Wild Side Ornithology Club

[Spoonman]

 

[freedombecki]

Wow, Spoonman. Just wow! I love the Haliaeetus leucocephalus pair!

 

[freedombecki]

Your Great herons are beautiful. They remind me of the light mauve color one that visited our small pond occasionally. I've only seen him once this year. And there was a huge pair of great white egrets here about two weeks ago. I'm not seeing regulars for the reason I have not trimmed trees along the fenceline this year. Come Monday morning, I'm going to try. I've been a little zapped lately of my usual zipped-do-dah-ayyyyy!

 

[Spoonman]

Your Great herons are beautiful. They remind me of the light mauve color one that visited our small pond occasionally. I've only seen him once this year. And there was a huge pair of great white egrets here about two weeks ago. I'm not seeing regulars for the reason I have not trimmed trees along the fenceline this year. Come Monday morning, I'm going to try. I've been a little zapped lately of my usual zipped-do-dah-ayyyyy!

everything seems out of wack this year. robins only started nesting a few weeks ago. wrens, finches are all still laying. i saw no bluebirds this year at all. chickadee's have also been very scarce

 

[freedombecki]

All the bluebirds in the world came to Texas this year. I saw some I'd never even heard of before--western bluebirds. They were the most beautiful blue I've ever seen, and instead of orange chests, they were bright berry red. Must be the youpon berries in the region... although they were going for the gold at blackberry picking time to the point we had NO blackberries in a bumper year.

You can feed but you can't fool those birdies! Little twits.

 

[Spoonman]

All the bluebirds in the world came to Texas this year. I saw some I'd never even heard of before--western bluebirds. They were the most beautiful blue I've ever seen, and instead of orange chests, they were bright berry red. Must be the youpon berries in the region... although they were going for the gold at blackberry picking time to the point we had NO blackberries in a bumper year.

You can feed but you can't fool those birdies! Little twits.

they love their berries. we have these wild black rasberries they go wild for.

 

[flacaltenn]

Wow, Spoonman. Just wow! I love the Haliaeetus leucocephalus pair!

Now becki -- if you're gonna speak in foreign tongues, it's gonna ruin it for most of us..
leucocephalus sounds dirty to me.. something to do with a pale head?

You talking about the 2 birds in that tree?

 

[freedombecki]

Wow, Spoonman. Just wow! I love the Haliaeetus leucocephalus pair!

Now becki -- if you're gonna speak in foreign tongues, it's gonna ruin it for most of us..
leucocephalus sounds dirty to me.. something to do with a pale head?

You talking about the 2 birds in that tree?

Ya got me! Being snarky! I learned it from a former moderator!

 

[Spoonman]

Some shore birds

Seagulls

sand pipers

 

[koshergrl]

Wow that looks so much like here it's freaky.

 

[koshergrl]

We have blackberry bramble behind the house, and a couple of big scotch broom...and then on the other end of the house there are some pine trees...and we have these sparrows that torment the dogs by zooming over them when they're outside. They're exceedingly cheeky and I do fear for them...

But I love them..they're a lot of fun in this environment...they'll live in a bush and they dart in and out, it's like the play hide and seek.

I'm not quick enough to get pics of them. But I've noticed them rocketing over our back patio, like kamikaze birds. I think it's the youngsters, I can't imagine the adults would be so reckless...Mylo is going to get one eventually.

they aren't super impressive looking but I get a kick out of them. And they are SOOOO fast!!!

 

[freedombecki]

We have blackberry bramble behind the house, and a couple of big scotch broom...and then on the other end of the house there are some pine trees...and we have these sparrows that torment the dogs by zooming over them when they're outside. They're exceedingly cheeky and I do fear for them...

But I love them..they're a lot of fun in this environment...they'll live in a bush and they dart in and out, it's like the play hide and seek.

I'm not quick enough to get pics of them. But I've noticed them rocketing over our back patio, like kamikaze birds. I think it's the youngsters, I can't imagine the adults would be so reckless...Mylo is going to get one eventually.

they aren't super impressive looking but I get a kick out of them. And they are SOOOO fast!!!

Your White-crowned sparrows, Zonotrichia leucophrys must be quilte the characters.

Beautiful specimen.

We had some of them in Casper.

Their range:

White-crowned Sparrow

They may winter here, however, where I now live:

 

[koshergrl]

They're so funny, I just love them.

 

[freedombecki]

They're so funny, I just love them.

A book arrived in my mailbox on birds by James John Audubon done in cross stitch in 1982 by Jenny Thompson, koshergrl. I'd seen your picture and spent a fun couple of hours finding out its name. Of course, first I looked at all birds it could have been if it were not a sparrow. But you were absolutely correct, and after eliminating 20 different birds one by one, there were only two left at Patuxent Bird ID Center, and one was the "White capped sparrow." Nah, I thought to myself, it has to be a chickadee I missed somehow (they all have black chins except a couple who do not in any way resemble a sparrow.) Anyway, the book was filled with cute pictures of birds Jenny liked, and she quoted his diary:

"I first became acquainted with the White-crowned Sparrow at Henderson (Kentucky), in the autumn of 1817. I then thought it the handsomest bird of its kind, and my opinion is that none other known to me as a visitor or inhabitant of the United States, exceeds it in beauty." The birds are depicted on a summer grapevine.

Her rendition of his drawing was done in counted cross stitch. I think she captured his words beautifully and well:

The book is "John James Audubon's Birds in Cross Stitch" by Ginnie Thompson, and I got the best copy I could afford of this out-of-print book at Amazon. The White-capped Sparrow is on page 29, and there is a beautiful Osprey on page 70. I recommend getting a used copy if you can since there are no new books available for retirees like me and people with a limited amount of money to spend. I got the hardcover version, which the day I bought it was less expensive than the paperback version. The book may be 31 years old, but her work is so universal, and her charts are very good.

I was actually buying it to see if there were any birds that would fit a 36 x 45" format postage stamp quilt. I'd really have to do a lot of getting rid of background to do that with the White-capped sparrow. One inch squares of the pattern show that the quilt would have to be 70 x 120" in one-inch squares, and it would take several months of Sundays to do it.

Click on thumbnail for larger view.

And get that book while there are still some left under $10. I've actually seen books of this quality go for a couple of hundred. Just sayin'.

 

[koshergrl]

Awesome! If I haven't mentioned it, remind me on the first because I have $4 to my name between now and then, lol.

They are brave and clever and very cheeky! They are the little birds who always are just out of reach...except when they're hiding in the bush, in which case they are actually within reach but you don't know they're there!

I live in town but am so blessed in this area to still live in close proximity to lots and lots of native birds. There are the crows...who I like but who are ultimately predators and scavengers and share the horrifying tendencies of their kind. The ones around here knock chipmunks off the power lines over the streets, and then eat them off the street. It's heinous. I know they're just doing what they do (and THAT is a learned behavior....crows do not have an instinct to knock chipmunks onto the street with force.) The fall has to be to the street, because the ground here is soft and a fall even from a great height is unlikely to kill a chipmunk..but a fall to the street definitely incapacitates them. I've seen this behavior repeatedly and it's always alarming and sad..and gruesome.

But the sparrows are just sparrows. They don't kill other animals (though I suspect they terrorize bugs) and they make my heart happy. Funny plain little birdies. And it is obvious they obtain some sort of pleasure out of tormenting the dogs...after all, they risk their lives to do it!

 

[Spoonman]

the heron is back

 

[freedombecki]

the heron is back

He's just fabulous, Spoonman. You captured yours at such classic poses they do, and I just love your work. Thanks for sharing with us your amazing talent. He's a fabulous Great heron! And you showed him at his best.

 

[Spoonman]

the heron is back

He's just fabulous, Spoonman. You captured yours at such classic poses they do, and I just love your work. Thanks for sharing with us your amazing talent. He's a fabulous Great heron! And you showed him at his best.

it's amazing how big that bird is when it stretches out. to give some perspective, if you look at the first picture, the fence is 4' tall. where he is standing the ground is about 10" below the base of the fence.

 

[freedombecki]

That's a good test, Spoonman! They don't call them "Great blue herons" for nothing.

 

[The Professor]

To freedombecki

I was so glad this thread was about birds. That way I didn't have to explain that I just got out of the pool.

Great pictures and videos lady. Many thanks.

PS: I hated to see the birdie go down in your second link but she pushed the patient putty tat too far.