Juvenile Mountain Bluebird in Montana
Last month and this month I wrote about Mountain Bluebirds in several posts that included images of adult males and females, today I am posting one image of the many fledglings I saw last week.
Last month and this month I wrote about Mountain Bluebirds in several posts that included images of adult males and females, today I am posting one image of the many fledglings I saw last week.
Yes, I was mobbed by Loggerhead Shrikes and I didn't mind a bit because it afforded me the opportunity to observe and photograph them up close and it was fascinating!
I want to thank Neil Paprocki for sharing information about Al Larson and the upcoming film The Bluebird Man, I have learned a lot from the web site and through my interview with Neil and I am all for learning more about the wonderful natural world around me.
It won't be long before these young Loggerhead Shrikes earn the name "Butcher Bird" by following their parents wing beats!
Yesterday a family of Loggerhead Shrikes kept us busy for a bit as the juveniles begged the adults to feed them and the adults were hunting food to bring to the rather noisy youngsters on Antelope Island State Park.
It won't be long before I start seeing juvenile Willets that are about the size of the one pictured here.
White Ibis can be strange looking birds to people who have never seen them before, they have soft, sky blue eyes, skinny legs, long necks and a bill that could be compared to Jimmy Durante's nose.
I've said before that owls fascinate me; probably more times than I can count, and Short-eared Owls are always a delight.
This juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk was perched on a metal fence post so I opted to go for a portrait to remove the "hand of man".
Last summer I was able to see and photograph a juvenile Swainson's Hawk expelling a pellet in Beaverhead County, Montana.
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.
This juvenile Red-naped Sapsucker image was taken on my first camping trip in the high Uintas in Summit County, Utah not far from Christmas Meadows.
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.
I haven't had many opportunities to photograph the Harlan's subspecies of the Red-tailed Hawk so I was thrilled yesterday when I spotted a juvenile dark morph Harlan's Hawk feeding on a dead American Coot on the bank of a creek.
I've mentioned before that Great Blue Herons stay in the Salt Lake Valley over winter even though the temperatures get very cold and so do some of the Black-crowned Night Herons.
There are Burrowing Owls on Antelope Island; I've photographed them hundreds of times, but yesterday I spotted one in a location I had never seen one before.
Just a few images from this past week.
I went out into the west desert of Utah this morning hoping to take images of the raptors I thought I would find there to do a post on but some days though the birds are few and those that you find just aren't cooperative
I don't get to see or photograph Oystercatchers here in Utah but I still dream about these shorebirds and can hear their calls when I look at the thousands of images I took of them.
Not only did I see numerous Red-tailed Hawk juveniles on my recent trip to Montana, I also saw quite a few Swainson's Hawk (Buteo swainsoni) juveniles too.
Fluffy Great Horned Owl fledgling + knotty weathered wood + large yellow eyes = Wonderful!
I simply could not resist posting this gorgeous Coyote pup that I photographed today even though I posted another one recently. I loved the look the pup was giving me, the warm, beautiful morning light and wonderful prairie setting.
It might have been slow on Antelope Island State Park yesterday as far as birds go but it was a Coyote kind of day with 9 as a total tally for just a few hours spent on the island.
On my mid-July journey to southwestern Montana it seemed like there were juvenile hawks every where I looked, the east and west side of the Centennial Valley and the south and north sides too.
These images were taken at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Montana. There were two Willets; an adult and a juvenile, on the shoreline of the lower lake that delighted me.
I like gulls, I know that gulls are not always a popular subject for many bird photographers and that they will often pass them by but to me they are as delightful, beautiful and fascinating as any other bird.
On the first day of my recent trip to southwestern Montana I came across two Willets (Tringa semipalmata) near a lake shore, one was an adult and one was a juvenile.
Let's face it some butt shots aren't very pretty but some can be awfully darned cute!
From all appearances it has been a great nesting season for the Loggerhead Shrikes on Antelope Island State Park, it seems everywhere I look there are numerous juvenile Shrikes perched on bushes near rather harried looking adults.
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.