Category: Readers’ wildlife

Readers’ wildlife photos

February 1, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today we have part 2 of Paul Handford’s hummingbird photos (part 1 is here).  Paul’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

The Rufous hummer, Selasphorus rufus, was a common frequenter of our yard, boldly visiting the feeders.  It has the distinction of being the northernmost breeding species of any member of the family (61°N, in southern Alaska).  Given that they winter on the Gulf Coast and the southern Pacific slopes of Mexico, this means that, in terms of body-length, at least some Rufous hummers make the longest of all avian migrations!

The females closely resemble those of the congeneric Calliope hummer, differing in having longer tails and rufous, rather than buff flanks:

The males are mainly strongly rufous, and with a brilliant ‘metallic’ scarlet throat.  Again, this is a colour produced by interference produced by the structural characteristics of the feathers rather than by pigment.  As such, the brilliance shows when it is viewed directly;  from the side, it appears dark, even black:

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 30, 2026 • 8:45 am

Today I’ve borrowed another batch of bird photos (with permission) from Aussie biologist Scott Ritchie, a great photographer whose Facebook page is here. Scott’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. Scott hails from Cairns.

I got up at six, heard light rain, made a coffee and checked the radar. There was quite a massive rain shower headed towards Cairns from the north. Anyway, I decided to take my time and just see how it panned out. There was a break after the big initial rain band, with rain ending around 8 to 830. My plan was to go to Redden Island and just concentrate on shorebirds because it was sort of dark outside. And I was trying out my 200 to 800 lens with the 1.4X teleconverter (max mag at 1120!). When I left, I saw that there was a new band of rain forming to our north. Bummer! I probably had about an hour hour and a half tops to get my birds.

And I did have fun with a couple of Pied Oystercatchers showing how they got their name. The little Red-capped Plover and the Greater Sand-Plover also put on a pretty good show. And I got a couple of terns in flight. It was fun to run into the gang just before the next rain band hit. Cheers and I hope you enjoy them.

Pied Oystercatcher [Haematopus longirostris] finds a succulent clam:

But it’s hard work getting it free from the shell:

He keeps trying while his mate keeps a hopeful eye.:

At last it’s coming free:

He washes the sand off the meat:

And down the hatch:

That was yummy!:

A Greater Sand-Plover [Anarhynchus leschenaultii] loosens up:

Shakes it loose:

And goes for a run on the beach!:

Caspian Tern [Hydroprogne caspia]:

Hovers looking for fish:

Red-capped plover [Anarhynchus ruficapillus]:

Doing his yoga stretches:

Crested Terns [Thalasseus bergii], Black-naped Terns (small ones; Sterna sumatrana). Please confirm the IDs!:

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 28, 2026 • 8:15 am

We have one submission, today from Paul Handford, and I’ll show part 1 of his hummingbird photos. Paul’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

While living in south-central British Columbia, I was so fortunate as to have had close encounters with North America’s smallest breeding bird, the Calliope hummingbird, which weighs just short of 3 grams— about 0.1 oz— and is just over 3 inches long.  Its scientific name, Selasphorus calliope, is well merited:  the generic name derives from ‘selas‘ = Gk. ‘a bright flame’ plus ‘phoros‘ = ‘bearing’, ‘carrying’, while the specific epithet references Kalliope, chief of the muses, and goddess of poetry.

First, the female.  Here are four views of her;  in two you can see that the wing-tips reach beyond the short tail;  in others you see the buffy flanks and faintly-spotted throat (the closely similar female Rufous hummer has a tail that extends beyond the wing-tips, and is strongly rufous on flanks and tail).

Then, males.  The brilliant magenta feathers of the male’s gorget are very obvious when the bird faces you.  These feathers can be erected so as to form a ‘sunburst’ ruff, which males will do when engaged in disputes, and in courtship displays (see below):

The magenta of the throat feathers is produced by the phenomenon of interference rather than by pigment and, as mentioned above, this optical effect is striking when directed at the viewer.  But when seen from the side, these feathers lose their brilliance, often not appearing to be coloured at all:

Many hummingbirds are pretty pugnacious, and often engage in quite spectacular combat.  In these next pics, two males try to impress one another, and the ‘sunburst’ erect ruff is visible:

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 26, 2026 • 8:15 am

We’re almost out of photos again: one more batch to go. If you have any good wildlife photos, please send them in. Thanks!

Today we have some birds from British Columbia from reader Paul Handford, including DUCKS.  Paul’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here’s a few more species of non-passerine birds from south-central British Columbia, all within a few miles of where we lived from 2011-2021 in Barnhartvale, Kamloops, before retiring to Ireland.

First, a few waterfowl from the South Thompson River, upstream from Kamloops, in the vicinity of Campbell Creek.  It’s a great place for viewing a diversity of ducks, geese, and swans, especially in winter and spring:

Barrow’s goldeneye [Bucephala islandica]:

Common mergansers [Mergus merganser]

Male:

Female:

Ring-necked duck [Aythya collaris]:

More waterfowl, this time from a small lake in Barnes Lake natural area.

Redhead [Aythya americana], dabbling:

Close-up, redhead:

American wigeon [Mareca americana]:

Now a couple of land birds, regular visitors in our back yard.

Mourning doves [Zenaida macroura]:

Dusky grouse [Dendragapus obscurus], male:

Dusky grouse, female:

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 25, 2026 • 9:00 am

Fortunately, some kind readers have come through with a few batches of photos. But the tank is still low.

Today’s photos of birds (and one flower) come from Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistics professor at Oklahoma State University. Pratyay’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Pratyay and his wife Sreemala have a big bird-and-butterfly website called Wingmates.

It’s bitter cold outside as the winter storm is here in Oklahoma. So, I decided to share some more photos from the warmer days – A series of backyard bird images from the fall. While we mostly have native plants on our property, most of the images here involve some non-natives that we already had around our property when we moved in. But they do show some nice colors in the fall. We have a raised deck in the backyard which results in some nice eye-level views of the birds.

Female Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) and fall foliage.=:

Male Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis):

Female Northern Cardinal working on some berries:

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) in light drizzle. It always makes me smile when these little guys show up every fall:

Another Yellow-rumped Warbler from the same day:

Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) on our pecan tree with some seed that it grabbed from the bird feeder. Titmice and Chickadees don’t spend too much time on the feeder. They like to grab a seed and take it to a nice perch on a tree where they can break it and enjoy it at its own pace:

Our yard has some larger birds too! This Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) has been a regular visitor for a while, and by now we kind of know some of its unique personalities:

Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus). At this time of the year, these woodpeckers are usually busy hiding seeds with the goal of storing them for the winter. I don’t know how many they actually find again:

This is not a bird image, but it has a connection with birds. These low maintenance native Maximilian Sunflowers (Helianthus maximiliani) put on an amazing show every fall, albeit for a short duration. However, during this time, they attract a huge number of pollinators including all kinds of butterflies, moths, and bees. We keep the dried plants after they are done blooming since the seed-loving birds have a feast on them:

House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) are one of them. Here is a male and a female House Finch on the dry sunflowers:

American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) also enjoy the seeds. They are usually much duller by this time compared to their bright breeding plumage:

Couple of goldfinches from the same scene – a wider view:

One more goldfinch from a warm day:

A male Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) on the sunflower stalks:

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 24, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today Friend of the Website Greg Mayer contributes some photos from Britain.

by Greg Mayer

Since we’re awaiting a recharge of the tank of Readers’ Wildlife Photos, I thought I’d add a few wildlife photos from a recent trip to England. I did not bring my good camera with a telephoto lens, since the visit was focused on museums in London, and the photos reflect this constraint.

The only mammal we saw in London was the introduced Gray Squirrel, but in Oxfordshire we saw molehills (made by the European Mole, Talpa europea) in and near the churchyard of St. Margaret of Antioch in Binsey. American moles most prominently make much less elevated runs or tracks, not distinct hillocks like these, so the phrase “making a mountain out of a molehill” makes more sense to me now.

Part of Oxford University, Wytham Woods (a famed area for ecological studies) had some Sheep (Ovis aries) in an enclosure. These are domesticated, and the species was brought to Britain thousands of years ago.

In London, we encountered two more corvids. The Carrion Crow (Corvus corone corone) is the most like what is, to an American, a “normal” crow. (During a brief stop in Copenhagen on the way to England, we also saw a Hooded Crow, Corvus corone cornix, which has a gray body, and has a long hybrid zone with the Carrion Crow, )

The other corvid was the Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica), which is much more “crow-y” looking than the jays in America (which are also corvids). We also saw Rooks (Corvus fragileus) on the trip, but got no photos.

Note the blue on the wings of this Magpie.

Like the Carrion Crow above, also on the Victoria Embankment was a Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ribundus); this is an adult in winter plumage. We saw quite a few gulls all around London. Most were larger than this (Larus sp. or spp.), but we could not ID them.

On the way to Greenwich by boat on the Thames, we saw Mute Swans (Cygnus olor), which I include here to show the great tidal range of the Thames, ca. 7 m, evident from the algal growth on the bulkhead behind the pair of swans.

Also on the Thames we saw Great Cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo), including a pale-bellied juvenile.

We were struck by how the apartments along the south bank of the Thames resembled scenes from movies, for example A Fish Called Wanda, and sure enough, the building at the left of the photo above is indeed where the Cleese-Curtis “canoodling” rendezvous took place!

The bird we saw more of than any other in England was the pigeon. Not the Common Wood Pigeon (Columba palumbus), like this one in Greenwich, which we saw a fair number of. . .

. . . but the Feral Pigeon or “rock dove” (Columba livia), which was everywhere, both city and country.  There were many of the highly variable domestic color forms, such as this one

. . . . and some of the “wild type”, which is the color pattern of the ancestral wild Rock Doves.

Wild Rock Doves persist in Scotland and western Ireland; all the pigeons we saw in London and Oxfordshire were feral.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 22, 2026 • 9:15 am

Well, we’ve run out of photos from readers and I am heartbroken again. BUT we still have the third and final batch of photos from Cairns resident Scott Ritchie, summarizing his best photos of 2025.  Scott’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.  Scott’s Facebook page is here.

Warning cuteness ahead! Here’s a couple of mammals from my Western Australia trip. A Honey Possum [Tarsipes rostratus] feeding on a Scarlet Banksia at Cheynes Beach.

It even more cuteness. A numbat [Myrmecobius fasciatus] searches for his nest hollow. This was taken it Dryandra Forest National Park, Western Australia:

I like my ducks and he’s not the prettiest one, but I love his weirdness. The Musk Duck [Biziura lobata]. This male has this weird leather pouch under his chin and the tail feathers like a crown of the Statue of Liberty. And he likes laying on his back like a sea otter. Very cool beast. This was taken in Albany, Westerrn Australia:

I love my fairywrens. They’re usually extremely beautiful but before they grow up, they’re sort of brownish birds designed to blend in with the bush. This is a young male Splendid Fairywren [Malurus splendens] in eclipse phase, just starting to grow his beautiful blue feathers. You can just see them around his eye. This photo gives us a hint of what’s to come. Pemberton Western Australia:

And here’s the Splendid Fairyrwen in full eclipse mode singing is heart out. I love the blue and gray patchwork. It reminds me of a flannel shirt I have:

“in case you’re wondering what I look like in full costume, here it is!” Male Splendid Fairywren, Nannup, Western Australia.

I was really fortunate to run across a group of Baudin’s Black Cockatoos [Zanda baudinii] near Pemberton. A very endangered and magnificent parrot:

A Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo [Zanda funerea] navigates through the forest. This bird was part of a group that had been warned to flee in response to an incoming sea-eagle. Most cockatoos post sentries to stand guard while the others feed:

A sentry male Crimson Rosella [Platycercus elegans] in a Gumtree forest in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria:

I really taken to capturing wider views, “birdscapes”. They allow you to appreciate the birds and their natural environment. Here’s a group of Great Knots [Calidris tenuirostris] and a Great Egret [Ardea alba] at sunrise on the Cairns Esplanade:

I really love Red-tailed Black Cockatoos [Calyptorhynchus banksii]. It was great to get this male in flight with his tail spread so that you can appreciate his lovely red panels. It was also cool to get him flying across the rainforest in the rain. An iconic north Queensland moment:

Spring is rebirth. And here a group of Radjah Shelducks [Radjah radjah], mother, father and their nine little ducklings, cruise across Freshwater Lake in Cairns. I call this a duck love train:

And finally, our local Rufus Owls, after several nest failures, managed to produce a chick. This young fledgling Rufous Owl [Ninox rufa] cautiously sticks his head out the late evening light, looking for his parents to come and feed him. These birds had survived harassment by waves of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos that wanted to take over the nesting hollow. However, the owls were staunch in their defense, and eventually the chick fledged and left the nest. A end of year treat for all us local birders!: