DAILY PICS VOL. 28

Ok Pell... you can relax now lol! Here is the new thread for the daily pictures.

I've had a lot of red winged blackbirds at the feeder lately. They must be stopping on their way somewhere else because I only see them in spring and fall. Here is a picture of aan adult male (back left) adult female (front left) and a first winter male (front right) with a female cowbird thrown in for a bonus! I didn't realize that first winter males have coloring similar to the females until I saw the deep orange shoulder patches and was thrown for a loop. Then I dug my guides and and discovered that young males have this coloration. I'll be back with more pictures a little bit later but wanted to get this thread going for now. Can't wait to see yours too!

Good shot of the frenzy.

Geese stay in the retention ponds at night and head off to the cornfields to eat during the day.

Thanks lily! ;-)

Beautiful pic Al!

Lilyfantn, Are you seeing large groups of the RWB's?

I posted this on the wrong thread so I'm re posting it. The sun is shining but the birds are holding tight so I thought I would post the only pic I took today.

This message was edited Oct 30, 2007 3:21 PM

Methinks someone's escaped Canary

Resin

Hi adel! I was just going to ask what that beautiful bird was! I asked on thread 27 and was going to here too. The poor thing.

Al thats a gorgeous fall shot.

Pell, yes this has been a bumper year for migrating red wings for me. I don't remember ever seeing this many before. I've really gotten to see a lot of them closer than normal too. They are usually kind of skittish. I learned a lot about them because of this.

Here is a better look at the first winter male (right) with a female on the left .

and here's a look at a side by side male and female.

and here's a first winter male with a mature male.

Such a pretty shot Al... looks so peaceful.

Nice pics Lily!

Resin...............I wondered at the time I took the pic if it was a Canary. Will they breed with any other species?

They do in captivity, when put together with other species in an artificial environment. Whether it would in the wild, hard to know.

More realistically, it is so conspicuous, I guess it'll be 'mated' to a Sharp-shinned Hawk's insides within a few days.

Resin

Thanks Resin..............I'm going to keep an eye out for it, maybe even both.

You may recall that I was concerned about the lonely goldfinch at my thistle feeder. Well, as you can see by the pic, she's not so lonely. Maybe they are just late in migrating or who knows....

lily, I'm not always able to get that close, but when I am I hold my breath, LOL It's so exciting!

Yesterday was one of those yucky white overcast days......all day long. I almost didn't go out for my birdwalk, as there were few even at my feeders, and the hawk is still hanging around. I am seeing a few RWB coming through, and the Mourning Doves are coming around again.

Also I still have a few Bandtails early in the day. It's late for them! The Goldfinch numbers have decreased greatly in the past couple days, from hundreds to about a dozen or so. Very late for them here anyway.

Back to yesterdays birdwalk. As soon as I got into the back area I saw many Chickadee's, and there were several RBN working the same tree! I knew it was a bad day for photos, but it was soooo busy back there that I snapped over 300! I saw the Yellow-rumped Warbler again, and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. My neck (bad anyway) was getting so sore after a couple hours looking up into the trees I decided I was nuts staying out there. I started back towards the house and the WBN showed up! What a birding day in the back yard!

Here's the little RC Kinglet.

The YR Warbler.

The WBN.

And a Towhee I saw on the way.

It's no wonder I never see any birds in my back yard. They are all in Oregon! HAHAHAHA Great shots Tiger

Right after the fog burned off I saw this bird fly into an oak in my front yard. He only let me get one quick pic before he spooked. I'm guessing it's a Red-breasted Sapsucker.

adel it does look like a RbS.


Great pics tiger! Love the towhee.

sybil, glad to see she has plenty of friends.

I wonder if you could lure the Canary inside adelbert, or into a cage with canary seed as it might be used to that. I found one many years ago, so long ago I can't remember how I caught it but I think it flew inside, must have been hungry. It was a Border Canary, it went to someone with an aviary so it could have friends.

Looks like you've had a good time tigerlily, I thought there were no birds around too but it was a lovely sunny day today so I went to the field and saw hundreds of Wood Pigeons! For a start a Magpie flew from the ground over the hedge, I could have got it if I hadn't turned the camera off! I did get some Partridges flying off from a distance.

Partridges first.

Started with 2, went to 3, they fly very low.

Then there were 4!

Shortly after another flew from the hedge side over the ditch.

It decided it wasn't going to go too far.

A train coming scared these Wood Pigeons in to the air.

There must have been at least 300 of them! And I thought I had just a few around!

Yesterday I noticed the Wood Pigeon on the nest was half off it, a new baby or two there!

Luckily the last two days have been warmer, around 15C (59F). Today she was off the nest, I took a pic as I thought I could just see something, there's a little grey fluff!

Notice how the sticks are forming a barrier on the side of the nest.

My pics of the Pigeons have been reduced to mush on here!

Nice flight pics wallaby!

Wallaby, is that a White Oak in the Wood Pigeon pics?
A couple of geese today:

They make a lot of racket doing this:

Nice ones claypa!

A Black Phoebe paid a visit this afternoon.

Very cute!

Claypa, I haven't a clue what type of Oak it is, perhaps English Oak! This link mentions all the wildlife which feed off it, including Tree Creeper which I have had but I imagine they might fed on others too. It will be a fairly old tree so my guess is that will be it, the description sounds right.

http://www.oldknobbley.com/woodland_ecology/trees/trees_oak_english.php

The geese look to be enjoying themselves!