I’ll start with one of my own: a photo I snapped with my iPhone camera on the way home yesterday. It is, of course, Ginkgo biloba, a “living fossil” whose leaves turn an attractive bright yellow in fall. My late colleague Monte Lloyd used to tell me that a given tree would shed all its leaves in a single day, and I bet him otherwise (how would that be possible?). Of course I won. Not a great photo, but it tells us that, in the northern hemisphere, fall is here:
As usual, Stephen Barnard from Idaho has some lovely photos in the queue. Here’s a drake mallard, Anas platyrhynchos, taking off:
And a sequence involving a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis):
I sending you a whole sequence of the hawk landing on what amounted to some twigs, and one photo of it leaving the
precarious perch.
Reader Randy Schenk from Iowa sent some cormorant photos:
This is the popular hangout for the Double-crested cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) at the lake. When they are not fishing they gather here and probably tell fishing stories.
The double-crested Cormorant is very hard to get close for a photo, and this is the best I could do. These are surprisingly large birds that can be 90 cm (about 3 feet) in length. Also, there are plenty of Fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) probably getting ready for winter.
This is obviously a melanistic fox squirrel:
I’m convinced that “Stephen Barnard” is not a person but a collective of highly skilled nature photographers. It is the only explanation I can come up with to account for the volume of excellent work sent from Idaho.
I think you call that professional or at minimum PRO/AM. The Mallard is a most favorite duck and this picture shows all of it.
Retirement … 🙂
You know more than I but then…I am retired too so do not think that could be the cause.
Magnificent pixtures. That mallard picture is like a painting.
Ginkgos can of course drop a lot of their leaves all at once.
Global signal or a local process that is very repetitive, does anybody know?
[Some leaves on trees seem to hang around longer, so I would guess the latter. But I wouldn’t make a Jerry-juried bet on it.]
There is a Scarlet Maple on a street by a friend of mine’s house that turns a glorious red in the Fall and then looses all its leaves, sometimes in a matter of hours, a few days later.
The Mallard shot reminds me of the museum diorama. It’s like he’s looking back at you thinking – hurry and snap the shutter will you? I can’t hold this pose forever.
Thanks for the Ginkgo Biloba link Jerry. There was a lot of fascinating information about that tree that I didn’t know. I just thought it was an expensive herb that makes you smarter 😉
Beautiful drake! Usually birds seem to make good judgments on their perches, not so in this impressive sequence.
Cormorants are fun to watch and observe, especially when fishing.
Randy, what kind of fish reside in the lake?
Sorry to say we are overrun with carp. The river is just a stone’s throw away and at some point some got in. There are lots of catfish, some large mouth bass, crappy, and sunfish but I am probably missing a few. I think the Cormorants feed mostly on shad.
Damn those carp…they are good at overrunning. Sounds like a nice variety nonetheless.
I love the cormorant close-up; I’ve long had a soft place in my heart for them.
The Mallard photo made me think of a painting, too.
Stephen takes very good photos and needs no advice from me, but waterbirds and seabirds in general – including the DC Cormorant – are very approachable when you’re in a small boat. I’ve gotten right next to DC Cormorants, and other cormorant species (Brandt’s and Pelagic), as well as waterfowl and sandpipers, in kayaks and canoes. They don’t seem to recognize that we are still those potentially extremely dangerous and unpredictable humans. Please pass that on to Stephen.
So what your saying is…I need a boat. I’ll give it try some time when I get the canoe in the water. Those Cormorants are very spooky. Even on a tractor I cannot get close.
Don’t think it’s a problem for Stephen. He has lenses that would give you a close up if they were on the moon.
I’ve noticed that I can get very close to birds when I’m in a float tube. Unfortunately, I have fishing tackle instead of good camera gear.
I wonder how a small drone would work. I’d introduce it gradually from a distance. The birds might get used to it fairly quickly and allow close approaches.
Like this.
🙂
Monte Lloyd tops my list of greatness. If the bet had been made inside a tavern, he would have won.
Squirrel seems to be saying (in a French accent), “….and don’t come back or I’ll taunt you a second time!”
Ginkgo biloba is an amazing tree. I have a small potted one in my collection. A blend of archaisms and convergences with deciduous flowering trees. Unfortunately It won’t Live in this hard World for long. It is nearly extinct in nature, and I predict its total extinction in the recent millions of years ahead. It is too slow-growing for modern-type plant communities, its seeds have no real dormancy for adverse conditions and the dispersers for its seeds are few. Even if there are animals that will be atracted to the seed odor, WHO would swallow this big seed? Probably mesozoic forms with small seeds are better adapted for today? And also it seems it is well-equipped to deal with insect predators, but not mammals. A ginkgo I had in the past got girdled by my rabbit and nearly died. My rabbit one day found it, gnawed a little its little trunk, but I didn’t give it much thought. Then one day all the bark low on the trunk was gnawed off. Of course, being the hardy tree that it is, it sprouted NEW growth under the damage in a month and a half. Also my rabbit likes to eat ginkgo leaves when I give her. I have also heard about deer destroying whole Young plants. For the proofof what modern herbivores can do, watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkqm_oQPkjE
ps. Why on-avian reptiles are under-represented in readers’ wildlife photos? Are they discriminated against here?