Fishing Line Is A Dangerous Nesting Material
All across the country it is nesting season for many North American birds. For some nesting birds it is also a very dangerous time because of fishing line.
All across the country it is nesting season for many North American birds. For some nesting birds it is also a very dangerous time because of fishing line.
By using a vehicle as a mobile blind I was able to photograph the wrens as they sang, searched for nesting materials, defended their breeding territories and built their nests from a distance.
I was able to get back out into the field yesterday and I had a marvelous time photographing young Spotted Sandpiper chicks and learning more about their behaviors near a creek in the Wasatch Mountains.
Two days ago I spent time photographing nesting House Wrens in the high Uintas near Mirror Lake Highway, of interest to me is that two years ago I photographed Red-naped Sapsuckers using this same nesting cavity.
I dug into my archives and picked these Northern Flicker photos from May of 2015 to share today because I saw a Northern Flicker yesterday and thought of how they will soon start excavating their nesting cavities to rear their young in.
I wasn't sure I wanted to write this post about an imprisoned Lark Sparrow I heard about on a Facebook group that is about identifying birds but after mulling it over I decided I'd tell the story.
I know that what this person did was not right and the 8 moderators of that group should have said something but in 15 days they haven't said a word about them being too close to the owl chick.
I saw the Red-tailed Hawk chicks near where the nest had been though and I spent less than two minutes with them and took a few images before leaving them alone.
There have been a few Short-eared Owls that I keep seeing in the same locations over a period of about a month and yesterday I believe that I saw and photographed a male Short-eared Owl hunting for prey for his chicks.
Why? Because the image is never as important as the well being and safety of my subject, especially when it comes to nests and chicks.
It is breeding season for Killdeer at Bear River MBR and for all of Utah.
Among those spring migrants that I most look forward to seeing are the Western Burrowing Owls.
This past summer I found a Red-tailed Hawk nest right next to a road in Montana that had three chicks in it that I felt I could photograph without stressing the hawks.
Burrowing Owls are arriving - Caution, Extreme Cuteness Ahead! Burrowing Owls are enchanting, entertaining and so cute they are irresistible. Everyone seems to love them.
The past few years I have missed seeing and photographing young Burrowing Owls on Antelope Island State Park for numerous reasons.
I feel that as a bird photographer I need to care for my subjects every time I am in the field and that is amplified when there are young, defenseless chicks.
Fluffy little chicks are adorable, they make people "ohh" and "aww" and those that hit the ground running not long after hatching are especially appealing to some folks. But they need respect and they need space so we don't endanger them.
I enjoyed my brief, long distance opportunity to photograph and observe these Wilson's Plovers and chicks, it was a small window into their life.
Currently throughout the breeding range of Great Horned Owls the owls have either begun to nest or have nested already. Great Horned Owls have a large range and are found in the U.S., Canada and Central America.
In 2008 I had the great pleasure of observing and photographing a family of American Oystercatchers from the day after the chicks hatched until three and a half months later.
Earlier this year in March I wrote an article titled "Burrowing Owls - Loved to Death?" and this post is a sequel to it.
What made me sick was that there were three of those people tromping around the owl's burrow. I mean RIGHT up on it. They had no need to be that close but they were.
If I had not been paying attention to the first magpie's activity and behavior I would have missed the opportunity to photograph these birds and their nesting habits over the next several weeks.
Nesting American Oystercatchers create simple scrapes on coastal beaches, dunes and salt marshes to lay their eggs in. They usually lay between 2-3 eggs around April to May.