First, regular Stephen Barnard is back with a set of three pictures he calls “the usual suspects”:
A drake Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos):
A Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis):
And something a little different: I’ve been seeing a male American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) frequently. I sent photos. This is the first female I’ve seen.
To show the sexual dimorphism in this species (one of my favorite raptors), here’s a photo of a male and female kestrel from FactZoo.com, along with a description from the Cornell bird site:
American Kestrels are pale when seen from below and warm, rusty brown spotted with black above, with a black band near the tip of the tail. Males have slate-blue wings; females’ wings are reddish brown. Both sexes have pairs of black vertical slashes on the sides of their pale faces—sometimes called a “mustache” and a “sideburn.”
And reader “walkingmap” sent some photos from Colorado. First, a panorama:
I took this landscape on Sept. 27 the afternoon of the lunar eclipse, I had backpacked to Lonesome Lake, Pitkin County, Colo. (Google Earth Address) to watch the eclipse. I was the only human there and it was glorious. For this picture I am looking north straddling the Continental Divide at about 12,000 ft. The Divide goes soft right to the close peak then swings back left along ridge to the middle of the picture.
When I turned around I found these lichens under an overhang. I think there may be 5 or 6 distinct colonies. I wish I had a macro lens for my iPhone. They were as wonderful to see as the landscape.
One more from a different hike here in Colorado: Alloclavaria purpurea (Purple Coral) a beautiful mushroom that grows on the ground in Spruce/Fir forests at higher elevations, said to be edible but not distinctive.
Stephen’s photos are, as usual, spectacular! Some bird book publisher ought to hire him. And the Colorado photos by “walkingmap” bring back wonderful memories of one of my favorite parts of the world. Well done, folks…
Very cool! That is a remarkable spot for lichen diversity. I would expect there would be slow but ferocious competition — perhaps even slo-‘mo aggression — between colonies as they vie for limited space. We know corals do as much.
I noticed the American kestrel looks quite a bit like the peregrine falcon, although I’m sure to a practiced observer the differences would seem obvious.
These are all beautiful creatures.
Apart from the ‘usual suspects’ which are always ‘good’ I enjoyed the variety of this post, thanks.
I like all these photos a lot, but I love that mallard shot!