Borrowing an idea from this thread…
My wife and I were driving home from shopping this afternoon when not too far in front of my car I saw a blue heron coming in for a landing. I see them fairly often standing in some of the wetlands areas we have nearby, but rarely see them in flight. Very impressive!
I’ve been inside today (too damn hot to go outside!).
We have a hummingbird feeder, and I watched the birds fight over the food.
Possessive little birds!
I saw an indigo bunting out walking the dogs. I was walking the dogs, the bunting was just flying by. My dogs are far too large and strain at their leashes for the bunting to help walk them.
We used to have blue heron in our backyard growing up. My dad had a live well on the shore of the lake, and when he’d have fish in it because he didn’t have time to clean them, the herons would sometimes come have breakfast. He didn’t put fish in it too often :).
A roadrunner running across the [very hot] road.
A black phoebe lives somewhere in my yard and harasses my dogs.
I didn’t go out, except for a few minutes, just saw a White-winged dove and a few Great-tailed grackles. My common yard birds here.
A very interesting bird indeed, but I have no idea what it was. It was quite large and did not resemble any species I am familiar with. My best guess is a young wild turkey not fully feathered so not really looking like a turkey yet. It kind of fell out of a tree right next to me whilst I was hiking, gave me and my dog a puzzled look (which we returned) then it scuttled off.
Thank you for asking. Today, and for the past 3 or 4 years, I have seen a white wading bird in the pond outside my apartment. It doesn’t appear to be very tall; probably less than 24". It very much reminds me of a stork, but I think storks are taller than that.
The bird is always alone and I have never seen it land (water?) or take off.
I never have a camera with me when I go out, but I tried to take a picture from my balcony, but it was too far away and the pic was blurry.
I think though, that I have just figured out what happened to all of the goldfish and crawdads in the pond.
Bob
In the past couple of days, I’ve seen in the wild a bald eagle, several red shouldered hawks, a couple of red tailed hawks, and at least half a dozen swallow tailed kites. Those are just the raptors. Also brown pelicans, royal terns, laughing gulls, black skimmers, common gallinules, double crested cormorants, mottled ducks, black bellied whistling ducks, cattle egrets, common egrets, snowy egrets, great blue herons, wood storks, and sandhill cranes. A dozen or so species of smaller perching birds I’m too lazy to list. That’s driving from home to work and back plus one short side trip to a local wetland where I released a recovered red shouldered hawk. I suppose it’s cheating but the most interesting bird is probably a roseate spoonbill under care in our hospital. I know, I’m lucky – I see a lot of cool birds.
A mess of goldfinches. Lots of bluebirds lately too, just not today.
The local hummingbirds are finally coming around with some regularity to take advantage of the two feeders I’ve set up. We’ve been seeing both Rufous and Black-chinned hummingbirds.
A pair of mourning doves decided this spring that a 4x4 brace under the eaves of our neighbor’s house might be a good spot for a nest. This afternoon I happened to glance up as a sharp-shinned hawk flew up under the eave, perched next to the nest & looked in, then flew on. Looked like he’d found a snack there before & was hoping for a refill. Haven’t seen the doves lately; maybe they’ll look for a more secluded nest site next year.
I went birding today, so I saw about 30 species. Nothing unexpected, but nice views of a wrentit (unusual, they’re quite skulky), a lovely male ruddy duck in shiny breeding plumage, tons of baby mallards, some least terns diving, a few different warblers (yellow, orang-crowned, Wilson’s) and loads of marsh wrens and song sparrows.
And, about ten tiiiiiny baby CA quail! They were right in the yard of the house I’m staying in this week, so hopefully I can get some nice photos of them!
Sounds like a snowy egret. Unless you’re in Florida, you won’t see storks in the USA.
On the pontoon boat we watched several belted kingfishers hunting the Allegheny River. Later, heading up Crooked Creek, we were saw bluebirds. Later still, at home, red breasted grosbeaks at our feeder.
We had an indigo bunting near our finch feeder a few weeks back. My wife was so excited she snapped a blurry picture and texted it to me while I was out of town. We get a lot of goldfinches, house finches, sparrows, and chickadees at the feeder but indigo buntings are pretty rare.
When I go to work today I’ll be keeping an eye out for some scissor-tailed flycatchers that hang out in the parking lot. I often see them flying up to perch on the top of the light poles.
Our birdfeeder has been quite the source of drama but yesterday a little tiny goldfinch chased away two huge black crows who were awkwardly trying to perch and eat.
The two crows moved only a few feet away to the bird bath and the goldfinch continued yelling at them until they flew away - almost tipping over the bird bath when they left. It was really not designed for their… heft.
Lots of Bald Eagles, a Golden Eagle, the resident Kestrel, too many swallows and hummingbirds (Rufus and Anna’s) to count, and a Quail family but the most interesting were the 5 Turkey Vultures eating roadkill. I see them all the time flying but it’s not often that I see them on the ground and so close.
Today so far, just crows. But I love crows. There are lots of them in our neighborhood. When they moved in a couple years ago, the pigeons moved out.
A Red Tail Marsh Hawk is out near where I live. Saw that just driving in after lunch.
