Oklahoma Yellow Garden Spider Photos
Yesterday, I was happy to photograph a few Yellow Garden Spiders while taking a walk on a side road at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge. You might wonder why.
Yesterday, I was happy to photograph a few Yellow Garden Spiders while taking a walk on a side road at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge. You might wonder why.
When I was walking around Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge on Sunday, I stopped to photograph a foraging Great Blue Heron at Sally Jones Lake.
Earlier this week, while I was out walking around my local pond, a small dark dot on a cattail caught my eye. That 'dot' was a Bold Jumper Spider.
Last week, I was happy to photograph a small flock of American White Pelicans fueling up for their fall migration in the wetlands of Farmington Bay WMA.
Earlier this week, I found this adult Great Blue Heron in a Flasher pose while resting on a human-made nest in a pond at Farmington Bay WMA in northern Utah.
I photographed this late summer, adult Great Blue Heron resting on a human-made nest box at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area a few days ago.
While looking for birds at Farmington Bay WMA last week I spotted a Muskrat standing up in the marsh through an open area of vegetation.
On my last trip up to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge I came across this Great Blue Heron and spent only one minute photographing the large wading bird.
Earlier this week my last subject of the morning was a female Eight-spotted Skimmer dragonfly that landed in front of me next to a creek in the mountains.
While I was at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge two days ago I was able to take quite a few Great Blue Heron images of four individual herons in the marsh.
Today I wanted to write about how I found this secretive Virginia Rail in the marsh at Farmington Bay WMA yesterday morning.
Three days ago I spotted my first of the year Snowy Egret at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge when two egrets flew out of a ditch on the way to the auto tour loop.
When White-faced Ibis are in breeding plumage it is easy to see how they got their common name, in nonbreeding plumage, not so much.
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.
Yesterday I photographed a muskrat I found eating green filamentous algae at Farmington Bay WMA which I thought was interesting because I had never seen one eating algae before.
I wanted to share a five image series of a male Yellow-headed Blackbird that I photographed in the marshes of Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge this morning that I took the second week of May.
I haven't seen or photographed White-faced Ibis perched in the nearly ten years that I have lived here so I was thrilled to have my first opportunity to do so yesterday at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
Neither of these images will knock anyone's socks off but for me they show these coots and geese in the snow storm and the harsh conditions they live in, just birds being birds.
While looking for an image in my archives I came across this photo of a Marsh Wren making a funny face while doing the splits on some cattails at Farmington Bay WMA and wanted to share it.
It has been a long time since I have had such a birdy day and the towhees, warblers, kinglets, gnatcatchers and the rest of the birds that I saw thrilled me all morning long.
Common Gallinules and American Coots are both from the Rallidae family and there are some similarities in their appearance, for instance both have a triangular bill with a frontal shield at the top.
I will be listening for the male Marsh Wrens songs at the pond nearby and the marshes at Farmington Bay WMA and Bear River MBR and waiting to see them pop up on top of the cattails, phrags and rushes.
Although there is speculation that one day Marsh Wrens might be split into Eastern and Western species for this post the word split is only about a pose I see Marsh Wrens in quite often.
I was delighted by several tiny Marsh Wrens foraging in some cattails close enough to photograph with autumn colors in the background.
Fairly soon I'll be seeing many more of the male Red-winged Blackbirds perching at the top of rushes and cattails singing springtime serenades for the females and flashing their brilliantly colored epaulets
Yellow-headed Blackbirds (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) can perch on cattails, reeds, rushes or mounds of vegetation and snatch Midges right out of the air.
I photographed these male Marsh Wrens during breeding season when they were calling on their territories, while the male and female are alike in most aspects the exception is that only the males sing. And sing they do!