"birding" fun

[Vermin_King]

On the 10th of March I saw something I'd never seen before. Blue Herons are pretty common in West Central Missouri, but that afternoon I saw more than a dozen flying in a 'V' formation heading southwest, barely above the tree tops. I wish I had a better phone so I could have gotten pics or video.

One of my agents sent this link to me today which I thought was also interesting.
Alessondra's OKC Great Horned Owl-Cam, Ustream.TV: Welcome to Alessondra's Great Horned Owl Cam, Live from Oklahoma City Alessondra's thrilled that you've...

[Ashrunner]

One of the things I do is participate in a weekly blog-sphere meme called Camera Critters. The meme is designed for people to showcase their images of critters of any type and I enjoy doing it and showing off my photography.

Kevin's post about ostriches reminded me of one of my first posts on the meme. If you are curious, you can see it this link.

But the original reason for this reply regards the Bushtit. I have in the past always seem to see them when I was sans-camera. However, one day in early December I came across a flock of the birds while walking around town and was finally able to get a photo of the bird.

I ended up shooting about 40 images before the flock moved on. The following shot is the best of them all. It is of a female Bushtit. One can tell female bushtits from male by looking at the eyes. The female has yellow eyes.

[birder]

The Pileated is soo cool, love the regal bearing of that bird, second your opinion on the sharpie,Don, (although who could not debate over a small male Coopers...there is overlap between a large female sharpie and a small male Coopers in size.. ) Ash wow such a clear photo of such a tiny bird! More please...

[Ashrunner]

I have heard about these birds being in a lot of places in central Oregon, but I have never seen one...until the other day.

The COBOL email list (Central Oregon Birders On Line) announced a Burrowing Owl in Redmond (not downtown, but close) in an open field across from the Walmart in town. So I hopped on my bicycle and when I arrived in the area, I found a couple of birders with camera in hand viewing the bird.

I normally make every attempt to keep man-made junk out of my images, but in this case I was unable. Also, the light wasn't great that day...sort of flat...which was compounded by the subdued colors of the owl.

[Don Boose]

Man-made junk or not, that is a superb image, in my opinion. I certainly enjoyed seeing it!

Don

[ashevilleangler]

Back in the mid nineties I played tennis on courts at the College of Santa Fe. The courts where adjacent to several acres of undeveloped land. Late in the day as dusk settled over the courts the burrowing owls would come out to roost on the corner posts of the court fences. We always thought that they enjoyed watching us play. Deep down I suppose we knew that they were just waiting for us to leave. Those posts were the highest observation positions available.

Curt

[Kevin WS]

Very nice. I have a soft spot for owls!

[SCEtoAUX]

When I was a kid in Lawton Oklahoma in the early 1960's we would sometimes have baseball practice close to the Museum of the Great Plains. There was a prairie dog town in the outfield area of one of the fields. I once saw an owl standing by one of the burrow entrances, but no one on the team would believe that I really saw one. "Owls don't live in holes in the ground!"

[Swampfox]

Hi everyone, just a quick post to show what my wife saw this morning when she walked to get the mail. Our mailbox is about a mile walk one way and she usually takes her camera with her. Most of the time she sees birds, lots of birds......We got some over night snow, ~8 inches and she was hoping to get some nice shots....

,,

This little guy and his mate were just sitting in some trees along the path she takes....these are untouched except for the cropping. She was at MAX zoom, which is about 350mm on her camera.

We're always amazed at the color, they look fake...

Enjoy,
Swampfox

[Don Boose]

wonderful images!

Indigo bunting?

Don