Nature Photography (Formally Spring is in the Air)

[ceratopsian]

Lovely morning for a Sunday walk - brilliant sun - but a biting wind.  We went round a local RSPB reserve, Rye Meads.  We were lucky to see a pair of Oystercatchers drop in.  These are occasionally seen round here, but far from regulars.



Can't beat a Shelduck!



Gadwall are pretty common here but tend to get ignored in favour of flashier relatives.

[Gwangi]

Your oystercatchers look just like ours! The shelduck is beautiful.

[ceratopsian]

It's always a good feeling when that thrill of familiarity strikes, even though we're so far distant!

Your oystercatchers look just like ours! The shelduck is beautiful.

[Gwangi]

I found this cooper's hawk chilling in my chicken yard the other morning. Thankfully, the chickens were still locked in their coop. The hawk was having a hard time escaping the enclosure but finally managed to and hopefully the experience of being confronted by a human while trapped was enough to keep it from coming back. I managed to grab a couple of pictures while it "lightened the load" and then flew off to the neighbor's tree.

[Halichoeres]

Just catching up on this thread, some great stuff here. Love the turtles, @Gwangi, and @ceratopsian, the waterfowl/wader shots are top-notch! Thanks for keeping this thread alive.

[Dusty Wren]

Beautiful hawk shots, @Gwangi. We've got some Cooper's hawks in my area, too. At least, I'm pretty sure they're Cooper's hawks. I'm kind of rubbish at IDing hawks 

Wild turkeys may not be as majestic as hawks, but I like 'em anyway.





 

[Gwangi]

Love the wild turkeys @Dusty Wren. Maybe not majestic per se but certainly impressive, and one of those birds that strongly evokes "dinosaur".

[irimali]

So many great shots of modern dinosaurs!  Those oystercatchers and ducks, and the hawk and the turkeys all posed so nicely for you  

I got these pics of a wild turkey a few years ago right outside my old apartment:

[Gwangi]

Thanks for sharing @irimali. Those are beautiful turkeys. I think turkeys are an underappreciated bird. I always find them impressive and very dinosaurian.

[irimali]

Thanks for sharing @irimali. Those are beautiful turkeys. I think turkeys are an underappreciated bird. I always find them impressive and very dinosaurian.

Agreed!  The first time I saw one running across a path in the woods it really looked like a little dinosaur.  It was maybe 10 years ago when they first started showing up in the city parks so I was not expecting it. 

[ceratopsian]

Went on a trip with my local birding group to the reserve at Stodmarsh, in Kent, at the weekend.  It has massive reedbeds and looks very natural.  It isn't - apparently it was created where the land had subsided due to mining.  (It was a coal mining area.)  Usually I can hear Blackcaps singing but only get a branch-obscured glimpse.  This male was so focussed on singing that he perched only feet away from us in full view.



It's also one of the places in the UK where beavers have been reintroduced.  We saw plenty of evidence of their modification of the tree population:

[Gwangi]

Great picture of the blackcap! And that's cool about the beavers. I actually saw a beaver yesterday, but it was an American beaver of course. They experienced a decline here too thanks to fur trappers but are doing much better these days. Love it when native animals are reintroduced.

[Halichoeres]

Loving both the turkeys and the blackcap!

Beavers were wiped out in Arizona where I'm from, and they've tried reintroducing them. There is a tiny, but stable, population in the San Pedro River. What bad luck for them that they should have such luxuriant pelts.

[triceratops83]

Lousy photo but I had to share "Geckoes Gettin' Freaky"

[triceratops83]

Another lousy photo, this time a Bandicoot.


And a Nephilia, as big as my hand.

[Gwangi]

Thanks for waking up this thread! I don't have anything to contribute for the time being but it would be nice if we could keep the thread going. Cool sightings! I would LOVE to see a wild bandicoot!

[triceratops83]

Thanks for waking up this thread! I don't have anything to contribute for the time being but it would be nice if we could keep the thread going. Cool sightings! I would LOVE to see a wild bandicoot!

My pleasure - I've always enjoyed this thread. I really should contribute to it more often, it's not like I have a shortage of wildlife where I live.

[Halichoeres]

Wow, party time for geckos! I visited Australia once and remember a pair squabbling on a ceiling until one of them fell down.

Never seen a bandicoot, though, that's pretty awesome.

[triceratops83]

Wow, party time for geckos! I visited Australia once and remember a pair squabbling on a ceiling until one of them fell down

They are fun to watch. The gecko on the left in that pic was trying to pull apart the other pair. They get up to some interesting behaviour like when you hear a rummaging sound in the kitchen and it turns out one is in the recyclables bin drinking the dregs of softdrink out of a can.

Never seen a bandicoot, though, that's pretty awesome.

They're pretty common, but hard to photograph because they're nocturnal. Once, my niece came to me and said "Uh... there's a giant rat in the house." Upon investigation it turned out to be a bandicoot eating into a box of birdseed I'd left by the doorway.

Another spider, this time an Argiope.


And an Agile Wallaby. My old camera is starting to play up - the zoom toggle keeps sticking, so I tried to get as close to the animal as possible. But I didn't want to spook it because the road is just to the left of those photos, so I stopped at about forty metres, while it watched me warily.

[Halichoeres]

I don't have anything against our northern temperate spiders, but they're not as photogenic as yours!