New Year's Day -- 2008

Happy New Year! We decided to get out and do a bit of birding today -- it's a good thing, since we didn't do much else today. ;-)

We started off Morton's road where we saw a lot of vultures, with a pair of Caracara among the crowd. Unfortunately, they were shy of us and we didn't get any pictures. We went around the corner and saw several ducks and geese along with some sort of small heron-like bird in a tree. We thought to backtrack to look for the Caracara (no luck) and saw this White Throated Sparrow.

We headed south then around to Cardiff road by the new airport and I noticed some strange shapes in a tree there. When we stopped to look, we saw that it was two great horned owls! The one on the right is easier to see -- notice the redish color of the eye disks, which suggest this is the Eastern sub-species.

Here's the one on the left. I think it was the more alert of the pair, though it 's difficult to tell due to the great number of tree limbs in the way.













As you can see the one on the right was still "snoozing" -- however, over several pictures, you could see that it sometimes turned it's head the other way. Marc hooted at them to get their attention.

Since we were "parked" on the street, we had our flashers on. A sheriff came up to see if we were ok. He noticed our cameras, and asked if we were just taking pictures. We assured him that was what we were doing. I told him there were two owls in the tree. He was friendly, but didn't seem too impressed.


From the excitement of the owls, we went over to our usual haunt along Woods road. There we saw a lot of hawks near to the ground (along with lots of geese and Sandhill cranes). This one was a real surprise! When I startled him, he took off with his kill -- a large rat. I have a picture, but thought you might not really want to see the gory part.

All in all, a good birding day!

Variability in Red Tail Hawks

Of course, no bird watching outing would be complete without the ubiquitous Red Tail Hawks. Of course, we think "ubiquitous" is a good thing when it comes to Red Tail Hawks! ;-)

We saw this beautiful hawk along the dirt road that parallels Old Hwy 90. We have begun to label some of the raptors we've seen by their "locations". But along Hwy 90, we've seen as many as 14-16 hawks along the road. This particular hawk was not too disturbed by our approach and I was able to get some good shots.








Here, he's getting a good sideways look. I was very pleased with the outcome of these shots, as all of these pictures came out really clear and sharp. I'm not sure if I'm getting better with the camera, or just lucky. Probably the latter. ;-)





After the hawk above decided to fly, we headed over to one of our other favorite bird watching sites -- Woods Road. We passed the North Woods Road Kestrel and the South Woods Road Kestrel -- Marc wondered if maybe they are really a pair? We didn't see the Harrier that usually hunts on the West side of the road, today.

A little further down (South) on the left, we saw this hawk. It was very skittish and flew when we came even with the telephone pole before the one it was perched on. However, it flew toward us a bit, and I was able to get this shot -- wow!

I believe this is the "white eyebrow" hawk that I have pictures of below (in "Spring Migration" and "Hawk of the Day"). We were in this hawk's "usual location". Look at the white band across the tail! This is not uncommon -- but on this hawk the band seems pretty wide. This is one of the better shots I've gotten of this hawk -- definitely one to be proud of!

I should mention, that on the way home, we saw a Crested Caracara flying off in the distance -- too far for a picture -- but we have a good idea of that bird's territory too -- so we'll have to head out there and see if we can find it.... maybe tomorrow.

Beginning of Spring Migration

I can tell that it's the beginning of spring migration. Most of the American Goldfinches are gone. After two days, our feeders are still mostly full, which means we're down to our resident birds. Over the last couple of months we've been going through about 14 lbs. of birdseed a week! And most of that ended up on the ground because the finches threw out the seeds they didn't like.

Another way to tell is that we made our usual weekend birding trek and saw very few birds. In a period of 2 hours, I only took 15 pictures. With a digital camera, that's almost none!

However, I got lucky. One hawk that I saw decided to fly around instead of away. I think this may be the "hawk of the day" from yesterday, or at least a relative. Notice the white "eyebrows".

It kept flying back and forth, probably looking at us (or at our vehicle) to see what we would do. But it enabled me to get some pretty good shots. (Not perfect, but not bad, either!)


Here's a shot from the "under side". When I saw this hawk on the telephone pole, I thought it might be the Krider's that we saw last year. It's the same area, so that's a possibility.

Now here's a surprise. The hawk below is a different bird from the one above. We ended up quite a ways north of our normal route, on FM 529 -- not a good road for stopping and taking pictures! There were two hawks on a telephone pole cross-bar and not much traffic, so we turned around to look. One flew right away, but the second thought about it for a moment. Then flew! I snapped a really quick shot, being certain that it wouldn't come out at all. Well, it's the usual "hawk flying away" shot -- but it turned out pretty well. So all in all, not too bad for a slow birding day!


I should mention that one of the birds we were particularly looking for today was an Eastern Bluebird. We haven't seen any since those shots I took in January. Well, surprisingly, we did see one. Just one. And it was on one of those roads without shoulders and with traffic. So I didn't get a photo. But I'll keep trying. Just be aware that I'm easily distracted by hawks -- I'm sure you're surprised at that! ;-)

Red Tails up close

We stopped the car almost directly beneath this hawk. I had to twist around and shoot almost vertically to get this shot. But WOW! I think it was worth it. I got three good shots of this guy before he flew. (The other two are almost identical to this one -- so I'm sparing you! ;-)


We traversed our birding route in reverse today. And I saw this hawk sitting on a post not too far from the road. Of course, as soon as we stopped he flew. This one appears to be a bit lighter than the one above. As I've mentioned before, Red Tail hawks have a huge variation in their coloration.

In addition to these hawks, I also saw the hawk with the missing primary on his right wing. He was sitting on a fence post not 10 feet from us, but we did not stop quickly enough, and then he flew. I was unable to get a shot. However, this time he was much closer to our house, perhaps a mile (or maybe less) from where we usually see him.

Red Tail Hawk

This Red Tail was perched in a tree along our usual "path". All the birds were struggling today because it was very windy. This bird seems to be a darker morph than some of the other birds, especially those along Woods Road (see post below). But like all Red Tails, they are uneasy around people -- so of course he flew!

This is a great shot, except for one thing. Have you ever seen a headless bird flying?

One nice thing about this shot, is you can really see the red tail. I think these birds "flash" that tail on purpose -- it really does stand out.


Here's another shot. You can clearly see the bird's underside and the little "moons" at the ends of the wings just at the base of the primaries.

I'm not sure if this is the same bird I saw week before last. It does look like he's lost a few feathers on the right wing.

Sunday Birding

Yes, I know it's Tuesday -- I'm a little late getting these shots up!

We went out Sunday afternoon -- it was a beautiful, clear day. We were hoping to see the Crested Caracara again, so we re-traced Saturday's route. At one place where the road we were on dead-ended into a cross-road, we found this hawk. The small tree in the distance just to the right of the hawk is probably the tree where the hawk and caracara were on Saturday. So this might be that same hawk.


What was so awesome about this hawk was that I was able to walk up within 10-15 feet of the bird and he just sat there!


Here is one of the last shots I took. I even had to back off a little on the zoom lens! I finally made some clucking noises and spooked him. The flying shot didn't come out as well as I had hoped -- you're always taken a little by surprise.

I've noticed that some of my favorite bird photographers talk about shooting from the blinds, and I assume with tripods to support the heavy photo gear (necessary for getting closeups!), but I'm usually out in the open and holding my camera (the new one with the zoom lens is much heavier!).



I'm fairly certain the hawk above is a red shouldered hawk. He's actually facing the camera (or only slightly turned). Notice the red-ish breast and the barring. This hawk was very patient and let me take several shots. Unfortunately, it probably wasn't real worried because all those tree branches were in the way!


Now, here's an interesting scene. I had stopped to get a few shots of the hawk on the right (below here). The hawk sat perfectly still -- not bothered at all by my being there. In fact, I have about 15 shots of the same bird -- it's hardly moved!

In the middle of all those shots, I happened to look over to the left. And here's this feisty mockingbird (I can say that, because they all are feisty -- and they love to pester hawks!).



I finally realized that the poor hawk was as concerned about that troublesome "little bird" as it was about that troublesome person clicking away with a camera. Both needed watching!











Finally, I took some shots of what I usually refer to as "LBB's" (little bitty birds). This first one is an Eastern Phoebe. The water behind is a flooded field (probably a rice field). We have a lot of those in our area...


This bird, I thought was a sparrow, until I unloaded the picture from the camera and looked a little more closely (yes, it's seriously cropped!). It appears to be a yellow rumped warbler -- but it doesn't quiet match the drawings in the bird book. So I guess we'll have to give this one a maybe!