Category: birds

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 28, 2025 • 8:15 am

One more batch of photos and we’re done. If you have good wildlife photos, please send ’em in. Thanks!

Today we have photos of DUCKS courtesy of reader Damon Williford. Damon’s captions and IDs are enclosed, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them:

Attached are photos of various species of ducks that I’ve photographed in coastal Texas over the years (2012-2023) that you might be able to use.

These are some of the ducks that I’ve photographed in Texas over the years (2012-2023). The photos were taken at various spots along the Texas coast between Houston and Corpus Christi.

Redhead (Aythya americana), male:

Redhead, female:

Redheads are more common on the southern half of the Texas coast due to the greater abundance of shoal grass (Halodule wrightii) and other seagrasses, which form the bulk of their diet during the winter. Redheads also make daily movements between estuaries where they feed to freshwater habitats so that they can bathe and drink.

Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis), male:

Lesser Scaup, female:

Lesser Scaup, male:

Of the diving ducks that spend the winter in Texas, Lesser Scaups are probably the most abundant and occur in both freshwater and saltwater habitats.

Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris), male:

A more appropriate name for this duck would “Ring-billed Duck” or “Pointy-headed Duck” because the neck ring isn’t visible most of the time. Ring-necked Ducks tend to be more common in freshwater habitats.

Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator), male:

Red-breasted Merganser, female:

Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis), male:

Ruddy Duck, female:

Although Ruddy Ducks are divers, I’ve also seen these ducks swimming with their heads just below surface of the water and plowing through the mud with their bills attempting to stir up prey:

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 22, 2025 • 8:30 am

Ecologist Susan Harrison always manages to come through when I’m low on photos, as I am now. Today she sends us a batch of birds from Ohio. Susan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Magee Marsh, Ohio and its many warblers (and others)

The Great Lakes are a significant obstacle for songbirds struggling north from the tropics to breed in the vast, insect-rich expanses of high latitude North America.  Abundant warblers and other small migrants congregate in mid-May in the boggy forests along the lakes’ southern shores.  There, many species tank up on bugs and await favorable winds for the long water crossing, while others settle and breed.

In turn, birdwatchers also convene for this annual avian spectacle. Mid-May at Magee Marsh, on Lake Erie east of Toledo, has become known as “The Biggest Week in American Birding”.   A friendly and festive atmosphere prevails as throngs of birders move along boardwalks peering into dense foliage and high treetops.   This year, I was fortunate to combine a work trip with seeing peak migration at Magee Marsh.

Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citraea) nesting pair:

Magnolia Warbler (Setophaga magnolia):

Blackburnian Warbler (Setophaga fusca):

Bay-breasted Warbler (Setophaga castanea):

Chestnut-sided Warbler (Setophaga pensylvanica):

American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla):

Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens):

Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens):

Cape May Warbler (Setophaga tigrina):

Black-and-white Warbler (Mniotilta varia):

Warbling Vireo (Vireo gilvus):

Philadelphia Vireo (Vireo philadelphicus):

Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus):

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 21, 2025 • 8:15 am

We’re running low on this feature, so please send in some good photos. I won’t beg again for a while.

Today we have photos from Africa by Loretta Michaels.  Her captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Brief Introduction: I used to do a lot of business in Africa and so I almost always tried to tack on a weekend safari of some sort while there.  Most of these times I had only my iphone to take pictures, unlike the bigger safari vacations my husband & I take with all our camera gear.

While in Dar es Salaam on business, I spent a weekend on Chumbe Island, just off the coast of Zanzibar.  One of the more bizarre sightings was a Coconut Crab (Birgus latro), the largest land crab in the world, which is able  to climb coconut palms and easily crack coconuts with its claws.  These crabs also eat fleshy fruit and even prey on smaller crabs. This species of crabs has evolved to live on land from the sea, returning to water only to lay their eggs. On land, they live in underground holes made with fibers from coconut husks, and are generally only spotted at night. An adult crab can reach one meter in length. It has a curled-under abdomen that makes it look like a lobster. Coconut crabs supposedly have very tasty meat, so, unfortunately, they are hunted:

Three nicely aligned bush elephants (Loxodonta africana) I saw during a trip to Zambia:

A nice female African lion (Panthera leo), spotted during a night drive in Zambia:

A Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis) spotted during a drive:

Two white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) in Nairobi National Park, a 45 square mile wildlife sanctuary established in 1946 just outside Nairobi:

Lunchtime at the Lilayi Elephant Nursery just outside Lusaka, Zambia.  The baby elephants are just adorable to watch, especially as they come running in from the fields when they see it’s feeding time:

A Golden Monkey (Cercopithecus mitis kandti) spotted in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda:

A mother and baby mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, just outside Kigali. It is one of two subspecies of the Eastern Gorilla.  The other population lives in the Congo. The park is one of the 3 homes of the endangered mountain gorillas within the Virunga Mountains:

Dominant male gorilla in Volcanoes National Park:

Variable Sunbird (Cinnyris venustus) in Rwanda. The sunbirds are a group of small Old World passerine birds which feed largely on nectar, although they will also take insects, especially when feeding young. Flight is fast and direct on their short wings. Most species can take nectar by hovering like a hummingbird, but usually perch to feed most of the time:

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 13, 2025 • 8:15 am

Susan Harrison of UC Davis reappears today with some photos and lessons about grosbeaks. Her captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Grosbeaks: a tale of convergent evolution

Evening Grosbeaks (Coccothraustes vespertinus) are among the birds that make me the happiest to see.  These dashing, brilliantly colored, sociable seed-feeders live in conifer forests across much of the U.S. and southern Canada, but are not common nor predictable anywhere.  This spring they are unusually abundant around Ashland, Oregon.  In two instances, after the Merlin app alerted me to their “pew! pew!” calls, I located a flock of around 25 birds busily feeding in a tree and then swooping en masse to another tree.

Evening Grosbeaks of both sexes devouring elm seeds (possibly European white elm, Ulmus laevis) in North Mountain Park, Ashland, May 2025:

Black-headed Grosbeaks (Pheuticus melanocephalus) are also delightful to see and hear, and are far more common in their western U.S. range than Evening Grosbeaks.  The Black-headed Grosbeak’s solitary lifestyle and elaborate, ringing song are quite a contrast with the Evening Grosbeak’s gregariousness and unusual lack of any song.

Black-headed Grosbeak adult male (Davis, California), female enduring a storm in Frenchglen, Oregon, and immature feeding on a fruit tree in Ashland:

“Grosbeak” turns out to be a name early ornithologists gave to several distantly related bird lineages that evolved the same handy trait:  an extra-large beak enabling them to crush seeds too large for most other songbirds.  Such a group, united by a shared adaptation rather than by shared ancestry, is called a “form taxon” according to the informative Wikipedia article on grosbeaks.

Evening grosbeaks are in the Finch family (Fringillidae) along with 12 other living grosbeak species.  It’s not surprising, then, that they fly around in talkative flocks like House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus). Pine Grosbeaks (Pinicola enucleator) are another “finch grosbeak,” found in northerly parts of both the Old and New Worlds. Finch grosbeaks also include Old World birds called grosbeak-goldfinches and grosbeak-canaries, and an extinct member of the lamentably vanishing Hawaiian honeycreepers.

Pine Grosbeak female and male (Finland):

Black-headed Grosbeaks are in the Cardinal family (Cardinalidae) together with 16 other grosbeaks.  Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (Pheucticus ludovicianus) are their east-of-Rockies close relative.  Black-headed and Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks are nearly identical as females or young, while the mature males could hardly look more different.  Explain that, you developmental biologists!

Rose-breasted Grosbeak male (Texas):

Blue Grosbeaks (Passerina caerulea) are another “cardinal grosbeak”, breeding in the southern half of the U.S. including the riparian forests near my Davis, California home.  They are right up there with Evening Grosbeaks for causing me to jump with joy on the rare occasions of seeing them.

Blue Grosbeak male, Arizona:

Now you’ve seen all the Grosbeak species I’ve seen, but there are plenty more of these big-beaked beauties in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America.

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 6, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today a regular, UC Davis ecologist Susan Harrison, made a “save the site” contribution so this feature wouldn’t disappear (but, as usual, her photos are great).  But I still importune readers to send in their photos, as we have only two or three days’ worth left.

Susan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Miscellaneous birds and plants, April 2025

Most of today’s photos come from Upper Table Rock near Medford in southern Oregon.  The Table Rocks are a pair of basalt plateaus formed when lava flowed down a valley between now-vanished ridges.   Their flat tops support vernal pools (small seasonal wetlands) and swathes of spring wildflowers.  Their steep sides are cloaked in a mixture of chaparral, oak woodland, and conifer forest.

Views across the top of Upper Table Rock, east to Mt. McLoughlin and southwest to the crest of the Siskiyou Mountains:

Lark Sparrows (Chondrestes grammaticus) in the table-top meadows, strolling in Goldfields (Lasthenia californica), eating the round seeds of Shining Peppergrass (Lepidium nitidum), and posing by a Rusty Popcornflower (Plagiobothrys nothofulvus):

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerula) singing on a Buckbrush (Ceanothus cuneatus):

Oak Titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus) on an Oregon Oak (Quercus garryana):

Bewick’s Wren (Thyromanes bewickii) on a blackberry (Rubus) and a bare branch:

Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) on a gnarled Madrone (Arbutus menziesii):

Spotted Towhee (Pipilio maculatus) among Oakmoss lichen (Evernia prunastri):

The last three photos are from the banks of our local waterway, Putah Creek, in northern California:

California Towhee (Melozone crissalis):

Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsonii):

Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli):

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 2, 2025 • 8:15 am

Well, dear readers, this is the last of the photos I have to show you, and there are but two. If you have good photos, send them in–STAT!  Thanks.

From reader Christopher Moss, bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). His captions are indented, and if you want to enlarge the photos, click on them.

Not terribly good, as they are cropped to the centre of the original, despite using a 750mm lens. I had noticed something black on the frozen pond, and when the eagle landed to investigate I realised something had died there. The crows were squawking a lot and I wondered if it was one of their number.

Oh! I just found 24 more photo from Richard Pieniakowski, so we have a couple of days’ worth (his captions).  I will just add the first two because they’re the same species as above.

Bald eagle perched in snowfall:

Bald eagle flying through snow:

Readers’ wildlife photos

April 28, 2025 • 8:15 am

I need photos! If you have some good ones, please send them along. Thanks!

Today we have a second batch of birds from British Columbia photographed by Paul Handford (part 1 is here). Paul’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Once again, most of these images are from our yard, in the hills south and east of Kamloops town, with a few from nearby nature parks.I could not resist sending three images of the glorious Mountain Bluebird.

Western meadowlark, Sturnella neglecta

Red-winged blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus:

Mountain chickadee, Poecile gambelli:

Yellow-rumped warbler, Setophaga coronate:

Pygmy nuthatch, Sitta pygmaea:

Red-breasted nuthatch, Sitta canadensis:

White-breasted nuthatch, Sitta carolinensis:

Northern house wren, Troglodytes aedon:

 Townsend’s solitaire, Myadestes townsendi:

Varied thrush, Ixoreus naevius:

Say’s phoebe, Sayornis saya:

Western kingbird, Tyrannus verticalis:

Mountain bluebird, Sialia currucoides:

Ditto:

Ditto: