Bird Watching: Daily piccies vol 428

lastly an orange variant House Finch.

Nanny, your Downies are not going to be happy with you--the feeder is empty! LOL

Wonderful shots Burd. Those Redpolls are gorgeous.

Thank you GG for the new thread, love everyone's pics. but I like to congratulate Burd and Ladi on your lifers the R.P. What's a striking looking bird! Rose glad to see you've one of those Purple Finches. And Burd the Orange variant HF is a cutie pie too! Elvis too is a hoot.

This morning, I had a visit from the Belted Kingfisher, it's a pleasure watching this bird while enjoying my morning cup of java.

I hope this is a better pic.

Over the weekend, I spotted this male Northern Flicker, though the pic. sorta blurry. I like to see him with his winter plumage at this odd angle.

Same bird;

The wind blew down the pie pan off the platform feeder this morning, so the seed is on the ground, and I went out and picked the pan off the ground and put some more water in the one on the cement block, and put my chunk of concrete in it to keep it from blowing off. Maybe the tree will block some of the wind. But there is enough seed on the ground and the round feeder so I aint going to put any more out there until they get some of that gone. It is too expensive to throw away like that, and besides the weather is supposed to warm up some. I am thinking of trying to put some higher sides on the platform feeder so the wind won't blow the seeds away but have to think about that.

Saw this Cooper Hawk among a small flock of Fish Crows that hovering around the hawk while it was hunting for small critters on the ground? Not sure what the Hawk was after, but my chickadees and other finches didn't seem to be on guard with the hawk's presence, which seem to be a little unusual?

Hope the weather becomes warmer soon teddy.

Nice birds, burd! Enjoyed the Redpolls, don't get them here. Lily, loved the kingfisher, haven't seen one in awhile, although one sometimes visits our ponds. A pic of a couple of Northern Bobwhites taken in the Oklahoma Trails exhibit at the OKC Zoo. It features birds and animals native to Oklahoma. These guys are very secretive in the wild.

A Red-crested Pochard from the OKC Zoo. A diving duck that is native to Europe and Asia. Winters in India and Africa. The males like this one are unbelievably beautiful.

Beautiful photos everyone!

We went to the Sacramento Wildlife Refuge this past week and it was sad to see some of the marshes were dry from the lack of rain. The snow geese were there with lots of other waterfowl, but they mostly remained in areas farther from the road that had water.
Here's a friendly little snowy egret that didn't mind me stepping up closer for a few photos.

Some snow geese.

Thought I'd found my first owl in the marsh, but thanks to Resin and OldNed, I found this was a female northern harrier. I was told they were nicknamed a marsh hawk.

Besides the harrier, I got several more lifers like this ring-necked pheasant which was one of my favorites.

Another lifer, a Loggerhead Shrike.

Beautiful photos everyone! Nice to see some color up there in Sandusky!

Got several good pictures of the usual crowd, tufted titmice,chickadees, nuthatches and a female Cardinal. Is that a Carolina Wren next to the Cardinal on the left?

Great shots everyone. That Pheasant is beautiful.

I like this guy "eyeballing" the suet. Taken through a window, so quality is a bit crappy.

Gosh....I would just love to have a Redpoll show up, would love to get a Snow Goose, the pheasant is gorgeous! I haven't seen a shrike for a long time around here. And hawks are always cool!

I had a male Blue Bird out back today but I was to slow getting the camera and he got away! lol

teddy, that looks like a house sparrow to me. How neat that would be if you got a Carolina Wren!

Very nice pictures, ducbucln. We've seen a couple ring-necked pheasants across the road from our place. Beautiful birds.

Yep, all House Sparrows, except for the Cardinal and the B-c Chickadee at the front. Here's the pic brightened a bit.

Resin

Great pics everyone!

Duc, Congratulations of the Lifers!

We're starting to see a lot of European Starling coming to the feeders.

Congrats on the lifers, duc. That pheasant is a handsome bird. I don't have one on my life list, even though I've shot hundreds of them. Started a life list a couple of years ago and just went forward with it. Although, I should probably add the Lesser Prairie Chicken. Don't know if I'll see another or not.

My nemesis from last winter is back-- the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. He is after the same young Live Oak. I wrapped it, but he moved to the top, you can see the holes he made in one morning. The sap just pours out. I've wrapped it some more, hopefully he will move on. Anyway my cockatiel Peaches has caught on that I run him off like the squirrels and she now warns me if he's out there. Smart bird.

The sapsucker.

This handsome robin was in the tree at the same time, so I snapped its pic.

Have 3 scaup on the big pond today. I think they are Greater, from their head shape and the black nail and broad bill. I'll try to get some better pics in the a.m. if they are still there. Taken at some distance and cropped and bad light.

I was backing out of my driveway this morning and happened to glance toward my neighbors' yard and noticed this Red-shouldered Hawk standing on the flagpole. I pulled back in and went inside to get my camera, not expecting it to stay there, but it did and I got a few shots. It was very overcast, so I had to lighten it considerably.

This message was edited Jan 16, 2012 7:41 PM

Nice Hawk Gardenpom!
Lily, I like your hawk shot too! Fish crows are rare around here but saw my first ones on the last day of December. Went to the same area and saw some on Saturday and then two friends of mine spotted one at my favorite haunt!
Burd, nice shots. Love the yellow House Finch. I have one yellow and one orange and have been trying to get a good shot. I have some OK ones. Might share a kind of funny one.
Nanny, still hanging on to that Woodpecker crown! Two at once is cool.
Red, great sapsucker! Like the others too.
Shoot, I don't know who I'm forgetting but really enjoying all the great birds.

I was going to post this on the awful bird pics thread, but a friend of mine likes it, so maybe you will too. The bird posed perfectly. The problem was the light. It was so cloudy that it was almost dark out and then he went deep in tree which was even worse. I wish I had thought to try the flash. Still he's pretty cool. He looks like a parrot in this shot. Looks like he should be one of Margaret's birds! -- a Pyrrhuloxia.

Just a bad hair day, elphaba. Got better pic of one of the scaup and a Ring-necked Duck this a.m. Still cropped quite a bit. These guys will fly if I approach on foot, but swim to the middle of the pond if I drive the car up. The scaup had his yellow eye closed in this shot.

Teddy, your sparrows are cute.

Granny, your wp is a cutie too-love that curious look.

Nanny, sorry you missed your bluebird.

Pelle, I know you don't care for the starlings, but I wish our "three" would come to our feeders.

Red, that's cute about Peaches warning you. Great shots of the robin and scaups.
GP, nice shot of your hawk.

Elphaba, I'd be happy just to get that photo of your bird. They are such pretty birds.

Yesterday was the first day our Western Bluebirds came to the tabletop fountain on our deck.

Here's a handsome male.

Now we have two Red-tailed Hawks prowling for food around our house. Here's one keeping guard while the other flies off.

As if the red-tailed hawks aren't enough, the Sharp-shinned showed up too.

I think our resident crows got fed up with the hawks. Here's one of them chasing after a red-tailed.

Ducbucln, I'd like our Red-tailed hawk to come back. It never seemed to bother our feeder birds.
Today was probably our best day all winter for number of birds. I could not keep track of how many Juncos and house finches there were.
This guy scours the fields for rodents we guess. He flies low to the ground and will hover looking for food. The Northern Harrier started coming around here mid-December.

Duc, it's so nice to have the Blue Birds revisiting the birdbath. I'm glad to see the resident crows chasing the hawk away. I watched the fish crows sorta 'gathering' near by, but not actually attacking the hawk here on several occasion. Elphy, fish crows are sizable birds. Just because I'm near the lake, I get to see them 'fishing' many a time to the back yard. Here is one next to an American Goldfinch for size comparision.

Northern Hawk Owl a top a frosted Black Spruce tree, Anchorage, Alaska 1/16/2012.

Closeup of a Northern Hawk Owl a top a frosted Black Spruce tree, Anchorage, Alaska 1/16/2012.

Black-billed Magpie, Anchorage, Alaska, 1/16/2012