace the suet feeder with the hummingbird feeder!

The chickadee is one of my favorite birds. In early summer the young are fearless and come right up to you. I've had them sit not much more than a foot away and talk to me cocking their head all over the whole time. At this time of year they are more skittish.



This black capped chickadee has no issues feeding on the suet feeder while the Hairy Woodpecker waits for his turn. Also am looking forward to spring when those goldfinches turn bright colors again.

 

Here is a couple of visitors I had today.

A small group of juvinile Red-winged Blackbirds.


We have a lot of dead or dying trees, so we also have lots of Woodpeckers inlcuding this Red-Bellied one.

 

Did you get the band number? If you did, you should report it! I'm not sure who you report it to, but a lot of banded birds aren't recovered ever, so if you ever shoot a banded waterfowl and recover the band or you see a banded bird (dead or alive), it's great to report it.

 

FYI , I'm really enjoying the eBird Merlin app

 

Yeah the Merlin one is free but not available for Android right now

 

I'll have to keep an eye out for that one if it ever comes out for android, but I never use the audubon one, only iBird. I already have two phone guides, though...and four book guides...

No worries. Haha, nononononono, like if you're out hunting and you shoot a bird that has a band on it, report the band! The hunting guys that I've met that have recovered bands off of waterfowl they've shot are super proud of it.

 

Nice! Yeah after reporting the data it goes on record that the bird that was banded in a certain location was recovered or recorded at this new location after x number of days. That way we can study the movements that birds make and it records more birds cheaper than any other way of movement study.

 

I dont consider my self any sort of photographer but I was fortunate to have these two grow up and out five feet from my front porch!

 

Awesome ^

 

I don't really know much about ebird, but from what I've briefly seen it just records species, date, and location for an observation, not which individual it is. Are there records of actual individual bird movements?

 

Ok, that makes sense. The benefit of actually tracking individuals is you can tell exactly how far the birds are migrating. For instance, some hawk species (I think red-tailed hawks) will do a leap-frog migration where the populations farther north actually migrate through the middle populations that are non-migratory to areas that are farther south of the middle populations, if that makes sense. So there are some weird migration patterns that are best studied by tracking individual birds. You can also determine the lifespan of a bird with banding.
And you don't have to kill the bird, you can re-capture it and record that or some bands are big enough to read through binocs or a high-quality camera. I'll bet you can make part of the band number out from your picture. But yeah, most recoveries are either dead from hunting or are re-captured in a banding station.

 

Took a trip down to Barnegat Light State Park today. In the winter, its waters are home to harlequin drakes. Today was a pretty nice day weather-wise and there was a good variety of shorebirds to be found there.

Harlequin Drake:




Red-breasted Merganser?




Long-tailed Duck:




Surf Scoter:

 

+1

And great looking ducks too.

 

Those are great. Even the water, the way it is caught.

Speaking of that, what kind of camera are you using? I really need to upgrade mine.

 

Thanks! All of those were with a Canon 5D Mark III and Canon 400mm f/5.6 + 1.4x TC

One more from earlier, female red-breasted merganser:

 

Yeah, man, really spectacular waterfowl shots! I agree on the water, so crisp.
Here are some of my bird pics from last week out at Yolo bypass wildlife area and Colusa NWR.

Yolo bypass:

Greater Yellowlegs by 92shawman, on Flickr


Marsh Wren by 92shawman, on Flickr

Colusa NWR:

White-tailed Kite by 92shawman, on Flickr


Northern Pintail Pair by 92shawman, on Flickr


Wilson's Snipe by 92shawman, on Flickr


American Wigeon by 92shawman, on Flickr


Northern Pintail by 92shawman, on Flickr


Northern Shoveler by 92shawman, on Flickr


House Wren by 92shawman, on Flickr

I think this was the first time I've seen one of these guys:

Lincoln's Sparrow by 92shawman, on Flickr


California Towhee by 92shawman, on Flickr


White-faced Ibis by 92shawman, on Flickr

This one's a pretty interesting bird:

Blue Goose flying by 92shawman, on Flickr