Male Red-bellied Woodpecker Inside A Nesting Cavity In Oklahoma
On my third visit to Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge I was thrilled to spot a male Red-bellied Woodpecker inside of a nesting cavity.
On my third visit to Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge I was thrilled to spot a male Red-bellied Woodpecker inside of a nesting cavity.
Over the weekend, I read on Facebook that Tree Swallows have migrated back into Northern Utah for their breeding season. I am so excited about that news!
These Red-headed Woodpecker photos were taken last month at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge. I had one great day with this species in two spots on the refuge.
While up high in the Uinta Mountains yesterday morning I photographed this female Tree Swallow checking out a nesting cavity in a Quaking Aspen.
This morning I am sharing a few male Northern Flicker images that I took seven years ago at the edge of a mountain forest in the Targhee National Forest in Idaho.
Yesterday I was able to take the Violet-green Swallow photos that I have been dreaming of since I first moved to Utah in 2009.
This morning I wanted to share a few Red-naped Sapsucker photos I have taken while in gorgeous alpine forests of Idaho and Utah.
A little birdie told me that Tree Swallows returned to the marshes at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge about the middle of this month.
Tree Swallows and other birds should be nesting in the Uinta Mountains by now and I am itching to hop into my Jeep to drive up there to find them.
To photograph House Wrens and other birds I know I need to find them which means focusing my attention on the sights and sounds around me whenever I am out in the field which has worked extremely well for me.
By excavating their own nests Northern Flickers provide nests for other woodland birds that can't excavate nesting cavities on their own and those nests can be used over and over again. Nature is brilliant.
Yesterday I had a blast photographing a pair of Mountain Bluebirds at a natural nesting cavity at the edge of a forest along with some other woodland birds.
The adult Red-naped Sapsuckers often clung to the entrance to the nesting cavity for a few seconds before they went inside with the food they had gathered to give to their chicks.
For one and a half wonderful nesting seasons I was thrilled to photograph a pair of mated Williamson's Sapsuckers excavating a nest and tending to their young.
These nesting House Wren photos were taken two years ago at the end of May high up in the Uinta Mountains where stands of aspens are used as nesting trees.
Our current climate crisis could mean Utah might lose our Mountain Bluebirds and it is not just us, it is Idaho, California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming that will also be affected if action isn't taken now.
I tried to get up into a canyon in the Stansbury Mountains yesterday but was met with a closed gate so I turned my Jeep around and decided that I would explore a different canyon.
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.
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.
Right now Red-breasted Nuthatches should be looking for or excavating nesting cavities here in northern Utah which means I should take a trip up to the back roads in the mountains soon and see if I can locate some closer to home than Idaho or Montana.
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.
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 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.
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.
Two years ago today I was in the Targhee National Forest of Clark County, Idaho photographing birds at what I called the "Magical Sapsucker Tree".
I came across this image and realized that the Red-naped Sapsucker had its tongue stuck out and I hadn't noticed that before.
Finding Red-naped Sapsuckers feeding chicks at a nesting cavity in the Uintas made my day!