White Tailed Deer – Wildlife has been very scarce this year. Normally there are over a dozen deer around here and this year I have seen 2 adult female deer. This one has a fawn running around, I have seen it a couple of times, still has its spots on it.
But it is just starting to come out of the woods with mom, so hopefully I will get a few photos of the fawn soon to share here.
Below is a short video of mama deer looking for some food out of my feeder, or click here; White Tailed Deer Standing
Black Bear Trail Cam Video – here are a few more photos of last years younger black bear that came to visit with his mom and this years young bear.
I added a short clip from my trail camera of the bear that visited this year below. This clip is not on You Tube so there isn’t a link to it. You would probably have to click visit page in reader to see this clip. It shows the young bear and how it stands up to check out the empty feeder.
Below is what happened when the bear finally saw me. I did not know they could run that fast.
Mom Bear – now this is a good size bear. These two visited our place two years ago. I saw the little bear first and again stood outside my back door with a 600mm lens and was photographing away when all of a sudden, mom came out of the woods.
I have to admit, my heart rate went up a bit when I saw her. She was so big and quite beautiful. These two trashed the feeder and again I had already put everything away when I first figured out they were here.
I don’t want them staying around, one has to respect these giant animals and give them space. They stuck around for about 4 days and then were gone. Bears are always on the search for food, if there isn’t any available they will move on as these two did.
Standing Bear – They sure look strange when standing up. This black bear is actually a smaller one. Standing he is shorter then 6ft. Compared to the pole I measured behind him.
This bear is about 80 yards from my house. I was standing next to the backdoor of our cabin as I photographed him. Being very quiet to not get its attention. Plus being right by the door incase I have to go back in.
I also use a 600 mm lens so I can get a closer photo.
New Visitor the Black Bear – every couple of years I might get to see a black bear as it wanders through my yard. Last month this small black bear stopped for a visit.
I woke up to my bird feeding pole bent over to the ground which tells me a bear is in the yard. So I take down my bird feeders and put them away as I know he will keep coming back looking for food. Once I put the feeders away, he came back a couple days checking things out and now I have not seen him for a few weeks.
I put a trail camera out so I can monitor it as to what activity is going on at night while I am sleeping. He hasn’t been on the trail cam for a while now.
He sat down near my bird bath and just looked around for awhile. It was hot on this day and he wasn’t moving very fast. By the way, I am just guessing a he, I don’t really know for sure.
My Favorite Hummingbird Photos – normally I always have 4 hummingbirds visiting my place. This year I have only see 2. I did not get a chance to photograph them this year and they are gone already. So, here are a few of last years photos.
Male Ruby Throated Hummingbird in a Dream World, abstract art work. Digital art.
Goslings Out for a Stroll, a clear bright morning down by the river as the goslings are out for a walk.
Short video below of Geese or Click here; Goslings
Parents are not to far away. These to were getting dive bombed by a small bird in the tree. The one kept turning its head sideways like a dog does with a loud noise.
Two New Birds – First the Great Crested Flycatcher. I love all the yellow on its belly, it blends so well with the brown wings. Such a pretty bird.
Great Crested Flycatchers are large flycatchers with fairly long and lean proportions. Like many flycatchers they have a powerful build with broad shoulders and a large head. Despite its name, this bird’s crest is not especially prominent. The bill is fairly wide at the base and straight; the tail is fairly long.
I have finally seen the Red Headed Woodpecker. I had seen one in a movie I think and figured they must be rare and that I probably would never see one.
Guess what, this one I spotted in Illinois. I was so surprised. It was very far away and did not let me get to close to take a good photo. Such striking bold colors, add this to the life list.
The Double Crested Cormorant – The double-crested cormorant gets its name because during breeding season adults sport two tufts of feathers, one above each eye; the rest of the year, these tufts do not appear.
But what I find so fascinating about this bird is its teal colored eyes. This is not a clear photo but look at the ring of teal color at the bottom of the eye. It almost looks like it is lit up. I will be trying to get a better photo of this next year.
During the high of the breeding season, a cormorant’s teal-blue eyes, bright yellow throat pouch, and tufts of feathers just above the eyes (for which the bird is named) cause this bird to stand out among the rest
Swallow Tailed Kites, I finally got to see some of these flying high. Some folks told me about this bird when I was down south. They said they only pass through the area and stay for just a few days. They actually look like kites gliding up above.
Swallow-tailed Kites spend most of their time in the air, capturing and swallowing their food in flight. Rarely flapping their wings, they soar and make tight turns, rotating their tail to steer.
He Needs a Bigger Condo, a heron likes to perch up high just like a cat. This one was watching us fish down below. It is a purple martin house and that isn’t a real one laying at the feet of the heron. It is a fake purple martin to attract the real ones. Short video of the heron below or click this link; Heron on a Bird House
I have a fake one on my purple martin house, but I have never seen a purple martin up there yet. It is the end of June and here is wishing everyone a wonderful month of July.
The warm summer days are ahead of us, they remind of being a youngster, enjoying the fresh green grass between your toes, the warm breezes brushing up against your skin. Just love it.
I Took a Lot of Photos of this bird, the Indigo Bunting, I was under the impression that being in the far south was the only place you would see this bird. But come to find out I saw it all the way up into Illinois. Now I know they don’t come to Michigan, that is a little to far north for them. 🙂
We were out for a walk one day and looked over to the right and here sat this large unusual looking bird. I had to look it up when I got back. Plus I had the bridge camera on this walk and it just does not do very well when you max out the zoom lens on it.
Anything over 400 mm with this bridge camera the photos will not be clear. But I still was able to get a photo of it to write down in my bird book.
It is called a Bobolink, I have never heard of it but it is quite a fascinating bird.
The Bobolink is one of the world’s most impressive songbird migrants, traveling some 12,500 miles (20,000 kilometers) to and from southern South America every year. Throughout its lifetime, it may travel the equivalent of 4 or 5 times around the circumference of the earth.
The species name of the Bobolink, oryzivorus means “rice eating” and refers to this bird’s appetite for rice and other grains, especially during migration and in winter.
A migrating Bobolink can orient itself with the earth’s magnetic field, thanks to iron oxide in bristles of its nasal cavity and in tissues around the olfactory bulb and nerve. Bobolinks also use the starry night sky to guide their travels.
This picture below is from the internet, I did not take it, it is just to show you what it looks like.
Really Fast Birds the Foster Terns. Smaller than all the gulls, with thinner and more pointed bill. Distinguished from other terns by pale whitish wings and orange-based bill in summer, and isolated black ear patch in winter. Forages by circling and hovering over bays, ponds, and lakes, then dropping to snatch fish.
It was very difficult to follow these guys as they were diving. My camera was going all over the place.
They capture their food by plunge-diving from heights as low as a few feet to as high as 50 feet or more.
Hanging Out at the Beach Kind of Day, I still have a few photos from down south, so I will be going back and forth with post as I get a chance to edit my backlog of shots.
The first two photos are birds you almost always see at the beach. I don’t know the exact species name but they run in the family of plovers I believe.
Another Warbler, this one being the Hooded Warbler with its bold color of yellow and a black cap like a hood. This bird was very easy to spot in the trees. So many colors this spring.
Opposite of Blue is Orange, The sea is blue. From the color wheel, we can clearly see that the opposite of blue is orange, so orange is a contrasting color to blue.
Contrasting colors are colors that can be clearly distinguished, so when we are in danger at sea and need rescue, blue contrasting orange becomes the best choice.
The Palm Warbler – Warblers are a group of birds in the family Parulidae. There are 100species of warbler in North America.
Identifying warblers, indeed any bird comes down to knowing some basic facts about the species and then observing it closely. With about 111 species in the family, this can be a challenge. A few species don’t look very ‘warblerish’, like the Ovenbird, Waterthrush, and Yellow-breasted Chat, but for the others, you’ll need some additional help.
Color and plumage patterns, voice, behavior, and habitat are the most important characteristics. Armed with the additional knowledge of a species’ geographic range, you will likely be successful. A good field guide is also invaluable.
This one below I believe is a fly catcher of some sort. But it is also in the group of just another Brown bird for me.
Can you see what is in this tree?
I was surprised to see a dragon fly land in a tree. I was looking at birds and here came this guy with its big green eyes looking for his little bit of fame here on WordPress. 🙂
The Longest Squirrel Tail I have ever seen. We camped at a spot in Illinois and went for a walk through this park that had the nicest trail. I looked up and there sat this squirrel with the longest tail I have ever seen on a squirrel.
I have never seen one quite like this, the squirrel looks normal and that tail has to be 3 times longer then a regular squirrels tail.
This photo below is one I took many years ago, he was a regular in my back yard and I named it Mittens because of the white feet. It has a normal length tail for a squirrel.
This is a Red Squirrel
Below is a White Red Squirrel I photographed last year.
The Giant Rock Squirrel below, it is the biggest of the squirrel family found in Texas.
Tiny Birds With a Touch of Color, here are 3 more birds I was able to add to my list. Thanks to the Merlin app to help me identify them. Sometimes these little brown birds all look like sparrows until you spot just that little bit of color that sets them apart from the rest.
I am not an expert on finding the names of these birds. So if it is not the right name, feel free to add what you know it to be.
Lots of Colorful Birds, I still have a few photos to go through that I took from our visit to the gulf coast, we stayed long enough to see the spring migration of birds coming across the ocean. At first I was just not seeing anything, we drove all over the place looking at the hotspots where other birders said to go in this area.
The last couple of weeks we were there, all of a sudden flocks of the most colorful birds were landing in the trees right in our campground. Eating all these dried seeds on this tree in the photos below.
Grosbeaks, orioles, tanagers and lots of warblers, it was a thrill to see them all.
The hummingbirds made it as well, such a long flight for all the birds. There are always stories of how the birds land on boats and gas rigs out in the gulf waters. So they can rest for a bit before making it to land.
The Snowshoe Hare is wandering around my yard enjoying the new spring grasses and weeds. There are two things very unique about this rabbit. One being it turns white in the winter, which I have never been able to get a photo of one that is white. Well, that means I would have to be here in the winter as well. 🙂
The other is the size of their back feet. This size helps to keep them on top of the snow during the winter. Hence the name snowshoes. 🙂
In Defense of the Grackle – In North America three grackle species occur: Common, Great-tailed, and Boat-tailed. All are generally similar in appearance, with males glossy iridescent black and females brownish.
Grackles, it turns out, do more than weigh down power lines, steal tortilla chips off your dinner plate and squawk in really loud voices. The gleaming black birds actually play a beneficial role in our society. (Well, besides cleaning up those food crumbs you dropped on the sidewalk.)
Grackles eat insects, for one. And that includes those you might not like crawling on you, such as wasps and spiders, and ones that damage crops, including moths, grasshoppers and beetles.
I get why people don’t necessarily like them, but I think they’re fascinating. They do eat insects, so that means fewer insects that are eating plants — or us. There’s also the argument that they’re part of a web of life — they’re part of the system.”
Along with the most amazing colors when they are in the sunlight. Just some of the reasons to like these birds as I do.
The Colors of Spring we see in wildlife as well as flowers. Males of many species take on brighter, more eye-catching plumage in spring for a single purpose: to attract females.
This the Reddish Egret is a conspicuously long-legged, long-necked wader of coastal regions, more tied to salt water than any of our other herons or egrets.
Often draws attention by its feeding behavior: running through shallows with long strides, staggering sideways, leaping in air, raising one or both wings, and abruptly stabbing at fish.
This is the first year I have seen this bird in the spring and its bill is the most colorful with blue, pink and black. Quite beautiful.
I like this photo below as if he is looking under their and thinking; ” It is so hard to clean my feathers way under here.”
Anything With Wings is allowed at the airport. I think this bird was watching the big planes with me here at this small airport. Maybe dreaming of flying high and fast like they do or thinking they need to get off his airport runway. 🙂
I don’t know what kind of plane this one is below. But they put on a great show for me on this day. They landed and took off so many times and the pilot waved at me here as I took his photo. Video below of this airport or click this link; Dauphin Island Airport
Plus a coast guard helicopter made a quick stop and then took off.
I was able to stand right next to the runway to get these shots as they flew right over me. I was using my 600 mm lens which makes them look very close.
We are travelling north again and spending time with family along the way. I have not had time to read all my favorite bloggers post as of late. But I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful spring weather so far and thank you again for all your wonderful comments. I appreciate it very much.
The Early Bird catches the worm, as the old saying goes. I am defiantly an early bird and sometimes I go out and about without brushing my hair either.
Nature Provides plenty of food for all species. Birds have a wonderful diet that includes some very healthy options
Fruit being at the top of the list, or at the top of the tree if you will. This Cedar Wax wing is enjoying some fresh mulberry’s to replenish its system after a long migration flight.
This beautiful Summer Tanager is eating some sort of bug, which I am happy about. There are always plenty of bugs that provide a great source of protein.
Along with some nuts and seeds for fiber, they are a great food source to keep the system running smoothly. This Brown Thrasher is enjoying his fill of these today.
Of course we cannot leave out the best choice of food for a lot of species, its fish. I have seen a lot of birds doing pretty good at fishing the last few weeks.
This Belted King Fisher is an expert fishermen when it comes to diving into the water to catch a tiny little fish like this one.
This gull picked up a fish floating on top of the water after a fishermen through it back in.
The Great Blue Heron loves fish. They can eat up to a pound of fish a day. We have helped them get their fill this month. When we catch small fish we will sometimes throw them to the herons who are always hanging about looking for a good meal.