Birding and Bird Photography

Yes, reported. Seems cruel but vultures cause more aircraft strikes than any other birds besides geese so there’s a big study in the South with the tags-I think they could have made them much smaller.

 

White Shoulder Eagle. Kamchatka, Russia

 

I knew you'd come in to the ID rescue!

Yeah, they do seem huge on vultures. I guess it makes it easier to spot when they're soaring as high up as they normally do? I've never really experienced any raptor/wing tag research, just small birds with color bands or simple aluminum bands. That sounds like an interesting study, that's for sure!

 

Glad I could help.

I say get the researchers a better set of binoculars, and make the tags smaller. A tag that size would be a death sentence for a raptor that has to catch its supper. For a vulture I guess it's OK. Their supper is pretty easy to catch. Still seems excessive.

 

If I could only go to one spot it would be Estero Lllano Grande State Park. It's an absolute must for South Texas birding.

 

Can anyone identify this little bird? It knocked itself out cold hitting my front window. I warmed him for a few minutes in my hand and he perked right up and flew away.

 

This turkey followed me for about a 1/4 mile while hiking the smokies.

 

This male pileated woodpecker has been pecking 24/7 at my windows for a week straight now.

 

Can you identify these love birds?

 

A couple ospreys and a limpkin

 

I’ll go with a purple martin.

 

Yep, pretty certain you’re correct.

 

Looks like a juvenile thrush of some sort. Maybe an American robin? Happy to hear it was okay.

 

Thrush perhaps, but robin definitely not. I have them every year, I even help to raise one a few years back. This is this years brood.



They grow so fast!!!

 

I had one nest on a fence post a few years back. She laid four eggs, one never hatched. She couldn’t keep up. The younger one fell behind and was getting pushed out of the of the best. I’d put it back, but it older siblings were still getting all the food. I even put a piece of foam rubber under the nest to help break its fall. I finally went and bought a container of fishing worms and hand fed it, and only it. It actually caught up and surpassed the others in a matter of a week or so, in fact it was the first to fledge. I could tell it from the others, even when they were about the same size. The mom actually became used to me being around the nest and didn’t seem to mind me helping out. Here’s a few pics.

 

Birds are pretty smart. Two months after this picture this little guy was a rabbit killing team with me and my dog.

 

It's definitely a Cathartus species (one of many genus of thrush).

You have 5 Cathartus species that can be found in FL, including itinerant migrants (just fly through and dont summer or winter in FL). Given the lack of an obvious/prominent eye ring it is most likely a gray-cheeked thrush or Bicknell's thrush. Those however are very hard to differentiate by plumage (unless in hand say at a banding station with measurement tools) and are differentiated by vocalizations. So I can't go past Bicknell or gray cheek. We can rule out the other three though: veery, Swainson's thrush, and Hermit thrush.

Hope this helps. I like this game.