Birding and Bird Photography

Yeah definitely chilling and very cool to see at the same time.
Once in Illinois my family and I heard a big commotion in the forest near where we were sight seeing and we looked over to see a crow carrying a chick and there was a cardinal, a jay, and a woodpecker all chasing after it. The crow eventually dropped the chick because of the chasers. That was one of the craziest things I've ever seen with different species working together. Not sure if the chick survived, but crazy nonetheless.

 

Not a photograph but still cool. A friend put up an owl camera.

 

Not birding , but I watched 4 Orcas attack a Minke Whale they had chased into beaching at a local inlet from about 50' away and from above , they were trying to grab it by the tail and haul it into deeper water , watched for over an hour and a half , they just kept trying and the tide was coming up , there was one large female adult , a smaller adult and two juvenile whales .

The adults just sat about 40' off the beach and the two juveniles would circle in repeatedly , churning up the bottom as they tried to get into the shallow water to grab the Minke Whale's tail

Tide was coming in and eventually they managed to get a hold of the tail flukes , the Minke made a run for open water and I watched the group race away out of the bay , a couple hundred feet from the beach the adult breached and landed on the Minke whale , some fishermen found what was left of it's body out in the harbour

 

Thanks for the compliments guys

Yes the birding is getting good right now down here

My favorite thing to watch is an osprey swoop down and grab a fish off the water, its crazy how they can see the fish there.

The only orcas that are somewhat friendly are at seaworld. Id say the image they portray is that they are friendly and thats what ppl think till they see a video of them attacking a whale or shark in the wild.
This is pretty cool

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s49lfSf_VMU

 

Seaworld is a sensory deprivation experiment on whales and dolphins don't get me started , in fact there are basically zero recorded incidents of Orcas attacking humans in the wild

Anyways , that's a different thread

 

That's cool, Orcas are awesome.
I hate the videos on youtube that a all those pop up things wanting you to subscribe etc, that you have to close out or they block half the screen. Should be kicked off youtube.

I hate to see animals in captivity in general. If they were injured in the wild and they were trying to nurse it back to health or something that would justify it.

 

Went for a bird survey this morning for work and got a bunch of great new photos! I'll upload them later tonight.
I'm having trouble ID'ing this bird, though. The lack of wing bars is throwing me off. Any ideas?

 

I'd guess (only a guess) some type of wren?

 

So after talking with my mom a lot about it she brought up blue-gray gnatcatcher. That's definitely it. The thing that was throwing us off was the sunrise casting the yellow hue to the belly and tail. I just looked through the other photos I have of this individual and there are some with different patches of yellow and some with no yellow at all, only white.
I was originally thinking vireo because of the habitat but I was so busy taking photos that I didn't pay attention to the bill, which is definitely not vireo. It's too thin. But it's not wide enough for a flycatcher bill (shown in a different photo) and it's too long for a kinglet. Then we looked at the wood warblers and none of them matched very well. Finally she looked at the gnatcatchers and got it!
All of the wrens here are brown, but aside from that the bill is a little less decurved than the typical wren bill. Probably should've checked there, too, though...
Silly colors...gotta go back and see if my white-balance threw it off.

 

WB looks OK for the time of day you shot this. But if you take some of the yellows out, it does look more blue/gray.

 

I swear the pictures that you guys post are just getting better each time. And Mark that almost isn't fair saying the birding is starting to get good down there now LOL. What a fantastic place! And nice job capturing the birds. Birds are starting to move through here but it is still pretty slow yet. Too much ice on the river but supposed to be in the 60's this week so that should help.

I really like that. Got a 2 for one the other day when I looked at it while I was at work, a hummingbird flew into the view! Super cool...

Mn. DNR has setup a web cam on an eagle's nest this year once again. Every once in awhile I will take a look especially after a snow fall.

http://www.webcams.dnr.state.mn.us/eagle/

 

I readjusted the colors a bit so they look more like how I remember the scene. That yellow is definitely just from the sun...
Been out taking photos while doing my work in the mornings
Photo dump!




I've never seen this many cormorants in one place before! Only ever seen one or two at a time, so this was weird.


The Swainson's Hawks are here! Had to mess with the shadows a bit too much to make it look like anything other than a black silhouette, but that's okay








Freakin' branch!


First oriole this year for me!






Here's the one I posted earlier but with the adjusted light balance and blue vibrance. Looks a lot better IMO.


An unknown...went by too quickly to ID and this was the only photo I got...any thoughts?

 

Thanks Mike, yes it is getting really good. We've has a few northern fronts pushing migrators down. Starting to see alot of people from up north "Winter Texas" as we call em here, come down to see the birds. Ran into a hardcore guy yesterday who had camera setup he said was close to 20k dollars. I could only dream of having a setup like that.

Nice shots Kevin, I have yet to see a Swainsons Hawk.

I went out for a few hours yesterday and saw 2 species i have yet to see before. An American Bittern and a Nashville Warbler. Of course i saw other species as well so i figured id post a few pics.

 

Hey Kevin! Nice series of shots. I think the last one is a Black Crowned Night Heron.

 

Some pics from yesterday. I thought it was cool seeing the Little Blue Heron, the Spoonbill, Great Egret and Reddish Egret all feeding at the same spot. I got lucky to see that.
Yikes sorry for so many pics, i guess i just get a little too excited! lol

 

Wow once again you guys really got some great shots! I'm getting antsy up here waiting on the birds to pass through and return, wish they would hurry up and get here.

I happen to catch NOVA on PBS last night that the clip of 007 came from, pretty good show.

I did catch a Cedar Waxwing passing through although pictures weren't the best, it was a pretty far shot. And dark enough I couldn't see the yellow and tell what it was at the time.





Dark eyed Junkos are passing through it is strange to see them in the trees. Have had a few all winter hanging around under the feeders picking up the left over seeds on the ground.



Finally got a decent picture of the Coopers Hawk that is using my bird feeders as his "bird" feeder.

 

Those are some great pictures. I couldn't get a picture of it but last week I got to watch a redtail swoop down out of a tree next to the house and kill a rabbit that was busy eating some sunflower seeds by the bird feeder. The rabbit didn't die quick or easy, made a terrible screeching sound as it kicked but the hawk didn't let go and held it down till it stopped. I always thought they'd eat as much as they could on the ground and then leave it, but this one would rip off a piece and fly up into a nearby tree and eat it and then come back later for more.

Last summer I watched a Cooper's grab a snake out of the yard and fly over to my neighbors shed and eat it, again wish I'd had a camera at the time.

 

There are any number of nesting birds that use material like that. Be helpful to know a more accurate location of where it was.