Daily Bird Pics #425

This board is blessed with excellent participation from its viewers, so it doesn't take long to zip through a thread. My pleasure to start a new one.

I spent yesterday impersonating a computer nerd. After a problem where I thought I'd lost 17,000 photos, my two laptops spent all day and into the night transferring them to one hard drive which will be backed up on Carbonite today. No more external hard drives.

I'll start this thread off with a pic of a little thug. This Sharp-shinned hawk makes daily passes over my feeders. One day he took a junco out of the air not ten feet from me. The other day I sneaked up over one of the pond dams to shoot some Ring-necked Ducks, knowing they'd flush as soon as my head popped over the dam. This sharpshin came out of nowhere repeatedly hitting one of the ducks in the air until he drove it to the ground. But, a duck is too big for him, it escaped. I haven't seen the ringers back on the pond, though.

In this shot the sharpshin has just dive-bombed Mama on the mealworm feeder and came back to it to sit. Common behavior for these guys to hang around where they have made an unsuccessful attack, hoping for the prey to return.

We came from this thread http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1233092/#new

Some Green-winged teal have been spending some time on one of our three neighborhood ponds. Very wild, they won't let me approach and normally stay on a pond that is hidden from view by the road and must be approached by foot. This day they were on the lower pond and were busy preening in the morning sun. I just parked the car and shot out the passenger window.

Not a bird in this pic, but there are plenty of birds around here. A pic of a winter sunset on the waterfalls from one of the upper ponds to the big pond. The sky was on fire. Taken from my study porch with a 400 mm lens.

This message was edited Dec 15, 2011 6:10 AM

Beautiful photos red...i love the sunset!

Beautiful pictures. The hawks are so pretty, but I don't want them to eat birds at my feeder ! The sunset is gorgeous.

Beautiful start to this thread. Love the hawks and the sunset. From the last thread, Margaret those Galahs are beautiful.

Wonderful pics red! Love that sunset!

Thanks for starting the new thread!

Wow, the last photos in the previous thread were wonderful everyone!

Red, thank you for the new start. Great photos of your sharpie and teals. That sunset photo is just breathtaking-hope you'll save it for a contest.


Here's one of my Mourning Doves.

A Golden-crowned Sparrow.

And this little "conehead" is one of many sweet Oak Titmice.

A Yellow-rumped Warbler through the window.

Our Robins and Cedar Waxwings are really beginning to arrive now.

Love the pictures on the last thread.
Red, beautiful shot of the Sharp-shin Hawk, what I see of you pound is very lovely. Thanks for a great start.

These and some Blue Jays are about all I have here.
.

And a few Pigeons

A proud Blue Jay.

A shy Goldfinch.

Very nice opener red!

Cute "conehead" duc!

O my burn has pretty snow shots!!

I envy those berries in duc's yard. What a background for bird pics. That's a fancy feeder, burn. This is an old pic I took in Feb. of this year. Just ran across it and posted to my Flickr phototstream 'reddirtpics'. If you're on Flickr, or even if your not, stop by and take a look. Flickr is a great way to share pics with friends and relatives. These little House Finches were seeking shelter from a cold blowing snow on my study porch.

Burn that snow looks mighty cold! Love that feeder house-can't believe you can get the doves to come up there. Nice photos of your birds.

Red, cute finches in your photo.


Here's one of our Northern Flickers.

An Oak Titmouse.

This is the only time of year that I can find my Anna's Hummingbirds actually sharing the feeder ports on the feeder. I just have two feeders out and one male will not let any other hummer drink from it. That leaves over a dozen birds to drink from the other one.

UNBELIEVABLE DUC! I've never seen that. I wouldn't even have imagined that hummers would drink from the same port at the same time. Incredible!

Couple of photos taken back on the 11th.

Brown Creeper.....

And the Pileated Woodpecker....

Great creeper Nanny!
Great shots everyone.
Red, eye-popping start. Had no idea that Sharp-shins behaved like that even with big birds.
Burd, forgot to congratulate you on the last thread for getting published. That's awesome.
Burn, can hardly look at those snowy pics. It just makes me cold. I'm amazed that you can take such good pics in that light.

Lovely shots everyone. Duc I would not ever believe hummers would share a port. Amazing photo.

very beautiful. what a great photographer

Yesterday, went to the Viera Wetlands, the waste water treatment facility for Melbourne FL. Heavily overcast, but still got some great shots. Vehicles are no longer allowed on the dikes, which has improved the photo opportunities. The birds are a lot calmer now, and are hanging closer to the shoreline. This Limpkin was a first time photo for me.

This Great Blue Heron likes to fish at this inflow pipe.

Green Heron

I like the tongue on this Great White Egret

Lots of Coots, chattering among the water plants.

Young Blue-winged Teals.

A few Hooded Mergansers out in the open water.

Snowy Egret

A Little Blue Heron

Tri-colored Heron

Awesome shots!!

Wonderful shots bsharf! Love that Limpkin!