Daily pics vol.10

OK, that's better.

Ummmmm, Yummy!

Lily: You hit it on the head. Planting, transplanting, digging, pruning, weeding, watering. etc,etc, etc.! :D
I love your wren pics. Today, I was clearing out some of my gardening "junk" that had cluttered the garage over the winter and discovered a wren is building a nest in the garage. This could be a problem since we close it during the day when we're not at home. Torn between discouraging the birds but tearing out what they've built, and leaving the garage door open for a few weeks! Hmmmm.
Deb

Beautiful pics Lily!!

Both woodpeckers have been coming down to the feeders and taking food away with them, hopefully a young one will accompany them someday soon.

I was trying to get some shots of high flyers today....this looks like the red shouldered Hawk, but not a very good shot.

Resin~ Right away Ben said this is a flycatcher, but which one is it?

gardenpom, your hawk looks like an osprey to me.
Great photos everyone!

Gardenpom, I concur with tigerlily. Looks like an Osprey to me.

Deb, your flycatcher looks like a Western Kingbird to me. So tell Ben he was right.

Bird watching at Palmer, Alaska this evening, 4/29/2007 at 7:27 PM, I took this picture of Canada Geese landing.

This flock of Snow Geese arrived a little earlier at 6:47 PM. There was plenty of action for hours, again tonight. I try snapping the pictures with the Talkeetna Mountains in the back ground. Some flocks just refuse to fly in front of the good back ground.

This flock of Snow Geese landed at 6:31 PM, but insisted on flying in front of the State Forestry's airport facilities and a communications tower. Trying to follow a flock and snap pictures puts the tower in too many otherwise good shots.
The air show lasts several hours each evening, during the migration. Early risers can return for the take off in the morning.

Spectacular!! I feel like I'm right there in the middle of the landing space for the canada geese. Thank you for sharing.

I thought he looked too large for the hawk, although there were a bunch of birds flying together, including the hawk and some storks. Here's another far away shot.

Thx Gras! I will tell him. :o). I have seen several patrolling the fields near our house. Man that Alaskan landscape is really breathtaking! Been too long since I've been to the mountains. As you've heard, it's pretty flat here, however the visibility is at least 10 miles on a clear day from the top of a hill.

Lily~ The swallows are precious! I see Barn Swallows here, flying over my yard, hoping to snap up any number of flying insects I keep here. So cool they might lease one of your vacant condos. Glad they get along with mockers too. Love those MBs, the senturies of the garden. They have regular wing flaps with Robins here. Especially when cherries & mealies are put out there.. about 2-3x a day. & I love that Wren!!

GP your offereings are always choice!
Oh Pell, Cardinal in Apple tree.... excellent shot!

:-D

Couldn't see what she (BT Grackle), had in her mouth here> She must have been trolling the fast food joints and got super-size leftovers..lol. That can't be good for them!! (That stuff has already been tested on people, been found to be sorely lacking.)

Is this a Northern Goshawk, or perhaps a Coopers?

Tigerlily, wow!!! How close were you to that guy? Pretty impressive.

Gras, honestly, your photos give me goosebumps (and not from thinking about the cold!) - they are beyond awesome. The scenery is superb, of course, as are the birds, but your ability to capture all that action so beautifully is just wonderful.

Resin, it was a pleasure to see one of your photos - you're usually too busy helping us id our sightings!! Very interesting ducks!

Unique, Deb, Pell, Lilyfantn, Gardenpom, your pics are marvelous - such incredible variety and heartwarming scenes.

I hope to have something to contribute soon - I haven't had much chance to take photos. I need to reset my priorities, I think!!!

The hawk was w/i 20 feet, I suppose. I'd seen it in a dead cedar at the neighbors, and to get into position for images I had to go through my barn and into the pasture area. While I was there, it flew over the barn and landed in front of it. I opened the door slowly to see it sitting on the broken handle of a rake. I was able to snap several more photos before it moved just a few feet to a 2 X 4.
Here is when it moved.

Tigerlily,
I would say your hawk is a Cooper's but I'm no expert. Going by the striped tail feathers.

This message was edited Apr 30, 2007 12:49 PM

Yep, agree with Osprey and Western Kingbird. The hawk (pic above) isn't large enough for Gos, it could be either Cooper's or Sharp-shinned. Difficult to judge the size in the pics, but the square-ended tail in the first pic does tend to favour Sharp-shinned.

Resin

I say Sharp-shinned.

And I say "fabulous pic!"

LOL, Sorry that too! Good job tiger!

Pelle, I was making fun of myself because I am so UNknowledegable about identifying birds! But I sure recognize a good photo when I see one!!!

I had some great visitors today. Pics aren't all that great because they were a distance and I was zoomed to the max.

I think this first pic is of the 2 Indigo Buntings and 2 Rose Breasted Grosbeaks.

Goldfinch

Indigo Bunting and 2 something I am not sure of

Hummer

More finch

Cardinal, Grosbeak and others

Buntings, finch and dove

Very nice pics Mary!!

Wow Mary! You sure are getting a wide variety there! Great pictures! Is there seed in that area? They sure seem to like whatever is there. Boy, the day I see grosbeaks and buntings at my house you will hear me squealing with joy all the way down to Antarctica lol.

There are feeders, but I also scattered quite a bit of seed on the ground, and the ground stuff seems to be what is attracting them. I put sunflower and I also bought a bag of "Wild Finch Blend" from Wal-Mart that has hulled sunflower and millet, etc., I got that specifically for the ground feeders, and they seem to like it.

Fabulous photos, Mary, and I am with Lily - if I ever saw such gorgeous colored birds in my yard, you would hear me shouting for joy!!!

Mockingbird

Cardinal
Now that the leaves are almost completely out on all the trees and shrubs its really getting difficult to see a lot of the birds. I heard a few calls I wasn't familiar with the other day but even with binoculars could not see anything.

Very beautiful shot of the Cardinal against the foliage.

This came out pretty nice. I was happy he stayed around while I got the camera set up. He was really making a racket this morning when I was in the yard, as soon as I went inside he flew to the feeder.

Here's another of him.