This isn't a great image, but Sparty doesn't often perch where I can easily photograph him. 

Walking past the window (about 30 minutes ago), I saw this.  That's a Great Blue Heron (affectionately know around my house as "Big Blue").  He didn't stick around long.  The Red-Wings were harassing him because he's a predator.  But I did manage to get a closer image:

The females are subdued, at least by comparison.  Mrs. Eat Me! Bird does wear brilliant orange bill-color and red eyeliner, though.  Not to mention the red wing & tail feathers.

I noticed that Cardinals tend to appear in trios -- 1 male, & 2 females.  I don't know why, or even if I'm the only person who thinks this happens.  Maybe it's just me.  Maybe the Cardinals that live around here are messing with me.  ;-)

I wrote, earlier, about moving the feeder stand from beside-the-driveway to the back yard.  Aside from worries about collisions, the location was farther from the house than I wanted, and probably farther from cover than the birds wanted.  I selected the new location, at least partially, to provide cover and "queueing."  I also decided (mostly from lazyness) to leave a brushpile behind it.  That has provided more interest than I expected it would.

For example, this image contains (at least) 2 birds.  One is fairly obvious -- the Tufted Titmouse on the feeder.  The other bird is not so obvious.

There it is.

Bear in mind, this bird is about the same size as a squirrel.  People legitimately shoot these as food.  Some of it's feathers are pink, and light blue.  But it's really good at pretending to be a rock.  This bird stayed in the same spot for hours.  Every time I glanced out the window, I checked.  Eventually, I let India out and that flushed all of the birds.

Same bird.  Even in close-up, it still blends really well with the surrounding brush and sunlight.  (Amazing, how much sunlight is at ground level.)  You can see some of the blue, around the base of its bill.

This is a male Downy Woodpecker.  How do you know?  He could be a Hairy Woodpecker.  The two species are notoriously difficult to distinguish.

The red patch at the back of his head tells you he's male.

The suet block is about 4" inches (I measured one), which tells you that this bird is about that size.  Too small for a Hairy.  He has a short, rather stubby bill, relative to the size of his head.  Too small for a Hairy.  If you look closely at the white feathers to the outside of his tail, you'll see black bars.  Hairys' tails have solid white feathers.

(Cool thing about this picture.  If you look at his bill, you can see his tongue.  Woodpecker tongues are specialized.  They're like little harpoons.  The bird will knock a hole in the wood, then tongue-spear the bug that he's hunting.)

If you've read any of the previous bird posts, you probably know that the Downy is not a new bird to me.  They've been coming to my feeder for years.  But I've never seen a Hairy Woodpecker.

Until today, that is.

Last fall, I tired of the near-collisions with the feeder stand in the front yard (next to the driveway).  So I moved it to the back yard.  It's been a wonderful success.  (I think I saw an Eastern Bluebird out there, today.  We're well out of the Bluebird's Winter range, but the Great Backyard Bird Count (last weekend) lists them in the area.)

This is a male Hairy Woodpecker.  You can't see the red patch in this image, but it's there.  You can't estimate his size from this image, but I can attest that he's larger than the Downy.  You can see his longer, thicker bill, and the unbarred white feathers at the side of his tail.

Awesome.

I refilled the feeder on the porch.  Peanuts, seed-mix, suet.















I'm not the only one happier for the reappearance of birds outside the front window.

Interestingly, to me, anyway -- is that the cats respond differently to different birds.  Nuthatches, for example, are generally ignored.  They flit to the feeder, take a peanut, and leave.  Woodpeckers are cause for chattering and riveted attention.  They sit and hammer -- obvious motion in a fixed location.

Not too long ago, Birdchick wrote about watching young birds learning to use feeders.  I had the opportunity to see this, myself.

I noticed a Mourning Dove, several days running, sitting on or near the double-crook in the backyard.  I saw him (her?) carefully observing other birds take seed from the feeder.  He was obviously trying to figure it out.








Eventually, he got the idea.  Mourning Doves are big birds.  You might notice 2 things in this image:

1. He's too big for the perch-pegs, and has to sit on the tray under the feeder.
   
2. There isn't much seed left in that feeder.

Wanting to feed birds (plural) not 1 Mourning Dove, I removed the tray.  He's still visiting.  I happened to see him flapping furiously, trying to land on a peg.  His wings are too large to let him get close.  It was amusing, and I have to give him credit for pursuing a valuable food source.  I just wish he'd realize his job is to clean-up under the feeder.

I don't know what this is.  I think it's a Baltimore Oriole.  I suppose it might be an Eastern Towhee.  Originally, I thought Carolina Wren, but it's not.  One of the reasons I suspect Oriole is the location.  She's (if it's a Baltimore, it's female) in a young tree growing in the middle of the raspberry patch.  At the time, that would have been the best source of fruit around.

I heard her outside a window I'm hardly-ever at.  The image quality isn't great, because I shot through a screen window.




And, speaking of lousy pictures snapped through window-screen, here's another.  This one has the added virtue of being both hand-held and at extreme magnification, on a fairly windy day.  This a Cedar Waxwing.  I include because (1) Aside from some unconscious ones that flew into the side of my parents' house, I'd never seen one, and (2) I didn't know about the red wingtips and yellow tailtip, and thought my camera was broken.  (I'm not kidding.  It was only when I saw a second photo showing them, that I realized they weren't artifacts.)  So, new bird!  Yay.  (Despite the very poor image, you can tell this is a Cedar Waxwing, and not a Bohemian, by the yellow on the side of the abdomen.  Bohemians don't have that.)

Ever heard of being "in the Catbird seat"?  There he is.  I'm happy about this image.  Apparently, these guys are frequently about, but very secretive.  I thought I'd heard a Catbird around; they take their name from sounding like a cat meowing.  It was very cool to photograph this unknown bird, then discover what I'd seen.  I wish I'd gotten him a little more in the sun.  But I got the russet-colored vent and the up-thrust tail.  The guidebooks tell me those are both characteristic traits of Catbirds.

Nicole's hummingbird-feeder is a success.  This is a female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird.  If you compare her wings to her tail, you'll notice her tail isn't blurred.  Sibley and Birds of Michigan both tell me this is characteristic of Ruby-Throats.  They hold their tails still while hovering.

Incidentally, the dope-slap was (gently!) delivered by Nicole.  I was thinking of the waxwing & oriole images when I titled this entry.  This image was a late addition.  I was working with it, when I heard "Poorly-Executed?!" <bop> "That's awesome!"  The photograph is pretty-good.  But the wife is definitely awesome.

Northern Flicker.  I like these guys because of their feathers.  They're very striking.  They're also neat because they're woodpeckers that don't peck holes in trees.  They eat mostly ground insects.













Most summers, the pond is visited by 2 species of heron (that I know of).  Most often, we see a Great Blue Heron (known, of course, as "Big Blue").  Occasionally, we see a Green Heron, like this one ("Sparty," of course).  Not the best picture, I know.  I've learned to get a picture as soon as possible, and then worry about getting a good one.  Too frequently, the bird leaves before posing.  Which is what happened this time.

Eastern Kingbird.  These are insect eaters, and this photo shows characteristic behavior.  They perch in the open, like on the birdfeeder stand, and launch themselves at passing insects.

Yes -- this is the image in the blog's banner, now.

This is either a Red-Eared Slider or a Painted Turtle (I think -- it's not a bird, anyway!).  The species look similar to me, and I don't remember distinguishing marks.  All I have to go on is this camera-phone image.  Saw this guy wandering the flowerbed (that white PVC pipe is the outflow from the sump).  Helped him across the driveway a few days later (Nicole was due to return home and I didn't want a squashed turtle).  Was slightly worried about his ability to navigate the high grass, cat-tails, etc. surrounding the pond.  There was no cause for concern.  I placed him at the edge of the brush and he was gone in seconds.  I was amazed at his ability to climb over obstacles.

I heaved a heavy sigh, on Thursday afternoon.  A non-bunny entity was traversing the yard.  As low as it was, I assumed it was a 'chuck.  But I decided to put the binoculars on it, before dragging out the rifle.

I was much surprised.  This is a full-grown Common Snapping Turtle.  I estimate the length of his shell at 18".  For reference, he wouldn't fit in my dutch oven.  I took a few pictures from the porch, but they weren't satisfactory.  (If you know the yard, he's between the Willow and the pond.)  I figured I could get closer, if I was careful, without disturbing him.  That netted this image, and the next:

I really wanted a decent close-up.  I think this is acceptable.  (48x magnification -- I'm not really close.)  I didn't get any closer.  You can see in this image he's partially retracted his head and is eyeing me.  I took that as an indication I was disturbing him, and went back inside.











We found ourselves in Brighton, over the weekend.  This is a picture I took with my phone's camera, through my monocular.  I'd read of people taking pictures simply by holding a digital camera to the eyepiece of a 'scope.  So I tried it.  I include it as a curiosity, but mostly as an excuse to mention the swallows we saw nesting in tree cavities.  I think they were Tree Swallows, but I'm not sure.  The cavities looked man-made, as well.  Still, very cool to see.  They were too high in the tree to get a decent picture with the phone; which is what led me to try the phone+monocular stunt.  The combination had sufficient "reach" but was too difficult to hold steady on rapidly arriving and departing birds.  I suppose I could have photographed an adult apparently feeding nestlings, but who wants to look at a picture of a bird's butt hanging out of a hole in a tree?

Lastly, I found this while cleaning-out iPhoto.  It's artsy-pretentious, with me screwing-around with reflections, depth-of-field, etc.  But what's the point of having a blog if you can't put stuff like this on it?  :-)

Don't think I've posted a picture of a Blue Jay, yet.  If so, sorry -- yer gettin' another one!

On a completely spurious note, I'll be replacing the feeder arm shown here.  Because it curls-under, instead of up like a shepherd's crook, birds perch on the very end of it.  This places them immediately above the feeder.  Wherever birds perch, birds poop.  I checked 3 feeders with 3 different hangers.  This one was, by count of residuals, 3-4 times worse than the others.  Replacing the feeder arm will make it easier to clean the feeder hanging from it.

Not long ago, I looked up to see buff-colored movement in front of a window.  It was large, moving bird-fast, and approaching the feeder.  I watched.  A few moments later, a hawk retreated through the same space.  Clearly, he'd been hunting the feeder.  What caught my attention must have been him trying for a bird on the ground under the feeder.

I checked to see if he'd been successful.  He wasn't, but he left a neat impression in the snow.  The big dent is from feet.  The parallel curves are from his left wing.  I really like that individual feathers left traces in the snow.

The moire pattern in the image is from shooting through the window screen.  Sorry, not going outside in this weather, even for a cool picture.

New mailbox.

As recorded previously, Nicole & I returned from our holiday trip to find the previous one upended.  More recently, it was struck by a plow (I found evidence of impact on the end of the wooden support -- not to mention the box being 20 feet from the post).  The new box is impact-resistant 20ga steel.  I shaved 4-5" from the horizontal support when I mounted it.  It shoudn't be struck again.  The swing-arm is canted in this picture.  I learned that the wash from the snowplow is sufficient to move the arm like this.  Something to remember for the future.  The arm being canted is not sufficient evidence to conclude the box was struck.

The new box did not come with an address kit.  At single-degree temperatures, no adhesive would stick.  So made something and screwed it into place.  The address label is actually printed-and-cutout, glued over window privacy film glued to a piece of 1x.  I wrapped the whole thing in clear plastic.  I think it turned out well, and should certainly help identify the drive at night.  It's shiny, Captain.
Gratuitous Song Sparrow.  Been watching this little guy trundle around under the feeders.  Looks like he's wearing one of those quilted down-filled coats from the 80's.