Bird Watching: Daily BIRD PICS VOL. 455, 1 by pollengarden

pollengarden wrote:
Oh, my field guides aren't THAT bad. I have an admittedly old Roger Tory Peterson, and a newer National Geographic. Both show the Gadwall approximately the right color. RTP points out the bar between tail and wing shown in picture. But both show the feathers giving the color texture, almost a pattern - like a female Mallard but finer. All the ones I saw had that slick perfectly smooth not-made-of-individual-feathers look. It had me puzzled the first few trips through the field guides.
1 More Gadwalls, backlit so ID was hard
2 Northern Shoveler, IDed by bill as color of head kept changing with the light
3 Mixed batch of birds including Mallards
4 Belted Kingfisher, female with 2 "belts", Lake Pueblo dam in background
5 Killdeer - ID was easy, photo was hard. I could hear it, and if it moved I could usually see it. But when ever it would stand still, it would disappear - and it was even harder to find with the camera.