birding
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A Bigger Cowbird
I don’t know if this is one of the Brown-headed Cowbird chicks I saw in the last couple of weeks. If not, it would be the third one I’ve sighted this summer. I’d never seen one before this summer. As in the other cases, I heard this youngster calling for food before seeing it or…
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Raptor Wednesday
There is no mistaking a mature Red-tailed Hawk, at least in this part of the country. And there is no mistaking the sounds of song birds upset by the presence of such a hulking predator. Four Northern Mockingbirds were fidgeting in this tree around the hawk. On a nearby obelisk — cemeteries! — a Chipping…
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Bird of Many Feathers
Doing some quick internet searching, I see that songbirds can have from 1500-3000 individual feathers. Swans can have as many as 25,000.
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Raptor Wednesday
This is a young male American Kestrel. He brought some bird prey to this balustrade recently, and left it on the right hand corner. You can just see the lump. It was there for more than an hour as he flew here and here, perching here and there as well. Now, this building has been…
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Genus Ardea
Two juvenile Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) and a Great Egret (Ardea alba) were hanging out at the same “water” in Green-Wood recently. Ardea is Latin for heron, herodias is Greek for heron. Alba is white. The egret was scarfing down small fry with abandon. Never saw either of the herons make a strike. (“Heron”…
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How Now, Cowbird?
A late season chick. But what species?Here comes a parent… oh-oh. Chipping Sparrow.And Brown-headed Cowbird. Brown-headed Cowbirds are brood parasites. They lay their eggs in the nests of other species. The hatchling may kill off the hosts’ own offspring. I’ve never seen this in action. BHC’s lay their eggs “in 220 species of birds. Recent…
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All Summer Long
An unfamiliar bird sound called this one to my attention this week. It’s a fledgling American Robin. Still very much undercooked, the bird was clamoring for food.It may never have seen one of my kind before.I obviously can’t be eaten… or can I be?Yes, it can fly with those wings.A couple of days later, some…
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Raptor Wednesday
Look, up in the sky! It’s a… oh, let’s cut to the chase, comix book fans. It is a mature Bald Eagle. A pair have been nesting in the area for a couple of years now. (Remember, in 1974 there were no breeding pairs in New York State AT ALL. In 2017, there were 323…
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Tilt-a-nest
Northern Mockingbird nesting. A late brood or a second one? The angle here, by the way, is accurately represented. I wonder if they built it this way or it somehow shifted once they got it going. If you think these sweetgum pods look odd, you’d be right. This is a different species from our native…
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Raptor Wednesday
The #BrooklynKestrels. Mother and daughters. The young ones tend to look plumper than she does, but I can’t see this in this particular picture. She’s still bringing them food — and this roof is still a larder. They fly down to it, out-of-sight, and come up with a pice of something. There have been some…
Backyard and Beyond 