Posted on 10/02/2018 6:50:46 PM PDT by Chipper
Going to start this back up, with permission from Islander7. Posts, comments and stories for the birders/birdwatchers/twitchers on FR. Post and share.
I was walking through a small sanctuary in my county, when I had two Barred Owls paying very close attention to me. I happened to look straight up over my left shoulder and saw why.
Then on the other side of the tree I saw another reason why. One of the best birding experiences I have had. 
Parent bringing in the food. 
The other watchful parent 
Barn Swallow 
Northern Harrier so focused on hunting it was within 30 feet of me flying. 
Cackling Goose - rare but regular here in Michigan 
Burrowing Owl from a trip out West. 
Anna's Hummingbird 
This picture I had Mallard drake come by the dock I was on and got some decent pictures of. Shortly after it passed by I hear quite the commotion. Two Mallard drakes started to fight behind me. I started snapping pics and didn't even realize until about 1/2 through there was a third Mallard under the pile. Unbeknownst to me a pair were in the middle engaging in Springtime activities, and the second drake wasn't taking kindly to that. I did a gif that compiles all the pics I took (will take a little while to load). There are times where the two bottom ducks were completely submerged. 
I am very much a novice photographer, so after my first point and shoot camera, I now use a bridge camera to help me get shots where at least I can ID a poor creature that makes it way into my yard. I use a Panasonic DMC
FZ-1000. Every day I learn something new on this camera.
Fabulous! Every one of those is new to me! Thanks for sharing!
I’m also looking forward to having Redpolls headed this way too. We missed the Crossbill irruption in my county last year.
Great shots!!! Caracara are a bird I really want to find someday.
I highly encourage the use of eBird for birding. Also they have an extensive collection of photos, videos and sounds
along with a ton of data on birds. Photos can be found at link. You can search by species or even to as small as within a county.
https://ebird.org/media/catalog
We are actually 2 miles east of Lowell. We have seen an increase in 2 others that we used to see every year - the rufous sided towhee (usually males) and the red breasted nuthatch. We have seen them the last 2 years after a long absence. This summer we also saw a gorgeous male prothonotary warbler on our deck. I got pictures but none are very good. From a distance with a cell phone. But it was unmistakable what he was.
eBird is a useful tool. I’ve used it to see how many eagles a day are seen on the Susquehanna River at Conowingo Dam in Maryland. Large numbers of bald eagles migrate south past that dam in the November to February period. Here is an example eBird report of 100 bald eagles one November day at Conowingo
https://ebird.org/pa/view/checklist/S15844374
I’ve seen a few eBird reports of several hundred bald eagles a day at Conowingo.
I am a supporting member of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the organization that runs eBird. They used the White-tailed Hawk photo I just posted to you on their ‘All About Birds’ web site where it was posted as being taken by ‘swamp birder’ (my name on the ‘Flickr’ web site). They flipped my image of the hawk so that it is shown flying to the right. See: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-tailed_Hawk
:-D GORGEOUS! THANKS!
I have photos to post but I have been locked out of my Flickr account. I think it has to do with yahoo getting hacked...
Did they get permission to use it, or did they not need to?
Red-breasted Nuthatches are irrupting this year. I saw two a couple of weeks ago in a Park I didn’t expect to see them in. They were a nemesis bird for me for a couple of years.
Red-breasted Nuthatches are irrupting this year. I saw two a couple of weeks ago in a Park I didn’t expect to see them in. They were a nemesis bird for me for a couple of years.
With this cold snap I’ve got to get some suet cakes. I put the cage out a couple of days ago. I have to anchor it to a steel crook because of the pileated. It’s the birdola size one but I don’t buy their cakes, not enough fat and the cake just crumbles on the ground. I get 2 cases of 12 each for the winter that’s usually enough.
May I be added to the ping list please?
Thank you.
You are now added.
I miss the Swampman... Especially since I quit my city job and now work on a ranch, tons of birds... but most interesting are a pair of big ravens (watched them raise babies twice in a nest just off the road) who are talkative, smart, and really in charge.
Also, the monsoon rains in New Mexico filled our catchment ponds... and one day there was a blue heron in the north one.
Almost didn’t believe it (we’re at 7000’), but having grown up on the Chesapeake once it got up and flew, I had not doubts. The water stuck around to get some Teals too.
Thank you.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a group called Birdshare on Flickr where folks can donate photos to them. Birdshare's rules say the following:
"To avoid possible copyright infringement, you may only submit photos taken by you. By contributing to this group, you are granting permission for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to reproduce your photos on the Lab's websites. Example uses include photographs published on our All About Birds species pages, the Cornell Lab's home page, and on All About Birds. If we would like to use your photos for any purpose other than on our websites, we will contact you first using flickr mail. In all uses, we will link back to your flickr page and credit you when possible (using your flickr username or your full name if we know it)."
I donated my white-tailed hawk photo to them by posting it to Birdshare.
I have a small cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks in the back end of a wooded cove. We have some Pileated that live in those woods. When I have put a suet feeder out as a couple of others do, the Pileated comes by 3 times a day. 6:00, 11:30 and 4;30. It is uncanny how regular to those exact times he comes by making is rounds around the cove.
Where many birds are oblivious to us inside, the bird is of a size and eye development that makes him very skittish. But pictures don’t convey how big these birds are in real life. Hanging on the suet feeder upside down and wrapped around it they look the size of a cocker spaniel.
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