Pied-billed Grebes are both pugnacious and gluttonous and it’s not unusual for them to capture and attempt to swallow prey that is marginally too big to go down the hatch, which can lead to some interesting and amusing behaviors at feeding time..
Two days ago I called Bill West, Project Leader at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in the Centennial Valley to ask him about the effects of the recent forest fires and resulting smoke in the area. During the conversation Bill told me about an incident that immediately got my attention.
Early last April we discovered a pair of Mountain Plovers on Antelope Island. This was only the 10th confirmed sighting of the species in Utah so it created quite the stir when we reported it to UBIRD
At this age Western Grebe chicks are heavy-bodied, small headed, loud, awkward and demanding. They alternately ride on the back of each parent (back brooding) as the other adult rests or hunts for fish to feed to its family. At this stage the youngsters are good swimmers and there’s often not enough room on the parents back for all of the chicks to ride comfortably anyway so the parent uses an interesting strategy to “dump its load” into the water when it needs a break.
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.
Last week, partially in an effort to get away from the aggravations of the blog hosting problems I’d been having, I decided to make the extra long drive to extreme northern Utah in a quest for Swainson’s Hawks. We found quite a few and a delightful bonus was a plethora of Ferruginous Hawks in the same area.
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.
