Backyard and Beyond

Nice contrast between the altricial young of the American Robin, with their eyes closed, featherless, and quite helpless, and the precocial Mallard ducklings, who are ready to rock (and swim, forage) almost instantly. Note how much bigger-looking the background bird is in the Robin nest: could this be a Cowbird or just an earlier hatch?

I have amped up the technology. These are from a PowerShot SX50 HS, which has a MUCH better lens than my workhorse PowerShot G9. I’ve been testing on these easy birds. The rather more difficult Marsh Wren of earlier this week was a capture with this new rig.

This Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) was bathing in Brooklyn Bridge Park the other day.Then it preened, in those hard-to-get-to corners.Most of the passerines, of the order Passeriformes — who make up more than half of all bird species — have twelve tail feathers.This bird looks black from a distance, but blues, browns, purples, and greens all can be seen close up as the iridescent feathers bounce back a rainbow. Remember that birds can see a wider range of spectrum than we can, so this probably looks pretty spectacular to another grackle.Hey, good lookin’! Bathed and preened, our bird surveys his kingdom. Grackles like the company of grackles, and often congregate and nest in pine trees; at least one pair nested in the park last year (although not in a pine). They are often seen on the ground, noisily tossing leaves out of the way as they search for food — they’ll eat almost anything. Their long keel-like tails mark them out in flight.