Category: birds

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 13, 2025 • 8:15 am

This is our last full wildlife contribution though I have some singletons and doubletons that I can combine. Please send in your good photos. Thanks.

Today we have some additional photos of Alaska taken by ecologist Susan Harrison. (This is the last of a set of four.) Her captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Alaska, part 4:  Anchorage and surrounding area

This post is the last from my June 2025 bird and wildlife trip to Alaska.   Between excursions northwest to Nome, north to Utqiagvik, and south to the Kenai Peninsula, we stayed in Anchorage as it’s the hub of all within-Alaska travel.

We visited Hatcher Pass near the towns of Palmer and Wasilla (remember Sarah Palin??).  The pass lies above elevational treeline in a panorama of tundra and jagged peaks.  We hiked to the pass and scrambled up a scree pile to find the White-tailed Ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura).   While looking for this uncommon bird we saw other alpine-arctic denizens, the Collared Pika (Ochotona collaris) and Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata).

Hatcher Pass:

White-tailed Ptarmigan:

Collared Pika:

Hoary Marmot:

We also saw the common yet mysterious phenomenon of patterned ground found in the far north.  The best-accepted explanation is that when subsurface freezing causes ground uplift, large rocks become concentrated in the centers of uplifted patches, while finer materials accumulate around the edges.  The finer materials hold more water and thus undergo more extreme freezing and thawing, making plants unable to colonize them.  Millenia of freeze-thaw cycles turn these patches into arrays such as the ones in these photos.

Patterned ground at Hatcher Pass:

At a fish hatchery in Anchorage, we had closeup views of Harlequin Ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus), Common Mergansers (Mergus merganser), and other piscivores jockeying for position at the hatchery’s outlet.

Harlequin Ducks snorkeling for fish and doing a pair-bonding display:

Common Merganser showing its toothy predatory beak:

In the fine system of parks and trails around Anchorage, we saw many other birds and some mammals.

Red-necked Grebe in breeding plumage (Podiceps grisigena):

Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) posing calmly on a park signpost:

Short-billed Gull (Larus brachyrhynchus) guarding its nest:

Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis) baby trying to reach its parents as they stroll on a railroad track:

Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), carrying nest material and showing its paddle-shaped tail:

Moose (Alces alces) mother and calves, standing between me and where I needed to go to depart for the airport, a perilous situation due to their deadly kicking defenses:

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 6, 2025 • 8:15 am

Ecologist Susan Harrison has graced us with her third batch of photos from Alaska. Her captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Alaska part 3:  Kenai Peninsula

This post is the third in a series from a recent bird and wildlife trip to Alaska.  Unlike part 1 (Nome) and part 2 (Utqiakvik), part 3 takes place well below the Arctic Circle, along the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage.  The photos are from two boat trips, one that explored the rugged Kenai Fjords and another that meandered across Kachemak Bay.  Please bear with the less-than-perfect results of wielding my camera on moving boats in mixed weather.

Raft of Common Murres (Uria aalge) in front of a seabird nesting island:

Common Murre closeup:

Mixture of Common Murres and Thick-billed Murres (Uria lomvia; also known as Brünnich’s Guillemot) on a nesting cliff.  Jerry recently showed us photos of the latter species in Iceland.   It’s distinguished from Common Murres by the thin white line along the mouth:

Tufted Puffins (Fratercula cirrhata):

Horned Puffins (Fratercula corniculata) at their nest burrow:

Red-faced Cormorant (Urile urile), a rare and perhaps slightly misnamed North Pacific species:

Pelagic Cormorants (Urile pelagicus) at their nests; they are much more widespread than the Red-faced Cormorant, as well as seemingly redder-faced:

Rhinoceros Auklets (Cerorhincha monocerata):

Parakeet Auklets (Aethia psittacula):

Kittlitz’s Murrelets (Brachyramphus brevirostris), a rare seabird considered the “poster bird for global warming” because it breeds next to tidewater glaciers in the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans:

Black Oystercatchers (Haematopus bachmani) and Surfbirds (Calidris virgata) enjoying a rich rocky intertidal zone:

Starfish (or sea stars; Pisaster ochraceus and others) looking healthy and abundant, a welcome sight since their relatives farther south have been decimated by a wasting disease:

Steller Sea Lions (Eumetopias jubatus), a beast in which the male weighs about one ton, twice the size of the female:

Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina):

Sea Otters (Enhydra lutris) in Kachemak Bay with the town of Homer in the background:

Mountain Goats (Oreamnos americanus) in the Kenai Fjords, where they are most easily seen from a boat. This is the only part of the US where they still occur naturally rather than being reintroduced:

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 30, 2025 • 8:15 am

Ecologist Susan Harrison went way north in Alaska and sends us a variety of photos. Her captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Alaska part 2:  Utqiagvik, on the shore of the Beaufort Sea

Today’s post is the second part of a June 2025 Alaskan bird and wildlife trip.  The first part featured Nome at 64.5 degrees latitude, while today’s treks farther poleward to Utqiagvik (Barrow), the northernmost tip of the US at 71.3 degrees latitude.

JAC: This is touted as the northernmost city in the U.S. (population 4,927), and here’s a small map from Wikipedia showing where it is:

Three large, beautiful, seldom-seen Arctic ducks are found here: King Eider (Somateria spectabilis), Steller’s Eider (Polysticta stelleri), and the rare Spectacled Eider (Somateria fischeri).  They breed in the Far North, and while the first two overwinter at slightly lower latitudes, the hardy Spectacled Eider spends winters in ice-free openings on the Bering Sea.  Seeing all three Eiders cruising the tundra ponds in prom-like pairs, with the males in their fantastical breeding plumages, is a good enough reason to visit Utqiagvik in summer.

King Eider:

Steller’s Eider: (

Spectacled Eider:

Phalaropes are delicate tiny waterbirds that spin rapid circles in the water while hunting invertebrates.  Females are the larger and more colorful sex.  While I’ve often seen them the lower 48 states, it was a revelation to see the breeding colors and behaviors of Red Phalaropes (Phalaropus fulicarius) and Red-necked Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus).   Also very common in the same tundra ponds were Long-tailed Ducks (Clangula hyemalis).

Red Phalaropes:

Red-necked Phalaropes:

Long-tailed Ducks:

Various little wading birds were courting on the tundra hummocks.  Pectoral Sandpipers (Calidris melanotus) puffed out their chests until the bird was shaped like a half-football, then flew around hooting loudly.  Dunlin (Calidris alpina) and Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis), the latter a “stray” from northern Eurasia, were dressed to kill.

Pectoral Sandpiper:

Dunlin:

Red-necked Stint:

Songbirds were not very diverse, but two handsome and abundant species were the Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis) and Lapland Longspur (Calcarius lapponicus).

Snow Bunting:

Lapland Longspur on a leopard-patterned snowmobile seat:

And finally the mammals. We came upon a Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) that was tugging at the carcass of a small whale on the beach.  After returning to the sea ice, the bear stayed at just the right distance to allow us to safely take photos, until it wandered out of sight while hunting for seals.  Later, we caught a distant view of an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus) hunting for bird eggs on the tundra.

Polar Bear:

Arctic Fox (photo Chris Brown):

Utqiagvik (population ~5,000) is a mainly Indigenous community in which whales, seals, birds, and other animals are hunted by traditional and modern methods.  Heaped next to the weatherbeaten houses were bones, antlers, hides, snow machines, sleds, trucks, and well-used gear of all sorts.  The 2011 movie “On the Ice”, filmed here with a local cast, offers a window into this ancient town’s modern way of life. The movie has quite a different feel than “North of North,” the sunny new series set in a Canadian Arctic village (I recommend both).

Utqiagvik houses and traditional skin boat:

Sign explaining that the town’s name means “place where we hunt Snowy Owls”:

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 2, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today we have some photos (save the last one) taken in Alaska by UC Davis ecologist Susan Harrison.  Susan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Nome, on the north shore of the Bering Sea

For any wildlife lover there are many reasons to visit the Arctic.  Here are my top four:  polar birds and mammals that are found nowhere else; migratory shorebirds wearing their brilliant breeding colors instead of their off-season browns and grays; really large predators of both land and sea; and some of the wildest landscapes it’s possible to visit.  On a June 2025 birding tour of Alaska, we had these Arctic experiences in our first two stops, Nome in western Alaska on the north shore of the Bering Sea, and Utqiakvik (Barrow) at the northern tip of the US on the Beaufort Sea.  Today’s photos are from Nome, along the three roads that lead out from the town into the surrounding tundra, coastline, and mountains.

One of the nicest examples of showy breeding plumage and behaviors was this pair of Red-throated Loons (Gavia stellata), a species I’d only seen in its drab winter plumage on the California coast.  When I played their song in the hope of bringing them closer, the pair swam right up and reprised their courtship dance, presumably as a way of telling other loons that “This one’s taken!”

Red-throated Loons:

The rarest species we saw near Nome was the Bristle-thighed Curlew (Numenius tahitiensis), a close relative of the much more familiar Whimbrel.  It has a small Arctic breeding range to which it migrates vast distances from its South Pacific Island wintering grounds.  Finding this bird is something of a quest for many Arctic birders.  We saw one after a hike through soggy tussock tundra at a place dubbed Curlew Hill.

Bristle-thighed Curlew:

Predatory birds often seen hovering above or resting on the tundra included Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea), Long-tailed Jaegers (Stercorarius longicaudus), and a surprisingly large number of Short-eared Owls (Asio flammeus).

Arctic Tern:

Long-tailed Jaeger:

Short-eared Owl:  the first time I’ve ever seen the little ears:

While traversing the tundra, it was possible to almost trip over a Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) or a Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus), which tend to hold still and rely on camouflage when predators approach. American Golden-Plovers (Pluvialis dominica) take the opposite tactic, and displayed noisily to lure us away from their nests.

Rock Ptarmigan:

Willow Ptarmigan:

American Golden-Plover:

Two particularly exciting sights near Nome were a Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica), a gorgeous and sought-after Arctic songbird, and the nest of a Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus), where we saw the chicks but sadly could not wait around long enough for the adults to return.

Bluethroat in a distant view:

Gyrfalcon chicks:

While hardly a rarity, this Raven (Corvus corax) provided a nice example of parental care on a picturesque piece of old mining equipment.  Zoom in to see the ravenous nestlings! [JAC: the nest is the pile of sticks at lower left]

Raven at its nest:

Muskox (Ovibos moschatus) herds were surprisingly common along all three roads, and bushes were festooned with clumps of their messy hair.   Seeing them really makes you feel like you’ve stumbled into  the Pleistocene:

No trip to Alaska would be complete without Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) encounters.  When we saw this large battle-scarred fellow, I was too excited to hold my camera steady, so this photo is from tour guide Alex Lamoreaux:

Readers’ wildlife photos and videos

June 14, 2025 • 8:15 am

Here’s a Saturday potpourri of photos and videos from several readers. Their comments are indented, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

A video from Jonathan Dore:

I took this video a couple of days ago when I noticed a solitary ant dragging the carcass of a dead wasp across our deck. By the time I got my phone out, it had gone over the edge and was carrying the wasp, while hanging upside down, along the bottom edge of the edging strip of the deck. After going a couple of feet it disappeared behind the edging strip, presumably the entrance point to its nest, or at least the next part of its route. At first I thought the ant was holding onto the wasp with a couple of legs while hanging on to the deck with the other four, but looking closer I believe it’s using all six legs to hang on and is carrying the wasp using only its jaws. Both aspects  —  the leg-hanging and the jaw clasping  —  see like a good illustration of the ant’s remarkable strength.

From Natalie in Berlin, a spider that I identified as a triangle web spider. She was amazed at its laughing-face markings. There is one species found in Europe and North America (Hyptiotes cavatus), but this may be the European spider of the same common name, Hyptiotes paradoxus. She found it while washing lettuce, and let it go.

And a short video of the spider emerging from the lettuce with narration by Natalie:

An insect and some mammals from Christopher Moss. First, the insect:

The white-spotted spruce sawyer (Monochamus-scutellatus), likely a male from the length of the antennae:

From Christopher Moss, “the first muskrat [Ondatra zibethicus] photos of the year”. He adds:

I see he is eating a stand of reeds, and has nearly flattened all of it. Fortunately there are plenty more for him to move on to. 

From Paul T.:

Urban wildlife or near my house.  West side of Madison WI. Just taken with my phone. Sandhill cranes [Antigone canadensis] from last spring, and last month’s wild turkeys [Meleagris gallopavo], with four strutting their stuff, and one outside my window.

. . . And from Cate Plys, a squirrel that’s probably leucistic:

I found it near our place in Michigan where we are now! Sadly it scampered up a tree and I had to take these pics at extreme close up, so the quality could be a lot better.


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

April 10, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today UC Davis ecologist Susan Harrison returns with some bird photos and, at the end, a couple of reptiles and mammals. Susan’s captions and notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

Ibises, Meadowlarks, and Others

It’s early April and the skies are still often cloudy, snow is lingering on the distant mountaintops, and the wildflowers are getting underway.   Birds are singing, chasing, nest-seeking, and flashing their breeding colors.  These photos are from two of northern California’s wildlife refuges at this invigorating, promising time of year.

White-Faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi) at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, with a westward view to  Snow Mountain, the Coast Ranges’ tallest peak at 7,057’:

White-faced Ibises have gone from uncommon to quite abundant around here in the past 25 years, possibly because flooded rice fields are being managed to support wetland wildlife.   To appreciate these Ibises’ iridescent beauty, it helps to get close to them on a sunny day, as I attempted to do at the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area.

White-faced Ibises:

Western Meadowlarks (Sturnella neglecta) are abundant in open fields, dominating the soundscape with their complex resonant songs.  One artfully arranged himself in a bed of Goldfields (Lasthenia californica), while another showed off his tonsils.

Western Meadowlarks:

Marsh Wrens (Cistothorus palustris) are also loudly melodious in their namesake habitat:

Belted Kingfishers (Megaceryle alcyon) are quite hard to approach with a camera, but this one was perched next to a bird-viewing platform that obscured his view of me:

Nuttall’s Woodpeckers (Dryobates nuttalli) and other woodpeckers are in the same order as Kingfishers, and there is a bit of a family resemblance:

Black-necked Stilts (Himantopus mexicanus) are common in the refuges’ shallowly flooded fields:

Clark’s Grebes (Aechmophorus clarkii) are on the verge of doing their spectacular springtime mating dances:

Western Pond Turtles (Actinemys marmorata) like to sunbathe together, and on first glance, these ones looked like turtles all the way down:

P.S.  Last night when I’d just gotten this post ready to send, we found two Gray Foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) curled up on the patio furniture, in a picture of canid domestic bliss!