I start with the usual pleas for more photos of wildlife (or travel or “street photography”). Send ’em in, please. I have a decent backlog now, but the need never ends.
Today we have photos from several readers. All of their captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
The first trio is from reader Jim McCormac, who has a blog and a “massive photo website“.
Here are a few photos from the latter end of last May, all taken within a few miles of each other in the Elk River Country State Forest near the northern tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula. Two images show Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warbler, and the other is of a “Brewster’s” Warbler – the most frequent hybrid form resulting from pairings between the aforementioned species. When Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers come into contact, the process of hybridization occurs, and within a few decades the more northerly distributed Golden-wings will be replaced by Blue-wings. The latter species is expanding northward, and this was the first year that I’ve encountered Blue-wings (two individuals) up there. I wrote more about this phenomenon on my blog: Ohio Birds and Biodiversity: Blue-winged vs. Golden-winged warblers: An interesting conundrum (jimmccormac.blogspot.com)
Blue-winged warbler (Vermivora cyanoptera):
Golden-winged warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera)
Brewster’s warbler:
From Diana MacPherson:
Here are a couple of shots of a raccoon (Procyon lotor) under the bird feeder.
From Claudia Baker:
Common yellow-shafted flicker (Colaptes auratus). This is a male with his black “moustache”. This boy was feeding on my front lawn early last fall. Flickers hop awkwardly on the ground. and love to eat ants, which are plentiful around here. Yellow-shafted because, overhead, it flashes golden yellow under the wings and tail. They are quite a large bird, 12-14”. Their song is very loud and I sometimes confuse the sound with the pileated woodpecker, of which there are many in the surrounding woods. The second photo shows the beautiful red crescent on the nape.
A sciurid ménage à trois from reader Barry:
It’s crazy. What is going on there? Get a squirrel expert on the horn, pronto!
The squirrel photo is obvious, reader “Barry” has been playing “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Baby” and it put the backyard squirrels in the mood.
And I love the yellow-shafted flicker. He’s a bad mutha-Shut Your Mouth!
I’m talkin’ ’bout Shaft.
And we can dig it.
Beautiful warblers, Jim! Thanks all.
These are all wonderful and fun photos!
I love that raccoon. Gorgeous birds and rambunctious squirrels! I have no idea what their behavior is though.
I’m simply in awe of the talent that appears daily on the RWL segment. Thanks, All!
(Haha… the last photo is of a Spam on Pumpernickel sandwich.)
Very interesting! A ménage à curious Sciurus?
NICE!
I love these pictures, but especially the raccoon.
My housemate puts out foot for a few semi-feral female cats that frequent our area, and sometimes I’ll catch a local raccoon pilfering some of it when I get home late. She (I’m pretty sure it’s a biological female, because at least once she had a youngster with her, but I don’t know with which gender she self-identifies) always has an expression that looks guilty to me, as though she knows she’s taking food intended for someone else. I always reassure her that she’s fine, and should help herself.
She never replies.
I’d rather have her eat the food than the mooching neighborhood male cats who actually have owners (at least one has a very nice collar) but are NOT “fixed”, and who come around looking for easy food and easy sex…and who spray on my scooter cover!
I think it’s quite obvious what the squirrels are doing. Get a room!
Nice bird and racoon photos.
These were great, those squirrels made me laugh 😂
group hug!