As many of you are keenly aware I’ve had long-term and unresolved service issues from my current hosting provider. It’s been stressful and a lot of extra work and frustration and I’ve finally had enough so I’m changing over to a new hosting provider.
During much of the year the breast and belly of these adult birds are white but you’ll notice that this shrike is “wearing to dark” – as the plumage becomes worn the darker bases of the feathers that we don’t usually see are exposed, so feathers in those areas now appear significantly darker than usual (as was documented and discussed in this post several weeks ago).
Since that discussion which included knowledgeable comments from others I’ve noticed the same phenomenon (wearing to dark) in several other species, including Chukars.
No, the Roughies haven’t returned early from their northern adventures. It’s just that I got to thinking about them yesterday while looking through some older images and was reminded of how handsome they are and how much I look forward to their appearance in the fall.
Antelope Island is crawling with spiders this time of year. Huge spiders. Gazillions of them. They’re quite obvious everywhere you go on the north end of the island and they can be intimidating in the extreme.
Two days ago as I was leaving the island I found this raven on the west end of the causeway road. It looked pretty goofy looking from a distance and as I got closer I began to realize why.
I see this species occasionally but they’re very small and I’m usually not close enough or the angle is too steep (shooting from my pick-up) for good shots. I’ve often put down my camera and just observed them – their butt-bumping is quite entertaining to watch.
Mourning Doves one of the most difficult of all species I’ve ever attempted to photograph in flight. Their flight is fast and erratic and their take-off speed impressive (most observers are aware of the whistling noise made by their incredibly fast wing beats as they take off and land). All this makes for an aggravatingly difficult bird to photograph in flight – whether at take-off or in full flight. Until yesterday morning I still didn’t have a Mourning Dove flight shot.
This is the last in my four part series on the color morphs of the Swainson’s Hawk. Today the focus is on the dark morph.
This is the third of my series of four posts on color morphs of the Swainson’s Hawk that I photographed on my last trip to Montana late last month. Todays bird is an intermediate morph.
The three morph categories are convenient to use but color variation of Swainson’s Hawks is almost continuous from darker to lighter individuals so the morph categories are somewhat arbitrary. I sometimes struggle with feeling confident about which category a particular bird belongs in.
My last post was of a juvenile light morph Swainson’s Hawk transitioning into a subadult, this bird is an adult light morph and my next post will be of a dark morph Swainson’s (and perhaps an intermediate morph also) – this is turning into a series…
I’m always interested in the color phases of the various raptors I encounter so when we found this subadult Light Morph Swainson’s Hawk on July 25 on our last trip to southwest Montana it got my attention. These worn young birds look white-headed in spring and early summer because of fading – much different from the adults.
When we leave one of our favorite Montana camping spots for the long drive home it means almost 30 miles of extremely dusty dirt/gravel roads through prime bird and wildlife habitat before we hit pavement. We nearly always leave at sunrise in case there are photo opportunities on the way out – typically those opportunities include raptors on posts, poles or in flight, songbirds, elk, deer, pronghorn – even badgers.
If the roads are good (as they are this year) that drive takes at least an hour when I’m pulling my camping trailer but if we find wildlife, as we often do, it can take two hours or more. And believe me, photographing wildlife while you’re pulling a trailer is a bit of a challenge.
The burrow of these owls is at the base of this huge lichen-encrusted rock and the owls seemed to enjoy perching on it. These juveniles were having a blast with their flight maneuvers.
Two days ago I posted about a very tame juvenile male Prairie Falcon I photographed last week in the Centennial Valley of Montana. The bird had two bands and I was extremely curious about where, when and why the falcon was banded and by whom so I asked for any insight my readers might have about the bands. Several of you jumped in with advice and suggestions, for which I’m much appreciative. But it was the superb sleuthing of my friend Mike Shaw that paid huge dividends. Mike did some research and learned that the colored band on the falcon (left foot) was issued to Doug Bell, Wildlife Program Manager for East Bay Regional Park District out of Oakland, California. On Tuesday, figuring that Doug might be interested in knowing that his California bird was now in the wilds of Montana, I emailed him with a link to that blog post and an offer to supply any more information about my encounter with that bird that he’d be interested in. I also asked him if he might tell me a little about his experience with the falcon. Yesterday Doug responded generously with information and photos. Since many of my readers expressed an interest in knowing about the history of this young bird I decided to update you with a new post rather than add an addendum to the previous post that many might not see. Besides, there’s a lot of new “stuff” here. Image property of East Bay Regional Park District – used by permission Doug and his team banded “my” Prairie Falcon…
I was driving the dirt roads while on the lookout for raptors (mostly) when out of the corner of my eye to the far right I saw (just barely) a flock of Mallards flush up from the barrow pit next to the road and just a few feet away. I gave them a quick glance and drove on but a couple of seconds later Mia hollered out from the back seat her patented “Stop, bird!”, which I immediately did. Turned out they weren’t Mallards, they were Sage Grouse – about a dozen of them.
In yesterday’s post about grasshopper-eating Prairie Falcons I promised that today’s post would also be about Prairie Falcons. It is, but only one of them – probably the most approachable larger falcon that I’ve ever encountered in the wild.
