I’m never confident with leucism. My lay understanding is that leucistic = virtually albino, and that’s not the case here. On the other hand I don’t know enough to disagree. Hmmm.
j
I’m never confident with leucism. My lay understanding is that leucistic = virtually albino, and that’s not the case here. On the other hand I don’t know enough to disagree. Hmmm.
j
Leucism can be pretty variable. You can have the classic piebald effect like these different fawns. Or you can just be dilute, like this stag. It just a lack of pigment, but how much pigment is lacking can be all over the map. The other day a guy was showing me some pictures he had taken that morning of a leucistic yellow-rumped warbler and it was a very striking bird, but it looked quite different from this one.
By the by, and weirdly coincidental to both conversations, he was showing me these while we were briefly staking out a sage thrasher like Bumbershoot’s that was in an unusual spot for one. Struck out on that one, though lots of people before and after us saw it as is always the case .
Thanks fot the clarification!
j
This evening, strolling at dusk through Brixham in Devon, we saw about a dozen seals on a pontoon in the harbour. A regular feature apparently.
j
When I was stationed in Monterey California I used to hear the sea lions barking down at the water’s edge of Monterey Bay.
Fifteen or so seals loafing around in the harbor the next morning.
j
ETA, we also saw guillemots, which was cool.
I identified my first “rare”(according to Merlin app) bird today! A ruby crowned kinglet!
It was in a small ornamental tree in a shopping center parking lot.
He let me get real close. I was able to get a great look. I’m going to be riding this high all day!
Oh my gosh, they’re adorable!
A few days ago (Monday, IIRC) the elk were between my pasture and my old bird barn grazing. I got within about 30 yards of them, still too dark to get pictures. Finally got to see my property in the daylight on Friday, they had crossed between the kennel and the house, no more than 50 yards from the house.
My annual start-of-spring photo:
j
ETA: back on Feb 12 I posted a photo of a herd of deer; today, out on the bike again, I saw two herds beside the same road, less than a km apart. I don’t know if it’s the original herd dispersed in two locations - do deer do that, or does a herd stick together?
How do you count sheep if they are all numbered 19? Number 19, number 19, number 19.
You don’t, you simply fall asleep.
Found this good boy in the middle of a gravel road at around 6:30 am. It was light out, but maybe 15 minutes pre-full sunrise. I have to think that he must have crawled out for warmth last night, then the temperature dropped so quickly he got stuck. Because I very much doubt he had crawled out that morning. I picked him up to get him off the road as water agency trucks frequent it and he (probably a he, a pacific gopher snake) was ice cold. He attempted to bite me in suuuuppperrr-slooowww motion. I was so amused by this that as I was watching I let him get too close to my shirt and he latched onto the flannel. And by that I mean his open mouth touched it and the teeth on his lower-jaw got stuck on the fuzziness, because he could barely move his jaws. I eventually had to put everything down and use two hands to carefully extricate him.
Elsewhere I got lucky and a black-crowned night heron flushed an American bittern for me. I would never have found it otherwise. They’re insanely hard to spot in high reeds, even though they’re the size of a goose:
Spring is starting and the marsh wrens are getting very active and very, very noisy:
Also ran across a covey of ~25 California quail. They initially skittered into their blackberry bramble shelter, but after I sat down and stayed motionless for several minutes they emerged again and peacefully grazed within several feet of me for awhile until retreating from dog-walkers again and I moved on:
Oh, good job saving that good snake!
The quail picture is great also. Supposedly we have them in Florida as well, but I’ve never seen one.
This a picture of some deer munching on our camellia bush. They’re in our yard very often, and get quite close to the house. Sometimes I walk up on them by accident.
Nice quail photo. I’ve heard them around here, but have never seen them.
Yay on the bittern photo! They are really hard to get pix of.
We had rain last night/this morning and a little warmer that it’s been, so on our morning walk around the pond we saw a lot of snails. I was struck by one little tiny fellow, about the size of my fingernail, moving down the path. I have certainly never seen one that small. I hope he didn’t get stepped on!
Today my husband saw a wren with a little stick in her beak disappear up underneath the cover of our back patio pizza oven. When he investigated, he found she’d built a palatial nest underneath! It could have caused quite a fire. Fortunately there were no eggs. Poor thing, she’d worked so hard. I imagine her thinking, “Cathedral ceilings… stainless steel…”
Ferrealz? I always pegged them as being significantly smaller. Like cattle egret sized.
Concur on the quail photo - very nicely done.
D’aw. Glad y’all found out before eggs/chicks/fire occurred.
Is there a way to permanently block their access?
Probably not, but we’ll keep on checking and cleaning it out.