Birding and Bird Photography

This is another iPhone pic shot through my binoculars. Better than expected:

 

I'm starting to like or at least better appreciate the female Cardinal rather than their flashy counterparts !

 

Finally shot an adult:



Once again I used my iPhone shot through my binoculars. Although I need more practice, I am getting a little better aligning those devices.

 

Nice shot to get, too bad it wasn't better quality. I have been searching for a couple of years here in Central Texas, I have chased leads all over, but no actual sightings. Way to go!

 

Cormorants, nasty birds, kind of take over the creek when they come to town. Can't even get along with one another.

 

A few more elegant birds farther down the shore. The wind and sun were opposite of each other and I could either have the light or the wind to my back. Couldn't get a decent shot into the sun.

 

Coopers Hawk that showed up just outside my back porch.

 

Sorry, not a Cooper’s hawk.

 

Is that a female Sharp-Shinned hawk?

 

Broad-wing?

 

No, not a sharp-shinned. It’s a butio, not an accipiter. My guess would be with @T-yoda a broad-wing, but I’m really not sure.

 

I spent 15 minutes googling such bird and that was the closest I got to make me stop wondering what bird it is. Short tail with a curled beak and small feet ;-)

 

Ok, it was just my uneducated guess, I thought it was a red shouldered hawk initially, but it's breast was also darker feathers. What do you think is?

 

@Gyrkin is right, it is a Buteo.

First year bird, and small, so for your area you get between Red-shouldered hawk (RSHA) and broad-winged hawk (BWHA), which identifying between perched juveniles is difficult. All real good ID for hawks is from below in flight.

From this photo we got two things we can use to determine it is a RSHA and not a BWHA

1. Juvie RSHA show 3 pale bands on their secondaries (flight feathers in middle of wing) when folded. The secondaries of a folded wing of a BWHA is all brown (no pale bands).

2. Juvie RSHA tail is dark with light bands and juvie BWHA tails are light with dark bands.

Love this game. Exercises like this help me stay in the game.

 

I'm in the office more and more, a trade off of moving up. Got to get out this evening for some sunset endangered rail surveys though (I got a permit a few years ago to do the surveys).

Birding is so peaceful. Here was my office this evening.

 

Seeing we’re playing name that bird, what do you folks think about this one:

From Newburyport MA a couple of miles inland from the coast.

Apologies for the crappy pic...

 

Adult redtail hawk.

 

Funny. One of the drawbacks of being color blind...

 

I have a neighborhood Copper that terrorizes the birds that feed in my back yard. He cleaned out a robins nest this summer.