Category: birds

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 18, 2025 • 8:15 am

Well, folks, this is the last batch I have, and then the feature goes silent. If you have photos, wake it up again! Thanks.

Today’s photos come from the lens of Pratyaydipta Rudra and show one of his favorite birds. Pratyay’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

This is the second part of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers (Tyrannus forficatus) photos that I have taken over the past few years after I moved to Oklahoma.  [JAC: Part 1 is here.] I don’t remember the exact date taken for each individual photo (all taken during the summer months), so I have skipped that information and included some stories behind each photo.

As much as I love to photograph these birds in a tight frame against the sky, it also gets boring after a while. So, I started thinking about different kinds of compositions by including other elements of the environment and sometimes putting the bird smaller in the frame.

This one took off from one of the Bald Cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) bordering our local lake. The golden light was beautiful:

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher catching what I believe is a soldier beetle, probably Chauliognathus pensylvanicus, but I might be wrong:

Got it!:

There was a nice meadow in a local park that used to have beautiful wildflowers every spring. The birds loved the area, and I liked photographing them among the wildflowers. But two years ago it was mowed down to make space for frisbee golf. While this may invite some more people to the park and let them enjoy the outdoors, I was sad that the wonderful habitat was lost. This is a photo that I took there before it was mowed down:

Scissortail hover hunting over the meadow:

Another one taking off to find dinner…:

Not all birds look equally good in silhouettes, but scissortails most definitely look very elegant:

Three silhouetted birds in territorial battle. It looked like there was a mated pair and one invader who was quickly chased away!:

Two of them vocalizing and flickering their wings during some territorial disputes:

Another sunset silhouette… An orange and black to honor my OSU connection:

I like the water of the lake as a better backdrop than the sky… This one predictably came back to its favorite twig as flycatchers (and dragonflies) often do!:

I was glad to capture this unique “chase sequence” involving a flycatcher and a speedboat. The bird won:

Probably my most favorite scissortail photo ever, and I never thought I would capture that using a 16-35mm lens! On this day, there was a thunderstorm in the afternoon, and the sky was decorated with beautiful mammatus clouds after the thunderstorm. I was walking around our house with my wide lens to capture some cloud images. At that time, a couple of scissortails were appearing in the neighborhood every evening, and I was wishing that one of them would show up. I like to say that adding a scissortail to any scene makes it more beautiful!:

As I was looking around, I found out that a male scissortail was sitting right on our pecan tree! I was incredibly excited, quickly increased my shutter speed, and waited for the bird to take off. This is one of the images I got after waiting for a couple minutes.

When I said “adding a scissortail to any scene makes it more beautiful”, I obviously didn’t mean adding them using AI to an existing image, and it applies to this one too where I was able to capture the bird flying across the rainbow after my waiting for that to happen for some time:

I would like to wrap up with this closer view of our state bird. This image reminds me of the box of the boardgame called “Wingspan”. I don’t know if any of you played it, but if you are into board games, you should try it. My wife and I played it over 500 times across different expansions and we still enjoy it so much:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 16, 2025 • 8:15 am

We have some diverse photos by biologist Scott Ritchie from Cairns in Australia. Scott’s captions are indented and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. Scott’s Facebook page, on which he posts many photos, is here.

I have one batch of photos left, so send ’em if you got ’em. Thanks!  Scott’s text:

I had promised Phil Venables that I would get him in for on Cheynes Beach, WA [Western Australia], so here it is! What a great spot for landscapes, plants and wildlife! Mammals, from the small (Honey Possum) to the huge (S. Right Whale). And I managed to photograph 1 of the 3 skulking birds, the Western Bristlebird. Here are some of my favourites images.

The plants and the landscapes were brilliant. A must visit area:

From the large (Southern Right Whale, Eubalaena australis)…

. . . to the small (Honey Possum, Tarsipus rostratus, feeding on Waratah Banksia, Banksia coccinea):

. . . to the creepy…This huge skink snuck out from under the cabin and bit my wife’s foot!

. . . . and the beautiful (Waratah Banksia)…

Cheynes Beach has them all!:

First cute. I was fortunate to get get shots of this small Honey Possum feeding on the Waratah Banksia during the 1st light of dawn:

This small marsupial comes out at dusk and feeds on nectar and pollen through wee hours of dawn:

Mouse like:

With a very long tongue for nectar:

During our 1st sundowners, we saw a SR Whale breech!:

Two days later we discovered that they came just off shore at Tourist Rocks. They basically wallowed around like giant pigs. But I do like the cloud reflections on the whales back.:

Birds enjoyed the banksia too. A White-cheeked Honeyeater [Phylidonyris niger] getting ready for flight:

And chased each other around the banksias:

But the larger Western Wattlebirds [Anthochaera lunulata] chased them, and any bird that landed on a banksia flower:

A male Red-winged Fairywren [Malurus elegans] used old banksia cones as a lookout post:

The typical pose and photo of the Western Bristlebird [Dasyornis longirostris] as it runs down the sand trail:

He stopped just long enough to me to get this shot. Thanks for thinking of me:

The grass yards of the cabins attracted birds. I was lucky to get a nice close-up of a Brown Quail [Synoicus ypsilophorus]:

And a Common Bronzewing [Phaps chalcoptera] at dusk:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 10, 2025 • 9:12 am

Today we have a contribution of miscellaneous flora and fauna from reader David Riddell, a Kiwi.  His descriptions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Recently I sent in some pictures of seabirds to be posted here, several of them taken on a trip to New Zealand’s Chatham Islands. I thought I’d add a few more images from that trip, starting with this group of Pitt Island shags (Phalacrocorax featherstoni).  These are endemic to the Chathams – one of two species found only there, and one of 13 New Zealand cormorant species, which are generally all referred to as shags in this country.  There are fewer than 500 pairs of both Chatham species, and their numbers appear to be declining.  Unfortunately these are not in breeding plumage, when they look a lot more handsome:

Shore plovers (Charadrius novaeseelandiae) were wiped off the New Zealand mainland by exotic mammalian predators by the 1870s, and for more than a century existed only on Rangatira Island, which lies just off Pitt Island in the Chathams. Small populations have now been re-established on a couple of predator-free islands off the New Zealand mainland, as well as another island in the Chathams group, but the global population is still below 200.  Intensive predator control on Pitt (where a few feral cats persist) has recently allowed the odd pair to breed there, which is where we saw this one, along with a recently fledged juvenile:

In the 1970s there were only about 50 Chatham Island oystercatchers (Haematopus chathamensis). With management there are now over 300, but they are still the world’s rarest oystercatcher.  These were on Pitt, very close to the shore plover above:

Back on main Chatham, the parea, or Chatham Island pigeon (Hemiphaga chathamensis) has benefited from predator control which has seen its numbers rise from a low of about 45 birds in 1989 to an estimated population of more than 600. They are larger and greyer than the New Zealand pigeon, or kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae), with a stouter, more brightly coloured bill:

For comparison, this is a kereru, which are reasonably common and widespread on the New Zealand mainland:

Not the most photogenic of creatures perhaps, but this is a chick of one of the world’s rarest seabirds, the Chatham Island taiko, or Magenta petrel (Pterodroma magentae). First described from a bird collected in 1867 by the Italian research vessel Magenta it was tentatively identified in the 20th century with the taiko, which was believed to be extinct.  The identity was confirmed in 1978 when ornithologist David Crockett found live birds in the southwest of Chatham Island.  About 20 breeding burrows are currently known, many with observation hatches like this one, and mostly within a predator-fenced reserve.  The total population is probably fewer than 200, though slowly increasing:

The Chathams only have one lizard species, the Chatham Island skink (Oligosoma nigriplantare). It’s extinct on the main island, but is still common on Pitt and the outlying islands:

The Chatham Island red admiral (Vanessa gonerilla ida) is an endemic subspecies which is notably common throughout the islands:

The Chatham Islands’ plants also show a high degree of endemism. This is a rautini (Brachyglottis huntii), sometimes called the Chatham Island Christmas tree as it flowers conspicuously in the height of the southern hemisphere summer.  This one is a bit past its best in March:

The Chatham Island geranium (Geranium traversii) is a pretty little flower sometimes grown in rock gardens on the mainland:

There was an attempt to establish a business farming emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae) in New Zealand late last century, but it never became a significant industry, though a few of the big birds remain here and there, mostly in small flocks (herds?) on lifestyle blocks. They’ve gone feral in a few areas, although they are still not officially recognised as part of the local avifauna.  Chatham Island now has dozens roaming wild through central parts of the island; there’s talk of trying to eradicate them, but for now they’re an unexpected addition to the landscape:

Much of Chatham Island is occupied by a huge brackish lagoon, along the shores of which, at a spot called Blind Jim’s Creek, you can find fossilised shark teeth. These are between 30 and 60 million years old; most are mako (Isurus oxyrhynchus, or perhaps an ancestor), but other species, including Otodus megalodon, also occur.  In the background of the picture below there are also some fossilised urchin spines, which are present along with the teeth.  Three of us found this collection in about an hour of searching:

It’s a bit hard to make out, but this is a dendroglyph, markings carved into the bark of a kopi (Corynocarpus laevigatus) tree by the Moriori, who were the original inhabitants of the Chathams. They had one of the world’s only true pacifist societies, and when Maori from New Zealand invaded in 1835 they put up no resistance.  Consequently they were massacred, many of them were eaten (Maori were cannibals), and the rest enslaved.  Within a century the last full-blooded Moriori was dead, though a few people today still claim Moriori ancestry, descended from slaves and their Maori masters.  The dendroglyphs are now at least 190 years old, and very few are left.  We found this one, not signposted and not visible from the track, entirely by chance, in a patch of forest where their presence was not known, or at least not publicised:

Readers’ wildlife photographs

October 25, 2025 • 8:15 am

Ecologist Susan Harrison has contributed some photos of bears, owls, and other critters in an “October Surprise” contribution. Susan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

October Surprises

…no, not the political kind…

Rounding a corner on a recent hike near Ashland, OR, I was startled to come face-to-face with a Black Bear (Ursus americanus).  She glared and began walking toward me, while her half-grown cub rustled among the dry leaves downslope of the trail.  Lowering my eyes, I backed away, and when she stopped advancing I managed a few photos.  She eventually retreated to the trailside and watched me and a mountain biker pass by, evidently convinced of our harmlessness.

Black Bear:

This bear’s habitat and one of its chow sources, the berries of Madrone (Arbutus menziesii):

Until then, the most charismatic creature I saw recently was a Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia), hanging around a set of artificial owl burrows on some conserved grasslands near Davis, CA.  These little owls typically usurp the homes of Ground Squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi).  To boost owl numbers, people have taken to constructing owl burrows using cinderblocks, PVC pipe and other materials. Constructed burrows don’t always attract owls, and it was especially surprising to see this lone owl at the burrows in the non-nesting season.  He or she alternated hiding in the tall grass and popping out to perch briefly on fences, all the while keeping an eye upward for hawks.

Burrowing Owl:

A lesser but still enjoyable surprise this fall was that our yard received two “first ever for the yard” visitors, a Cassin’s Vireo (Vireo cassinii) and a Lincoln’s Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii).

Cassin’s Vireo:

Lincoln’s Sparrow:

Very early one morning when my cats had persuaded me to let them outside, a slightly menacing surprise was a Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) parked on top of the neighbor’s tree, singing away and presumably waiting for small to medium-sized mammals.  We went indoors.

Great Horned Owl:

On a brief visit to friends in Bellingham, WA, black squirrels were an unexpected sight.  These are melanistic Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) that were introduced to this area around 1900.   Per Wikipedia, a single dominant mutation causes both their color and higher cold tolerance.  I think they are rather beautiful.

Bellingham black squirrel:

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 10, 2025 • 8:30 am

Thanks to the four or five readers who sent me photos. Please keep ’em coming in!

Today’s photos come from Rik Gern of Austin, Texas. Rik’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here’s some randomonium I hope you can use. The unifying theme to these pictures is that they were all taken in my yard within the last six months .

The first picture was taken in May and shows us flowers from a green poinsettia (Euphorbia dentata)  waiting to bud:

This is a spotted bee balm (Monad punctata). It is early in the flowering season, so this one hasn’t developed the tiered layers that give the flowers the look of a wedding cake designed by Dr. Seuss, though it still has a whimsical look:

My yard has several patches of false dayflower (Tinantia anomala), and at first I thought that’s what these were, but the center looks a little different, and I believe this is an Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis). It doesn’t grow as tall or last as long as the false dayflower.

This plant is a more recent visitor to the yard and iNaturalist identified it as standing cypress (Ipompsis rubra). Online pictures show a plant that has a bright red flower, but I have yet to see this one in bloom, so I may have to wait till next year to be sure, although the leaves look like the pictures I found online. The plants in my yard are still very small, but it looks like they can grow to be quite large, so if the identification is correct, I’ll really have something to look forward to:

(I tried to take a second picture using iNaturalist, but this time the app identified it as Egyptian cypress and then froze up after I took the picture. I couldn’t find any plant called an Egyptian cypress when I did a search, so I’m not sure what’s up with iNaturalist.)

Our final entry is not a plant but a large, scary looking, but harmless zipper spider (Arigope aurantia). I saw the spectacular looking web the other day when I went around the side of the house to put some items in the recycling bin. It was so striking and amazing looking that I thought it would be easy to photograph, but I discovered that spider webs aren’t so easy to get good pictures of.

The spider gets its name from the distinctive zig-zag in the middle of the web. When I first moved to Texas, I was staying with a friend in the country and there were dozens of these spiders and their webs all around. I quickly discovered that the webs are not your typical little spider webs that can be easily brushed away; they are tenacious and sticky and you do not want to brush against one.

Although the spiders eat insects, small birds are vulnerable to getting stuck in the web. On one occasion I awoke to find a poor hummingbird stretched out spread eagle in the web. The spider didn’t take any interest in the bird, but it was a sad sight and gave me a lot of respect for zipper spiders and their webs. This one has taken up residence by the side of the house where there aren’t so many birds and I’m happy to let it stay as long as its web stays out of my face and hair!

The mighty web:

Here is her trademark signature. This one isn’t as dense or distinctive as some, but it still serves to identify the host. I wonder if our spider can spell “some pig”?:

The spider waits patiently:

Extra: Reader James Sulzer wants readers to help him identify this bird:

I took the photo today with my Canon camera at home in my backyard here in Kempton Pennsylvania. It was flying with a flock of turkey vultures that I was trying to photograph with my 400mm lens.
This was the best angle I could get before the birds left the area.

We do get a lot of hawks coming over the house because we are located a few miles from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. I might contact
someone there who may recognize the type of hawk or eagle this is. Thanks!’

Please put your answers (or guesses) in the comments.

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 25, 2025 • 9:00 am

Scott Ritchie of Cairns, Australia, has once again posted a lovely set of pictures on his Facebook page. Scott’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

About time I had an update on my WA [Western Australia] trip. Outside of Fremantle, the 1st town we stayed in, recommended by my friends Peter and Jnatte Manins, was Nannup. It had a great brewery, and killer birds! Amazingly, it had a huge population of Monarch Butterflies. I felt like I was a kid in Iowa, when I used to rear monarchs out for fun. It turns out that near Nannup the cottonweed exploded in number when a local pine planation was harvested. The monarchs love milkweeds, and they exploded too! Our B&B had a nice garden, full of Splendid Fairywrens and many other local birds.

For me, the real treat was to see two rare cockatoos. The Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo could be heard calling over our accommodation, and often did flyovers. I only got far away fetching shots. But when we travelled east towards Pemberton, we went through Karri and Jarrah forests. I spotted an emu in a paddock next to a caravan park. And suddenly heard the calls of incoming cockatoos. They landed almost overhead, feeding on gum flowers. They soon took off across the paddock into gumtree forest. I heard the incessant begging call of an immature bird demanding to be feed. I stealthily crept up and got some nice shots of the cockies. It was even better than I thought. When I looked at the images on my laptop, the birds had the characteristic long hooked beak used to dig out the fruit of big gum nuts. They were Baudin’s Black Cockatoo! Both the Carnaby’s and the Baudin’s are endangered, with only 5000 of the Baudin’s left. I felt privileged to see them!

And here are sone other birds from our Nannup stay. I hope you enjoy them!

Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo (Zanda latirostris).  He’s a sentinel, watching out for trouble for his family:

A Carnaby’s flies overhead:

A Baudin’s Black Cockatoo (Zanda baudinii) flies into the gum trees:

And pigs out on gum flowers. These might be Karri?:

Note the long, hooked upper beak of the Baudin:

Cuddling up:

And then in for a feed!

A third shows up:

Those Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) were F’in everywhere!:

The lovely Red-eared Firetail (Stagonopleura oculata). What a cute finch!:

Common Bronzewing (Phaps chalcoptera) shows off his reflective wing panels. A lovely pigeon indeed!:

“Why go to Japan?” Spring is cherry blossom time in Nannup too. And the Silvereyes (Zosterops lateralis) add to view:

It’s not a bird, it’s a flower. Indeed it’s a Bearded Bird Orchid (Pterostylis turfosa). Orchids are a big deal in WA springtime:

A White-breasted Robin (Quoyornis georgianus) looking a lot like Cairns’s Mangrove Robin. Boy, he’s glad he doesn’t have to put up with sandflies!:

A Western Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria griseogularis) in full song:

 

And a Western Rosella (Platycercus icterotis) looking for a cheap feed.

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 8, 2025 • 8:15 am

Well, this is about the end for photos: the last full contribution, though I can confect a few others by combining individual photos from various readers. If you have good photos, now’s the time to send them in.

Today’s photos are from the Facebook page (with permission) of Aussie Scott Ritchie, a retired medical entomologist who now travels the world taking fantastic pictures of birds.  He lives in Cairns.  Scott’s narrative and captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

This past 6 weeks (from mid July to late August) featured the annual Cairns Bird Photography competition as part of the Cairns Bird Festival. I spent most of that time chasing local birds to enter in the comp. As is my wont, I concentrated on 3 main themes that I fell into searching for nice bird images. In reality, the birds led the way, and I just followed.

The three themes were 1. Pretty in pink; 2. Fig-parrot sushi train; and 3. finch stampede. Pretty pink? Flowering Pink Trumpet trees (Tabebuia rosea) in the Cairns Cemetery attracted honeyeaters and served as a nice backdrop to relatively dull Helmeted Friarbirds (Philemon buceroides) and Brown Honeyeaters (Lichmera indistincta). I had fun waiting for the birds to pop up for the camera.

A sandpaper fig tree in the cemetery was a sushi train for Double-eyed Fig-Parrots (Cyclopsitta diophthalma) as they chowed down on the messy figs. Serviettes anyone? These cute little birds allowed me to get relatively close, and to capture their interactions with green ants that also loved figs.

Lastly, an animal feedstore near Yorkeys Knob had a swarm of finches, mostly Chestnut-breasted Mannikins (Lonchura castaneothorax), that spent much of their day feeding on spilt grain in the grass. The staff threw grain they had swept up from the floor into the adjacent grass. Finches, Peaceful Doves (Geopelia placida) and the local chooks had a feast! The mannikins would feed in a cluster, then explode into the air at the slightest disturbance. I used the “pre-capture” mode of my Canon R5-2 to capture this tsunami of finches, one of which won “best Bird in Flight” category.

I had fun just getting out and targeting birds across these three themes. Here are some of my favourites images.

Pretty in pink: A Brown Honeyeater out for a morning run:

Pretty in pink: Brown HE, nothing to fear, it’s stingless!:

Pretty in pink: Helmeted Friarbird spots a stingless bee:

Pretty in pink: “What, you think I’m ugly?” Helmeted Friarbird:

Fig sushi bar: A male Double-eyed Fig-Parrot makes a meal out of his fig. These wee birds can be spotted by following the trail of fig crumbs falling from the canopy:

It’s the fig, or the ants!:

Green ants are a constant pain to these cute birds. “Do you think they noticed me?”:

One last little fig!:

Off he goes!:

“Who’s next?” Chestnut-breasted Mannikins drop into the bird seed buffet:

It’s a regular pig out. But keep an eye out for trouble! An incoming vehicle, walking person or flyover raptor spooks these guys:

Trouble spooks the birds. “What the F@*k!” A male mannikin is bowled over by a stampede of finches as they rise as one from the grass. This image won Best Bird in Flight:

Note so peaceful dove. A Peaceful Dove is caught up in the finch tsunami:

Backlit finch tsunami:

A bit of artistic blur: