Meadowlarks, Take-offs And “Armpits”
When I’m photographing Western Meadowlarks at take-off there’s always one flight posture I hope I don’t get.
Category: Bird Oddities
Some Very Odd-looking Pheasants
Ring-necked Pheasants are relatively common in my area and I normally see very little variation in plumage color in them – males look like males, females look like females and that’s about it. But twice I’ve photographed some very strange-looking birds.
Barn Owl Facial Disc Manipulation And The Colors Beneath It
During my recent encounter with this male Barn Owl I noticed something I’d never seen or even thought of before – manipulation of the facial disc that changes its shape and alters what we can see on the face of the bird.
A Different Look At The Alula (bastard wing)
Yesterday morning a Rough-legged Hawk gave me a perspective on the alula that I had never seen (or at least noticed) previously. I was on the verge of deleting these images when at the last second something about the left wing caught my eye.
Eye Defects In Raptors
Over the years I’ve seen a number of birds with eye problems. Some of them appeared to be infections and others injuries but I’m beginning to notice a pattern of symptoms that looks similar from bird to bird – particularly in raptors. I’ve included two examples here.
White-crowned Sparrows – Sunflower Gluttony And Crossed Bills
A local pumpkin farmer (Pack Farms) plants sunflowers along the periphery of his pumpkin field and each fall they provide a messy bounty for a variety of birds. Most species seem to be tidy eaters but the juvenile White-crowned Sparrows are an exception.
The orange in the background of these shots is – you guessed it – pumpkins.
Short-eared Owls And The “Handedness Phenomenon”
Handedness is a preference for using one hand (or limb) as opposed to the other. It’s a phenomenon many of us associate strictly with humans but other vertebrates can also show handedness, including birds. For example, many parrot species have a strong and consistent preference for using their left foot when bringing food to the beak.
Based on my own observations in the field I believe that Short-eared Owls may also display handedness.
Some Interesting Hummingbird Biology
Some of the hummingbird images I’ve taken the last few days on Antelope island illustrate a few of their fascinating adaptations for their rather unique lifestyle.
Swainson’s Hawk Optical Illusion
Each time I look at this image, at first the wing above the head appears to be the birds right wing on the far side of the body. But then a few seconds later my brain tells me that’s impossible because the lower wing is obviously the right wing and it’s impossible (or at least highly unlikely) for the hawk to have two right wings.
Enveloped By Shrikes!
These young birds loved clamoring around on the hood of my pickup. They would look at their reflections, pick at smashed bugs and just generally act like inquisitive kids. It wasn’t unusual to hear a bird clicking about on my roof at the same time one of its siblings was on my hood.
Western Grebe Mated With Clark’s Grebe
In the years I’ve watched and photographed the behaviors of both species I’ve never before seen a Western Grebe mated to a Clark’s Grebe. Mixed species pairs are uncommon to rare so to have seen this natural but unusual behavior was pretty special for me.
How Can This Hawk Even Fly?
This might just be the rattiest looking raptor I’ve ever encountered in the wild.
I found this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk three days ago in Box Elder County, Utah. It was too far away for good photos but even so I scoped it out with my lens for ID and to look for anything unusual.
Common Nighthawk Of (on) A Different Stripe
This was one of my stranger encounters with the bird world, though I’ll preface my narrative by admitting that I don’t have a lot of experience with nightjars of any species so perhaps what this bird was doing wasn’t really so unusual. I just don’t know.
One Red-tailed Hawk, Six Canada Geese and One Huge Commotion
Last week, Mia and I enjoyed our first camping/photo trip of the season. We explored some remote areas of northern Utah and even found some interesting birds. But the incident I’m reporting on here still has me a bit perplexed.
Mucus-drinking Cowbird
Before Europeans came to North America and cleared forests which modified the environment into the agricultural and suburban landscapes of today, the range of the Brown-headed Cowbird was limited to the short-grass plains where they followed the almost endless herds of American Bison as they fed on the insects stirred up by those wandering behemoths. Early settlers so strongly associated them with bison that they were called “Buffalo Birds”. Today that relationship still exists wherever limited numbers of bison can still be found. Antelope Island is one of those places. One of the many challenges facing the cowbird was obtaining enough moisture as it followed the bison herds over the hot, rolling plains. In late summer several years ago I photographed a cowbird behavior that illustrated one of the ways they solved that problem. I found this huge bull languishing in the broiling sun next to a boulder that it had been using as a scratching post. A group of Brown-headed Cowbirds were in the vicinity but at first I wasn’t paying much attention to them. Then this female (at frame bottom) flew in close… and began flying at the nostrils of the bull. Initially I was unsure about what she was doing but she did it repeatedly and eventually it became clear that she was… drinking the mucus-laden secretions from the bison’s nostrils. She would actually hover in place as she gobbled down the long, stringy strands of mucus. Not a pretty sight and perhaps a bit unsettling to our human sensibilities but what an incredibly adaptive behavior…
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Some Very Odd-looking Pheasants
Ring-necked Pheasants are relatively common in my area and I normally see very little variation in plumage color in them – males look like males, females look like females and that’s about it. But twice I’ve photographed some very strange-looking birds.
Barn Owl Facial Disc Manipulation And The Colors Beneath It
During my recent encounter with this male Barn Owl I noticed something I’d never seen or even thought of before – manipulation of the facial disc that changes its shape and alters what we can see on the face of the bird.
A Different Look At The Alula (bastard wing)
Yesterday morning a Rough-legged Hawk gave me a perspective on the alula that I had never seen (or at least noticed) previously. I was on the verge of deleting these images when at the last second something about the left wing caught my eye.
Eye Defects In Raptors
Over the years I’ve seen a number of birds with eye problems. Some of them appeared to be infections and others injuries but I’m beginning to notice a pattern of symptoms that looks similar from bird to bird – particularly in raptors. I’ve included two examples here.
White-crowned Sparrows – Sunflower Gluttony And Crossed Bills
A local pumpkin farmer (Pack Farms) plants sunflowers along the periphery of his pumpkin field and each fall they provide a messy bounty for a variety of birds. Most species seem to be tidy eaters but the juvenile White-crowned Sparrows are an exception.
The orange in the background of these shots is – you guessed it – pumpkins.
Short-eared Owls And The “Handedness Phenomenon”
Handedness is a preference for using one hand (or limb) as opposed to the other. It’s a phenomenon many of us associate strictly with humans but other vertebrates can also show handedness, including birds. For example, many parrot species have a strong and consistent preference for using their left foot when bringing food to the beak.
Based on my own observations in the field I believe that Short-eared Owls may also display handedness.
Some Interesting Hummingbird Biology
Some of the hummingbird images I’ve taken the last few days on Antelope island illustrate a few of their fascinating adaptations for their rather unique lifestyle.
Swainson’s Hawk Optical Illusion
Each time I look at this image, at first the wing above the head appears to be the birds right wing on the far side of the body. But then a few seconds later my brain tells me that’s impossible because the lower wing is obviously the right wing and it’s impossible (or at least highly unlikely) for the hawk to have two right wings.
Enveloped By Shrikes!
These young birds loved clamoring around on the hood of my pickup. They would look at their reflections, pick at smashed bugs and just generally act like inquisitive kids. It wasn’t unusual to hear a bird clicking about on my roof at the same time one of its siblings was on my hood.
Western Grebe Mated With Clark’s Grebe
In the years I’ve watched and photographed the behaviors of both species I’ve never before seen a Western Grebe mated to a Clark’s Grebe. Mixed species pairs are uncommon to rare so to have seen this natural but unusual behavior was pretty special for me.
How Can This Hawk Even Fly?
This might just be the rattiest looking raptor I’ve ever encountered in the wild.
I found this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk three days ago in Box Elder County, Utah. It was too far away for good photos but even so I scoped it out with my lens for ID and to look for anything unusual.
Common Nighthawk Of (on) A Different Stripe
This was one of my stranger encounters with the bird world, though I’ll preface my narrative by admitting that I don’t have a lot of experience with nightjars of any species so perhaps what this bird was doing wasn’t really so unusual. I just don’t know.
One Red-tailed Hawk, Six Canada Geese and One Huge Commotion
Last week, Mia and I enjoyed our first camping/photo trip of the season. We explored some remote areas of northern Utah and even found some interesting birds. But the incident I’m reporting on here still has me a bit perplexed.
Mucus-drinking Cowbird
Before Europeans came to North America and cleared forests which modified the environment into the agricultural and suburban landscapes of today, the range of the Brown-headed Cowbird was limited to the short-grass plains where they followed the almost endless herds of American Bison as they fed on the insects stirred up by those wandering behemoths. Early settlers so strongly associated them with bison that they were called “Buffalo Birds”. Today that relationship still exists wherever limited numbers of bison can still be found. Antelope Island is one of those places. One of the many challenges facing the cowbird was obtaining enough moisture as it followed the bison herds over the hot, rolling plains. In late summer several years ago I photographed a cowbird behavior that illustrated one of the ways they solved that problem. I found this huge bull languishing in the broiling sun next to a boulder that it had been using as a scratching post. A group of Brown-headed Cowbirds were in the vicinity but at first I wasn’t paying much attention to them. Then this female (at frame bottom) flew in close… and began flying at the nostrils of the bull. Initially I was unsure about what she was doing but she did it repeatedly and eventually it became clear that she was… drinking the mucus-laden secretions from the bison’s nostrils. She would actually hover in place as she gobbled down the long, stringy strands of mucus. Not a pretty sight and perhaps a bit unsettling to our human sensibilities but what an incredibly adaptive behavior…