Monday, August 30, 2021

Dowitchers


The short-billed one comes through our county in small numbers in May and again end of August, in groups of 1-3. The long billed can be found in large groups in the fall. It took me 7 summers to find one. I found them in Washington state before, where large groups of a different subspecies gather on the coastal mud flats.


Long-billed Dowitcher

I don't seem to have a handy photo of the colorful spring birds, but here is one. 

The grayish winter birds are common, and easy to distinguish from the more squat and more colorful Wilson's snipe.



Friday, June 18, 2021

Summer

 If you stay in the same county all summer, nothing much new shows up. But I did get an Upland Sandpiper-.


Other photos were taken just because I had a camera along.






And from May



Friday, April 30, 2021

Saturday, January 2, 2021

A few 2020 shots

 


Fox Sparrow


Western Grebe



Merganser


Gold-crowned Kinglet



Red-throated Loon


Pipit

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Prairie Falcon

I had seen one in Nebraska once before, with no real good photo but very high in the air (you can see it is a falcon) and I had seen a couple in Wyoming. I went to one of my local places, adding a Western Meadowlark and hoping few more year birds. I got excited at finding maybe a Peregrine Falcon. At the end of my walk there was this lump on a bent tree:


It was too large for a kestrel or a merlin. Getting closer, and the light really was as bad as above, I got some photos of it. The couple of pictures in flight are from a bit of video I took. The line on the face and the white behind the eye make it a Prairie Falcon. Only in winter and early spring do they get this far East.




It flew low across a field of corn stubble to the next row of trees by a farm.


Thursday, March 5, 2020

Barred Owl Hit by Car

This was my find on 14th Street South end this morning. It's a pretty good sized owl.


Very common for owls to hit cars at night.

I'm not great at owls, though in Finland my friend takes me night time birding, and I at least move around when they would be about. We found a curlew and a night jar last time, no owls, night time birding in Finland.