For those who saw my black and white posting referring to a superstitious bird (knocking on wood, of course) linked below, I thought I would share a photo of the actual culprit, the pileated woodpecker himself. He was on a huge and very old maple that is one of my favourite trees, behind our house. This bird is doing his best to bring it down single handed beaked.
But isn't it supposed to be spring?
This hawk sat in the tree outside our house keeping an eye on our bird feeders, during another snowstorm. Most of the photographs we took were spoiled by having so much snow flying across the bird that it was not even clear what it was. Also, the camouflage of this bird is striking and unless you looked very carefully you couldn't even see it at all. And yes, this was taken in April. So this poor hawk is probably thinner than usual and desperately in need of a good meal although the fluffed up feathers make him look big and fat. Will this winter ever end?
Apparently it will and the clue is the sound of birdsong is filling the air as it always does in the spring. We even had an invasion of robins that managed to find some verges that had been cleared of snow by the plows next to the towering banks of white snow.
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HQSP Birds
#hqspbirds +HQSP Birds curated by +Andy Brown +Dilip Mundkur +Wade Cochran and +Serkan Mutan
#backyardbirdingmonday +Backyard Birding Monday #BackyardbirdingMonday by +Celeste Odono +Ricky L Jones +Marilou Aballe
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We have an abundance of beautiful birds here, many of them being majestic birds of prey. The most commonly admired is the bald eagle, but we have hawks and owls as well. I just caught this red tailed hawk as it soared overhead when we were on our walk in our back garden. These raptors always make me hold my breath as they seem so proud, elegant and free in the skies over the poor earthbound mortals crawling around on the ground beneath.
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and
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And for
#minimalmonday +Olivier Du Tré
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Until I learn otherwise, I am saying that it is probably an immature female wood duck, as identified by +Mike Goodwin and seconded by +Stephen Thackeray – thanks a lot you two! I will change the title once we are 100% sure.
Another young bird photographed on the same overcast rainy day in Miner's Marsh in August. I thought it was a young mallard, but I see more clearly now that it probably isn't, as there seem to be no photographs of mallards with white stripes around the eyes and the base of the bill is not the right colour. There are many wrong things about it (not wrong, of course, just wrong for mallard) in my thinking, so I am stumped here. My bird app has not come up with an answer. Can you?
If you can identify it I will amend the title with the species name and credit you with the identification! (Now there's incentive for you! 😉 – it can be a real claim to fame. LOL)
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I walked around the Kentville Miner's Marsh area a few weeks ago, on a dull day and managed to see quite a number of wildfowl, many of which were too far away to get decent photographs especially as the light was poor and it was windy. This youngster was swimming and diving not too far from the shore and I got several of him. I thought at the time that when he went underwater it was almost as if he didn't so much dive as simply submerge out of sight. Almost as if he sank underwater.
He was a little hard for me to identify and even another (much better) bird photographer didn't have any idea what he might be, looking at my photographs. I was a little disheartened (feeling that my images had not done the bird justice) until I found it on my bird identification app and the images of it were no better than this one. He looks very odd, quite like a clown as the article below says.
Today I found this information about the species, which is the second smallest grebe found in North America. http://ecobirder.blogspot.ca/2010/11/adventures-of-clown-duck.html
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This was the photograph I got of them yesterday. I owe it, in part, to Linda who walked with me and Joni (and waded with us through the incoming tide that caught us unawares) as, when I hesitated as to whether to bring my camera or not, she said "you always take your camera everywhere", so I did. And I had chosen the right lens, for once.
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I was very taken with the faces of these diving ducks (see a couple diving on the right side), as they had wonderful markings that reminded me of a fashion statement that is made by some young people. They put a huge grommet in their ear or nose and it looks as if it is a round black hole. I find it a rather odd look for a human being (and I have had trouble trying to stop staring at it when being served by a shop assistant sporting one or more of these). For a diving duck it seems somehow just right.
(You have this photograph instead of one of construction work, as somehow I think you will find it more interesting!)
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Original Post: Waiting for the Spring Floods to Subside – 86/365 – April 11, 2014
