"birding" fun

[whulsey]

The starling is great. Ours as Don said are pretty drab.

The area looks a lot like Arizona until you get up into the mountains. One out of west of Phoenix off I-10. The 2nd up north off I-40 west of Flagstaff. Some baby ducks for birds.

[Kevin WS]

It does look a bit like it.

The baby ducks look very determined - homing in on food?

[whulsey]

I think it was more the anticipation of food, since a lot of residents toss bread scraps (which is terrible for them) from the patios to them.

[Kevin WS]

A second lot of pictures.

These are White Backed Vultures.

Not many people realise these birds are now on IUCN Red List and are now classified as Critically Endangered - in the few countries where they exist they have suffered a decrease of between 50 to 90% (West Africa).

The current estimate is that they could be extinct in 15 to 20 years, with the last ten years having seen a major decline.

The main cause of death is poisoning due to environmental contamination (lead, cadmium, zinc, and copper), which also affect the animals they eat as well, and well as hunting for "medicine".

Vultures are easy to poison via contaminated meat, and because they "see far" are valued as "medicine" for predictions (people buying lottery tickets, worried about the future etc) and are thus very valuable when dead. There is also a big market for the body parts in China.

All the photos below are White Backed vultures coming into the remains of a kill.

Because there often quite a lot of them in the same airspace - they are very structured in the air, and follow the same circuits when they fly and land etc.

Photo 1 - Vultures joining the landing circuit.

Photo 2 - Vultures in a holding pattern.

Photo 3 - Final Approach.

Photo 4 - Close to touch down.

[Kevin WS]

Next two smaller birds.

Photo 1 - Burchells Staring - again very colourful. Fairly common up north.

Photo 2 - Long Tailed Magpie (!) Shrike. Diet is insects, fruit and small mammals. Most of the time they are perched scanning for prey. They tend to use the same perches and some days I have seen them catch something every 10 minutes from the same perch.

In terms of size, they are nowhere near the size of the European Magpies - under half the size in terms of body volume.

[Don Boose]

Wonderful images, Kevin. Many thanks for posting them. I also liked your baby ducks, Wayne.

No images, but today the first red-winged blackbird of the year arrived at the back garden feeder.

Don

[Kevin WS]

Thanks, Don.

I have a bird feeder, but the birds usually just dart in and out so pics are hard to come by.

The feeder sits under a low bushy tree for the protection of the birds (our four cats) and for most of the year it is obscured by leaves anyway.

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From the trip here are two birds that largely spend their time on the ground.....

Photo 1 - Natal Spurfowl. So-called because it has a large defensive spur behind its legs. A seed and bulb eater.

Photo 2 - Crowned Lapwing. A termite and eater, and earthworms after any rain.

They ground nest, and because ground cover is spare collect it from quite a wide. They do this by going in a circle" throwing suitable material in the direction of the nest. The "circle" then gets smaller, and they throw again etc!!!!

[whulsey]

Good shots. The Spurfowl's markings really remind me of a guinea hen. We had a flock of them plus some white ones also on the farm were I grew up. Better then a dog as a warning alarm.

[Kevin WS]

Thank you. Probably similar families. I am always interested in the American birds, as many are often very similar looking to birds here.

When visiting the I UK I found that though some birds looked similar, there was a real size difference, with the UK/European birds being a great deal larger. In fact I was quite shocked at the size of their birds. The pigeons are ginormous compared to here, as are all the corvids.

The similarities with the US birds are a lot closer, and sizes similar, and this I assume is due to similar families and biological niches.

The African Fish Eagle and the Bald Eagle are good examples - they look almost identical, have similar size and habits, and even sound similar. Both eat fish mainly, though the African Fish Eagle only operates in fresh waters. The families are the same.

[birder]

Thank you for these cool photos Kevin, I love the beautiful inland plover is wonderful and colorful, and a great picture