Nature Photography (Formally Spring is in the Air)

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Oh wow, lovely photos of the waterfowl. Beautiful @ceratopsian

I have see  a heron a couple times now, so there's that. Also I'm surprised that wood pigeons can fit into our bird table so well.

[Halichoeres]

Very nice shots! On the one hand, ducks can be nice subjects because they're not as frenetic as smaller birds, but on the other hand, sometimes they're way the hell out in the middle of the water.

[Patrx]

Nice photos, all! Glad to see this thread is back up and thriving.
I've been spending some time looking at birds this spring:



Grackles are so underrated!



Some pretty birds, but not my best photos.


I like the colors in this shot.

[ceratopsian]

........
I like the colors in this shot.

As you should!  It's very harmonious.

Grackles are new to me.

[Patrx]

The common grackle is indeed so common around here that most folks ignore or outright dislike them. I think they're fantastic, though! The subtle iridescence, those intense yellow eyes — what's not to like?

[Halichoeres]

Nice photos! I like icterids in general. I used to work at a zoo and in the aviary I liked listening to the overlap between the oropendolas inside and the grackles outside.

[Gwangi]

I also enjoy grackles and find them beautiful, red-wing blackbirds too.

[ceratopsian]

More youngsters appearing as spring advances:

Canada Geese raising just two goslings:





And the ever photogenic male Mandarin, flaunting his splendour!

[Halichoeres]

That Mandarin just begs to be photographed. It reminds me of the one that was hanging out in Central Park in New York a couple of years ago. A big draw even for people who aren't normally birders.

[Halichoeres]

Went to Mazon Creek last weekend looking for fossils (didn't find much although a few apparent nodules are in the freezer just in case). But the lake (really a nuclear plant cooling pond) looked suitably prehistoric in the cool, damp morning:

[Stegotyranno420]

Looks lovely. Very peaceful

[ceratopsian]

An evocative image.

[Gwangi]

That's a scene that I can appreachiate. Thanks for posting @Halichoeres.

[Halichoeres]

It's migration season in temperate North America, and as usual I'm seeing stunned or dead birds around. This brown creeper was outside the building I work in. I picked it up and tried to put it in a tree, but it had other ideas:




I stood next to an oak sapling for more than ten minutes waiting for it to move voluntarily, until I finally figured out I could nudge it by wiggling my fingers under its toes. It finally darted into the foliage.

[Gwangi]

I'm going to try to resurrect this thread and keep it going. I miss the interactions we used to have here and seeing everyone's local wildlife. I'm also going to modify the thread title since it's not clear what this thread is about. Here's hoping.

Lets kick things off with some trail camera pictures I got. I got this trail camera for Christmas and have been periodically setting it up in my backyard. So far the critters I get the most are a pair of red foxes, one with a busy tail and another with a mangy one. I knew these foxes were around, having seen and heard them periodically, but it seems like they're in my yard every night. Shockingly, I have chickens, and in the five years I've lived here I've never lost one to a predator. I also managed to get a pair of raccoons on the camera. They must also be well behaved because they've never raided my trash can, despite it being easily accessible.











The last pictures are of about 15 turkey vultures. Why the vultures? Well, I defrosted my garage freezer and dumped some freezer burnt meat in my backyard. They made short work of it.





Also, a cat. Not thrilled about outdoor cats.



That's it for now. I got HUNDREDS of trail camera pictures and videos of these critters but it would be redundant to share more than this. I'll try to keep contributing here in the future and hopefully you will too.

[ceratopsian]

Taken at a local reserve not that far outside London in the recent cold weather: a Little Egret enjoying winter sun.  I was hugely surprised to find these birds were in the UK when I started birding in 2020 - when I was a child they were not resident in the UK.  I think they began moving in from the Continent in the 1980s and are now pretty widespread.  More recently their relatives the Great White and Cattle Egrets have begun moving in.



And the bird we'd gone in the hope of seeing - the highly elusive (and tiny) Jack Snipe.  We see Common Snipe regularly but this was the first Jack I'd ever seen. They are so hard to find that it's difficult to know how rare they are. They bob constantly when feeding as if on a spring like a child's toy - but this one was keener on sleeping. Lemsford Springs used to be a watercress farm and it has shallow, swift flowing water that doesn't freeze, so it attracts birds from round about in bitterly cold weather.

[Gwangi]

Thanks for sharing @ceratopsian. The egret is lovely, and congrats on the snipe, they're certainly harder to spot than those egrets.

I live in the U.S. and we now have cattle egrets from Africa. They somehow got from Africa to South America and from there have expanded north, reaching the U.S. by the 1940's. Now they're common across the country. The benefit of wings, I guess. And another example of an animal that has benefitted from human altered environments. 

[Erwinonychus]

In daily life I work as an ecologist so I'm visiting places few can visit. For a contractor  I investigated, among other things, breeding birds in existing high-voltage pylons which were being upgraded (renewal and up scaling of the network).

During preparatory work at the beginning of August, these young Eurasian hobbies were found within the work area. Eurasian hobby is an highly protected bird in the Netherlands so work was then halted around this pylon to prevent violations of the Nature Conservation Act.

These chicks were about 14-18 days old at this time. Two of them reached their adult-stage.

[Gwangi]

Spectacular, although getting to see a raptor nest up close would not be enough to get me to climb something like that. You're a brave soul.

[ceratopsian]

I feel giddy just looking at that!  For us they are a quite rare summer visitor and always bring a thrill of excitement. Beautiful creatures.