House Wren With Insect Prey
Four days ago I stopped briefly where I knew that there was a House Wren nest and was delighted to see an adult with insect prey for its young in its bill.
Four days ago I stopped briefly where I knew that there was a House Wren nest and was delighted to see an adult with insect prey for its young in its bill.
The sack of crap was open, it doesn't matter to me if they left it open or if a critter opened it but that sack of crap was what was attracting the Northern Rough-winged Swallows and photos of these birds with dog waste shouldn't exist, yet now they do.
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.
Each year across the western states Greater Sage-Grouse begin to fly into leks on the sagebrush steppe during late winter and early spring to perform their fascinating courtship displays well before the first sign of dawn.
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.
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.
I've made it clear on my post about Galileo and in this post about Goose that they are education birds and in my photo galleries I have included this symbol (C) to indicate they are captive birds.
We could have spent more time with this Barred Owl and it may have eventually moved to a better location for us to get photos but because of one person ticking off the owl we didn't get that chance.
The past few years I have missed seeing and photographing young Burrowing Owls on Antelope Island State Park for numerous reasons.
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.
This Bison bull weighs in at about 1,500 pounds, he is wild and you don't want to tick him off like one man did on Antelope Island last weekend.
I do hope that non-photographers and the general public know that behavior like this is an exception and that ethical photographers would not have gone up and petted the Sandhill Cranes.
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.
To those hunters who recognized and respected the rarity of those beautiful and very uncommon birds, you have my respect and I am personally very grateful that you preferred to give these ducks a pass even though you knew that hunting them was legal.
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.
One photographer might have better vision and be able to spot birds that the other person may not have seen. Four eyes are better than two.
Great Blue Herons are North America's largest heron and one of the three largest herons in the world.
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.