Wild Side Ornithology Club

[Care4all]

the American Bald Eagle

there were two, here's the other one in another tree in my yard

 

[Care4all]

early spring, they were still molting.... changing their feathers

 

[Care4all]

Cedar Waxwings.... they look like masked bandits! Eating ripe Elderberries

 

[Care4all]

Canadian geese

 

[beautress]

Well, I found this at a commercial website, but for what it's worth they say:

In the great circle of life, almost everything is part of the food chain. The abundance of ants means that they are an excellent source of food for many other creatures, including birds and other insects. Sparrows, wrens, antbirds and flickers are just a few birds that chow down on ants. Some of these birds also engage in the practice of anting, which involves rubbing crushed ants under their wings to serve as an insecticide or fungicide.

Spiders, though not technically insects, eat ants as well. Many a clueless ant has fallen into a spider’s web, becoming a tasty treat for the spider. For us humans, spiders serve an important role in the ecosystem, as they feed on organisms that we would usually consider pests. Do birds or beneficial insects feed on ants? | EcoRaider
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Antbirds????? Never heard of 'em. I guess I'd better get the bird feeders on the front porch active again. The cardinals kind of took the place over, and the only birds who'd stand up to them were infrequent jaybirds and woodpeckers who ignored them entirely. I don't know why half the cardinals in the United States took a cotton to my feeders.

If you get ants in a particular place you don't want 'em, spray vinegar. They'll vacate wid a quickness.

Thanks, Pogo, I have used vinegar in the past and just forgot about it until you mentioned it. Many, many, many thanks for reminding me. However, after watching Dr. Brown's videos among others, ants safeguard some species of moths that produce pheromes that inspire them to care for them as if they were their own babies when they are in caterpillar form. I may just use vinegar sparingly in and around the house, but the other 14 acres, I'm leaving alone so the ants can be nurses for beneficial butterflies out there. I get quite a show at least for 10 months a year of one kind of butterfly and again, another. I just need to get a spray bottle to put the vinegar in and another for the quilt room, to spray water on some older fabrics that the ladies at my church gave me to make charity quilt tops with. I am always thrilled to get a box of scraps even if my house is rather up to the walls in boxes of fabric for making my favorite kind of quilts--anything that uses a fabric only once in what we know is a charm quilt. Some of my charm quilts have over 600 pieces in them for a crib-sized charity quilt top, and I strive to use a fabric only once, which takes oh, say, 720 different fabrics. You just can't have enough organization to locate one of them to cut a 1.5" strip of fabric for a log cabin quilt or eeks! 2,000 different ones for a postage stamp type quilt. In my heart, religion requires me to make as valuable a quilt for a newborn unwanted child as I would have for my own children, who have the best of my originally designed quilts for children as well as adults back when I was running my own store in Wyoming and had to teach classes that would benefit my community as best I could. Those were the days...
Anyhow, spray bottles are going on my list right now to deal with the ants that have bitten me when I was only trying to beautify my little yard that is surrounded by fields and Lake Freedom.

 

[beautress]

Cedar Waxwings.... they look like masked bandits! Eating ripe Elderberries

Cares4all, one time in Wyoming, I think I walked out into our yard and discovered no less than 200 cedar waxwings that must have been migrating and stopped off at our bird feeders for a snack, and they particularly were interested in one of the plants in the yard, not sure which one...we lived there 35 years, and this was at or before the 5th year we lived in the second house we bought as the kids grew up, and we returned from a 5-year stint in the Beaver State in my husband's lifelong career in the same electric power company with headquarters in Portland, where you had to spend a couple of years if you were ambitious to hold a better paying job, and my husband was. Anyhow, I was so impressed by these birds I went to the Natrona County Library and looked them up, and was enchanted that I had NOT run across an off-specie of Cardinal, I had just encountered a group of their cousins migrating from one area of the continent to another, and I can't even remember whether that would have been a spring or fall migration, only that it was chilly outside. Casper, Wyoming is chilly from September to early June, and often as early as August and as late as the first day in July. So no telling, but it could be lethal in 40 below weather often seen in the Equality State unless the group sticks together with the young closest to the middle as they fluff their feathers for protection. I just don't recall what month I saw them, but it was bloody cold outside that particular day, and they were such candy to my eye. It was that sighting that really piqued my love for creatures I hardly knew before seeing the flock of 'em, so unexpectedly noticing them foraging in my yard for who knows what insect, seed, or ripe juniper berries (?) I just dunno. Thanks for the visual reminder of that awesome sighting, so unexpectedly pleasing to my senses.

 

[beautress]

?

I'm guessing that is a male, oven bird? thrush? sparrow? Whatever he is, he is striking, not to mention beautiful.

 

[Care4all]

Cedar Waxwings.... they look like masked bandits! Eating ripe Elderberries

Cares4all, one time in Wyoming, I think I walked out into our yard and discovered no less than 200 cedar waxwings that must have been migrating and stopped off at our bird feeders for a snack, and they particularly were interested in one of the plants in the yard, not sure which one...we lived there 35 years, and this was at or before the 5th year we lived in the second house we bought as the kids grew up, and we returned from a 5-year stint in the Beaver State in my husband's lifelong career in the same electric power company with headquarters in Portland, where you had to spend a couple of years if you were ambitious to hold a better paying job, and my husband was. Anyhow, I was so impressed by these birds I went to the Natrona County Library and looked them up, and was enchanted that I had NOT run across an off-specie of Cardinal, I had just encountered a group of their cousins migrating from one area of the continent to another, and I can't even remember whether that would have been a spring or fall migration, only that it was chilly outside. Casper, Wyoming is chilly from September to early June, and often as early as August and as late as the first day in July. So no telling, but it could be lethal in 40 below weather often seen in the Equality State unless the group sticks together with the young closest to the middle as they fluff their feathers for protection. I just don't recall what month I saw them, but it was bloody cold outside that particular day, and they were such candy to my eye. It was that sighting that really piqued my love for creatures I hardly knew before seeing the flock of 'em, so unexpectedly noticing them foraging in my yard for who knows what insect, seed, or ripe juniper berries (?) I just dunno. Thanks for the visual reminder of that awesome sighting, so unexpectedly pleasing to my senses.

That is EXACTLY what happens here.... in the Spring, when they are coming back here from being away for the Winter, our first experience was about 100 of them all swooping in on to our property and perching on pine trees or our apple trees.... my husband and I were on the deck, sipping our coffee and THEN a whole huge flock of them flew in.... we were like Wha wha wha WHAT is that? Neither of us had our cameras...

the next year I never went on my deck without my camera around my neck and I got some pictures....

Then in Fall, when they are heading back south, we have wild apple trees on the property, that like 100 or 200 of them swoop in all together on....

Then a few at a time swoop down to the ripe Elderberry bushes on the edge of the woods, and they eat near all of the Elderberries!!! they LOVE those elderberries, and so do a lot of other birds!

Creatures of habit.... for 10 years now it is the same routine, the Cedar Waxwings stop here on the way in and on the way back south they swoop in again! Just a beautiful site.... our land is remembered by them and they teach the young about this spot and continues year after year after year....! Just amazing!!!!

 

[beautress]

the American Bald Eagle

``

there were two, here's the other one in another tree in my yard

One magical, warm spring day, when I went out into our back yard on dead horse hill in Casper, I looked up and saw literally hundreds of bald eagles flying above the west part of town. It was after 1995, but before 2009. I stood there in awe for 15 minutes, not realizing how successful those bringing an endangered specie back into this awesome sight I was seeing. Might've been after the year 2000, a day I will never forget. Thanks for sharing your pictures, Cares4all. Oh, my kitten is reaching for the keyboard in her mischief and desire for some attention. Funny, she's supposed to be nice after feeding... but NO! She wants ALL of my attention. So I'm off... She may just want some leftover milk from my cereal bowl if I could stop visiting this and other enchanting USMB sites.

 

[Pogo]

Morning Becki. I came across this video and immediately thought of you.

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[Crixus]

the American Bald Eagle

there were two, here's the other one in another tree in my yard

Wow, nice grabs. Was that by water? When I was a kid I lived in Jacksonville Texas. I would always see Bald Eagles when I went striped fishing at lake Paistine. We would see lots of Osprey to. Some times when a bald eagle would snatch a fish out of the lake and osprey would swoop down on it and try and steal its fish. Nice pics. Wish I was better with a camera.

 

[Crixus]

To many pictures to post here so I just post a link to his website. I used to work with this fella. Very talented photographer. Allot of those pictures were taken with an iPhone and a cannon power shot in Estas Park and Ft. Collins Colorado.

Brandon Downing

 

[beautress]

Morning Becki. I came across this video and immediately thought of you.

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That's great, Pogo. I just came here to welcome a member who is bored & just saw this.. Fabulous video! Thanks!

 

[Care4all]

the American Bald Eagle

there were two, here's the other one in another tree in my yard

Wow, nice grabs. Was that by water? When I was a kid I lived in Jacksonville Texas. I would always see Bald Eagles when I went striped fishing at lake Paistine. We would see lots of Osprey to. Some times when a bald eagle would snatch a fish out of the lake and osprey would swoop down on it and try and steal its fish. Nice pics. Wish I was better with a camera.

YES! We have a creek right across from the meadow in front of the house... within 100 yards, and the Ocean is just a couple of miles and a huge, huge, huge River mouth in to the ocean that is a mile from our house! Also there are 4 lakes/ponds within 3 or 4 miles distance.... all in my town! (it's not really a town, it's a rural district)

I haven't seen an Osprey up here, haven't seen one since we left living in Florida!

 

[Care4all]

To many pictures to post here so I just post a link to his website. I used to work with this fella. Very talented photographer. Allot of those pictures were taken with an iPhone and a cannon power shot in Estas Park and Ft. Collins Colorado.

Brandon Downing

wow! he's a great photographer!

 

[beautress]

the American Bald Eagle

there were two, here's the other one in another tree in my yard

Wow, nice grabs. Was that by water? When I was a kid I lived in Jacksonville Texas. I would always see Bald Eagles when I went striped fishing at lake Paistine. We would see lots of Osprey to. Some times when a bald eagle would snatch a fish out of the lake and osprey would swoop down on it and try and steal its fish. Nice pics. Wish I was better with a camera.

YES! We have a creek right across from the meadow in front of the house... within 100 yards, and the Ocean is just a couple of miles and a huge, huge, huge River mouth in to the ocean that is a mile from our house! Also there are 4 lakes/ponds within 3 or 4 miles distance.... all in my town! (it's not really a town, it's a rural district)

I haven't seen an Osprey up here, haven't seen one since we left living in Florida!

No Ospreys? Oh, and they're so totally wonderful, too. Sad for the area if there aren't any around. Maybe another specie occupies their territory, but not their sheer majesty.

And fishermen might wish they were this good--no poles, no lines, no trips to the store for outfitting...



Nurturing their kids in Dubois, WY



Taking his sweet time...

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[Marion Morrison]

some sort of Finch,I think?

I like those things! They raid wasp nests.

Catbird

Cedar Waxwings.... they look like masked bandits! Eating ripe Elderberries

It appears those birds like Polk berries.

 

[Marion Morrison]

Swallow-Tailed Kite.

 

[beautress]

Ospreys can hover like hummingbirds in spite of exponential size differences, and here's proof:



Is the Osprey endangered? Do the math...



Osprey couple watching beautiful sunrise, Montana


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[beautress]

What is its name? It sure has distinctive separation of black and white. Newspaper bird with swallow tail? /kidding