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Forum Birdwatching 2012

Well, I'm not a birder, but while I was in Michigan I was visiting one, and we saw a buff-breasted sandpiper, which was apparently migrating, and a Whimbrel, which was standing on one leg. (Both at Whitefish Point).
 
dasmiller said:
Went to Ballona Creek yesterday morning. There's just not a lot there this time of year, and even at the best of times, I rarely get really good pictures there.

I think I counted 15 species, not including a few passing gulls. But that 15 does include crows, mourning doves, mallards, a starling, and other not-terribly-noteworthy birds.

But there was a white-tailed kite flying around, and while it wasn't close enough for great pictures, it was close enough for 'maybe' pictures. This is only the 2nd time I've seen a kite, and the previous time was much farther away and I had to identify it from the picture once I got home.

So not-quite-a-first for me, but close.

[qimg]http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/ii637/das_miller/7A7C3265crop.jpg[/qimg]
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That's a nice looking bird. The longest lens I have is 300mm, so I take a lot of 'maybe' pictures. We get more than the occasional grab shot of something distant or flitting around in the brush, knowing it won't be a keeper photo, but hoping to make an ID when we get home.
 
I did some flyfishing yesterday morning, float tubing Seventeen Mile Lake. It rained the entire time and I didn't get bite one but on the way back to the truck, a pair of common loons let me get quite close before diving. It looked like I might have caught on napping.
 
About this time of year we have these wonderful huge flocks of American White Pelicans moving south along the Illinois River...

Pelicans+005.jpg

These guys have a wingspan of almost ten feet, pretty much the largest of any bird in North America. Sometimes the flocks are several hundred birds. They do this smooth graceful synchronized flying thing. When they turn edgeways the whole flock sort of disappears, then as they turn back flat-ways, the whole flock slowly fades back into view. It's a gorgeous sight.
 
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With a long migration ahead of them, the Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds in Illinois are taking on extra fuel about this time of year. One visitor to our feeder doesn't seem to care about people. He won't even wait until I have a fresh feeder hung up before he comes in to get a drink!

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Great picture GeeMack and wonderfull to think of such a tiny animal taking on such a journey.
Our local ospreys chicks have just set off on their first trip to West Africa and you can track their journeys via satellite here.
 
mummymonkey said:
Great picture GeeMack and wonderfull to think of such a tiny animal taking on such a journey.
Our local ospreys chicks have just set off on their first trip to West Africa and you can track their journeys via satellite here.
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That satellite tracking is a pretty cool use of technology.
 
G'day everyone, I just found this thread, and thought you might be interested in a post I did on the weekend in the Australia thread. I'm not really a bird watcher, but I have an interest in all Australian wildlife. At the monent I have an abundance of bird life in my backyard (10 acres with a dam and bush) I'm lacking a decent camera atm, so good photos are hard to get, but I'll try and show some Australian birds shortly.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8622092&postcount=2830

Please note, it's not my photography. I took the images from google.:o
 
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Nothing special, but yesterday got to watch all morning as an Eurasian jay stocked the pine outside my office window with acorns. Every three minutes he came in over the rooftops, crammed an acorn into some crevice, regarded it sideways, made a satisfied comment to himself, and went off again. Someone's going to be well prepared for winter.
 
We got our first snow of the season last night and I just saw two or three dozen Varied Thrushes moving through the trees around our house. It was very strange seeing so many after a summer with only three or four sightings, which is typical here. I've never seen them gather like that before.
 
Here's a radical raptor looking for some fresh raw chicken breast.

I love these feathered flying machines.:cool:


2012_07_26_IMG_2110.jpg
 
joobie said:
saw this little bird in the park the other day, and it has me and a friend totally stumped as to what it might be (i'm in philadelphia):

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Looks like a Goldfinch in his winter outfit, kind of pale, maybe a bit early in the season for losing that much color. But they can vary quite a bit.
 
someone else said the same thing, but i think the shape of the beak is wrong for a goldfinch.
 
Yep it's a goldfinch, and the raptor in question is a Red-tailed Hawk - great photos!

GeeMack - good on ya for using the el cheapo hummingbird feeders. I run 2-3 of the $0.79 specials from Wal-Mart - no need for the fancy-pants blown glass ones that are hard to clean and store so much nectar that most of it ends up spoiled before it's consumed.
 
thanks for the ID help, guys.

can i ask how you can tell it's a red-tailed hawk? i have a lot of trouble telling the difference between some of the the raptors in the area - we also have cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks and they all look alike to me.
 
joobie said:
thanks for the ID help, guys.

can i ask how you can tell it's a red-tailed hawk? i have a lot of trouble telling the difference between some of the the raptors in the area - we also have cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks and they all look alike to me.
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The white underside of the wing, with some black markings, looks very red-tail to me. Plus the tail isn't striped like an accipiter.

<sigh> I've found that whenever I'm not sure what kind of hawk I've seen, it's a red-tailed hawk. Unfortunately.
 
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