Green-tailed Towhees Are Returning For Their Breeding Season
When mom and I found this adult Green-tailed Towhee singing while perched on a blooming Utah Serviceberry of course we had to stop and take its photo!
When mom and I found this adult Green-tailed Towhee singing while perched on a blooming Utah Serviceberry of course we had to stop and take its photo!
My best bird that morning was this adult American Robin that fluffed, preened and gobbled down some berries while perched in a Utah Serviceberry tree.
I've shared photographs of Warbling Vireos here before but this is the first time that I am sharing photos of Plumbeous Vireos, these images were taken earlier this month in the Wasatch Mountains.
Yesterday morning I was delighted to find two House Wrens foraging in a brush pile in the Wasatch Mountains not long after sunrise. This time of the year the wrens aren't singing like they do in the spring so I have to rely more on my eyes and not on a combination of my eyes and ears to locate them.
I know, I could grumble about not being able to photograph the young Cooper's Hawk taking its prey down just feet away from my Jeep but you know what? Being there to see nature in action was enough for me.
On August 24th I had an opportunity to photograph this female Western Tanager out in the open perched on a Utah Serviceberry for a second or two.
There was plenty of bird activity where chokecherry trees lined both sides of the gravel road, the most numerous birds foraging on the chokecherries were American Robins and many of them were immature birds.
There are times I enjoy finding hidden faces in clouds, rocks, trees or other natural features and I saw one in this House Wren photo.
I'm always happy to photograph the other things I see while I am out photographing birds and that includes cute critters like this Least Chipmunk nibbling on the fruits of the Utah Serviceberry shrub.
One year ago today I experienced one of the two most frustrating days in my entire time of being a bird photographer while photographing Red-naped Sapsuckers in the Targhee National Forest of Idaho.
A few weeks ago while up in the Wasatch Mountains I watched and photographed a Chipping Sparrow that was busy collecting nesting materials.
I love seeing the Aspen eyes of the forest upon me and I find myself happy to photograph them whenever I can.
I spotted a flash of black, white and red as a bird landed in the aspen tree that was closest to me above where the wrens and swallows are nesting and realized that a male Red-naped Sapsucker had flown in and was foraging for food in the buds of the aspen.
While photographing some Pine Siskins that were foraging and gathering nesting materials I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and spotted a Chipping Sparrow with nesting materials in its bill.
While I photographed nesting House Wrens in the High Uintas the last day of May I also photographed nesting Tree Swallows in the same Aspen tree in a cavity a bit lower on the trunk.
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 laughed again when I saw this photo on my camera LCD, the Moose was reaching to grab more willow leaves but was also keeping an eye on me in the mobile blind while his "beard" swung like the clapper of a bell.
I spent some time up in the canyons of the Wasatch Mountains yesterday photographing the birds I found including this handsome Green-tailed Towhee perched on a blooming Utah Serviceberry.
I had fun yesterday morning photographing a male Green-tailed Towhee singing in a mountain canyon, this was a bird I heard before I spotted him perched on a flowering branch.
Green-tailed Towhees are migratory so I don't see them year round in Utah like I do their close relatives the Spotted Towhees. Green-tailed Towhees spend their winters in the southern most parts of the U.S. and in Mexico and I miss seeing a hearing them while they are away.
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.
It just seemed fitting on St Patrick's Day to post something with a bit of green in it so I selected this House Wren photo I took in May of 2014 in the Targhee National Forest in Clark County, Idaho.
This Red-naped Sapsucker was perched on a dead aspen branch near the nesting cavity where I photographed a chick being fed by the adults in mid July.
I was delighted to photograph a lovely, little Dark-eyed Junco juvenile perched in a conifer near Washington Lake which is not too far from Trial Lake and the Mirror Lake Highway.
I did find one jewel in the images, a photo of one of the adult Red-naped Sapsuckers flying away from the nesting cavity looking like a bullet.
I do not believe that this bird was one of the pair of adult Red-naped Sapsuckers I photographed feeding the chick in the nesting cavity, his bib and breast markings were different from the other adult birds.
Although photographing the Red-naped Sapsuckers at the nesting cavity has been frustrating at times it has also been very rewarding to observe all the action of the sapsucker family.
Jackpot and frustrations... I'll explain the jackpot first and get to the frustrations later about the Targhee National Forest Red-naped Sapsucker feeding its young.
This male Red-naped Sapsucker was photographed last year in the high Uintas, a mountain range that is east of Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Mountains I can see from where I live.
Maybe next year I'll have better opportunities with these Red-naped Sapsuckers and maybe they will chose to place their new nesting cavity in a location that is easier to photograph.