Category: birds

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 4, 2025 • 8:15 am

Do send in your photos; there is always a need and the photo tank isn’t nearly full.  Today we have David Hughes’s photos of African carnivores. David’s captions are indented and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. Since it’s Caturday, we have many felids.

Another selection of photos from my October safari in northern Botswana, this time focusing on the larger carnivores. There were some memorable predator sightings, with the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) being the only species we missed out on. Cheetahs do occur in these areas, but in very low numbers. However, our failure to see them was more than made up for by some of the other encounters we had.

This isn’t a great photo, taken at quite long range and in the dim light of an early morning at Savuti, but I thought it worth including as it was probably the most unexpected mammal sighting of the entire trip. This is a brown hyena (Parahyaena brunnea), a species endemic to the south-western corner of Africa. It’s more typical of the Kalahari Desert to the south of our tour area, and of the Namibian coast to the west. It’s very rare in northern Botswana and our very experienced local guide said it was years since he’d last seen one:

A second view of the brown hyena as it drinks from a muddy waterhole, bracketed by two marabou storks (Leptoptilos crumenifer).

The much more common spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). This group was resting after feeding on a nearby kill:

Everyone who goes on an African safari wants to see lions (Panthera leo), and we were lucky enough to see plenty of them. The lions of Savuti, shown here, are famous for regularly preying on elephants, something that lions in most parts of Africa rarely do. This pride had killed and eaten a juvenile elephant the night before, and were relaxing after their meal:

The male of this elephant-killing pride had a particularly magnificent mane:

Two young lions sparring next to the defleshed skull of the previous night’s dinner. The rest of its bones and hide were also strewn around nearby:

On our last morning at Savuti we stopped by the nearest waterhole before starting the long drive to our next campsite. To everyone’s delight a large pack of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) had come for a drink. We were lucky enough to have close encounters with four different packs of wild dogs on this trip, a spectacularly good success rate given the rarity of this species:

A wild dog at close range, showing the distinctive marbled coat. Every dog’s pattern is slightly different, so it’s quite easy to recognize individuals. From talking to other guides on the vehicle radio we heard that this pack had killed an impala (Aepyceros melampus) earlier that morning. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t get to enjoy their breakfast….

The dogs had lost their kill to this male lion, who was tucking into it with great relish under a tree a short distance away.

The thief’s wife and kids were also in attendance, obviously hoping for an invitation to the breakfast buffet.

However, the male was in no mood to share his meal, growling at any cub that came too close while he was eating. When the wild dog pack passed close by after leaving the waterhole, the lioness charged and scattered them, giving us a small demonstration of the fierce rivalry that exists between competing predators in this environment.

Leopards (Panthera pardus) are much harder to see than lions, but we were lucky enough to get some great close-up sightings. This female in Moremi Game Reserve had recently fed on an impala kill (its half-eaten carcass was lying nearby) and obligingly posed for pictures before going for a drink:

The female leopard heading for the waterhole. Unfortunately for her, she hadn’t read the textbooks saying that leopards often haul their kill into a tree to keep it out of reach of other predators. When we returned to this spot the next morning, our guide was able to tell from tracks and drag marks in the sand that a crocodile had come out of the water and stolen the impala carcass:

Another Moremi leopard dozing in a tree:

From the facial spot pattern I think this may be same leopard shown in the previous photo, though photographed on a different day:

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 30, 2024 • 8:15 am

Today we have some photos by UC Davis ecologist Susan Harrison. Susan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

A windy day at the coast

Looking back for any 2024 photos not sent to WEIT yet, I came across these ones from a couple of days in mid-October.  The tides were at their monthly low, and several of us inland-dwelling Californian birders drove out to Bodega Bay hoping to see mobs of shorebirds on the exposed mudflats.  Alas, the winds were gusting at 30 mph or more, and the birds were mostly either huddled in sheltered spots or blowing wildly past us across the bay.  We even saw a Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) sitting on the ground in a salt marsh, just waiting out the storm – too far away for a good photo, alas.

Last time we went to Bodega and encountered high winds, as some readers may remember, I gave up on real birds and did a photo essay on Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and its filming locations. This time we toughed it out and tried to photograph the huddling and swirling flocks.  Here are a few scenes.

Marbled Godwits (Limosa fedoa) hunkering down at the north end of the bay:

Godwit gang:

Marbled Godwits and Willets (Tringa semipalmata; black-and-white wings) billowing by:

Western Sandpipers (Calidris mauri) mixed with a Willet or two:

Black-bellied Plovers (Pluvialis squatarola) with their distinctive black armpits:

American Coots (Fulica americana), sheltering at a marina and then deciding the humans were too close:

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) having a bad feather day:

Great Egret (Ardea alba), catching a rodent and then being pursued by another egret:

North American River Otters (Lontra canadensis), which despite their name are often seen in saltwater:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 20, 2024 • 8:15 am

Reader David Hughes sent some photos of Zambezi and the fabled Victoria Falls, which have always been on my bucket list. David’s comments are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

In October this year I took part in a group tour to southern Africa, starting off in Zambia and then going overland through the national parks and wildlife reserves of northern Botswana. Our starting point was a couple of days based at a comfortable lodge on the northern (Zambian) shore of the Zambezi River, about 45 km upstream from the Victoria Falls. Our first taste of the African wild came with a couple of leisurely boat cruises along the Zambezi.

This photo shows a riverside landscape along the Zambian shore. The antelope grazing near the water are impala (Aepyceros melampus), the most common medium-sized herbivore across all the areas we visited:

As you might expect, there is an abundant and diverse community of fish-eating birds along the river. The group shown here includes black-headed heron (Ardea melanocephala), great egret (Ardea alba), African sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) and white-breasted cormorant (Phalacocorax lucidus):

One of the benefits of exploring the river on a slow, quiet boat is that you can get much closer to birds and animals than you could on foot, or in a noisy motor vehicle. This is the African wattled lapwing (Vanellus senegallus):

Just to remind us that we were indeed in Africa, a basking Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus):

The habitual companion of the crocodile throughout the inland waters of Africa, a trio of dozing hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius):

A river cruise is also a great way to see many of the land mammals as they come down to drink. This female greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) is accompanied by a pair of oxpeckers, I think the yellow-billed oxpecker, Buphagus africanus:

A Nile monitor lizard (Varanus niloticus). This one was about a metre and a half long:

The river cruise also gave us our first view of African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana). The elephants here, with access to permanent water, have a much easier life than their cousins living in the drier areas we were shortly to visit:

After cruising the Zambezi, the next day was spent visiting the spectacular Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya in the local vernacular). The Falls consist of a long, winding gorge with water cascades at particular points. These pictures were taken from the Zimbabwean side of the gorge, which is generally considered to give the better views. To get there from Zambia involves buying a temporary visa to cross the international border, then an additional fee to get into the park area (all payable in hard currency, of course), but it’s well worth it:

Another view of one of the cascades. October is late in the dry season, and the water volume is relatively low. During the wet season there’s much more water going over the edge but this throws up so much spray that it can be difficult to see the Falls in their true magnificence:

A final view of the Falls. Near the centre, some people are just visible at the top of the cliffs, giving a sense of scale:

There’s a pleasant walking trail which follows the line of the gorge, and some wildlife to be seen. This young male Cape bushbuck (Tragelaphus sylvaticus – although the taxonomy of these antelopes is disputed) was obviously used to people and quite happy to pose for photos next to the trail:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 15, 2024 • 8:15 am

We’re down to one batch of photos, and you know what to do if you want this feature to appear regularly.

Today we have photos from ecologist Susan Harrison of UC Davis. Susan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

San Diego in November

It was one of those work trips where you think “what new birds can I see while I’m here?”  After a wonderful birding trip to San Diego a couple of years ago, there were just three species I’d never seen before that were at all likely to be found in winter, and that seemed like a decent-sized goal for my two free half-days there.  But as always, much of the joy emerged not from lengthening the life list, but from the unexpected beauty along the way.

Okay, but let’s start with two life-listers….

California Gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica), which in winter is virtually indistinguishable from several other gnatcatchers except by its sounds—so here’s another shout-out to the wonderful Merlin Sound app.  Though common in Baja California, this species is Federally listed as endangered in the U. S. because of its bad habit of needing valuable SoCal coastal real estate:

Wandering Tattler (Tringa incana), a shorebird whose closest relatives mostly stroll across beaches and mudflats, but which has adapted with its stocky body shape to running up and down intertidal rocks to catch its meals.  “Wandering” refers to occurring on islands all across the Pacific Ocean, and “tattler” refers to its gabbling alarm call:

Onward to the unexpected!  Searching for the Tattler (with the help of a superb and kind birder from San Diego State University) led to one of the most beautiful urban settings I have ever seen:  La Jolla Cove, where cafes and bike/walking paths hug a rocky coastline rich with sea life above and below the water.

California Sea Lions (Zalophus californicus) were surfing, yes surfing — leaping into and out of the breaking waves in an exuberant demonstration of animal play:

A Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), already sporting its breeding colors, seemed to want the attention of an unimpressed flock of Royal Terns (Thalasseus maximus):

Royal Tern stretching its wing (“bird yoga”):

Heerman’s Gull (Larus heermanni) lurking among the terns:

Allen’s Hummingbirds (Selasphorus sasin) showing just tinges of their glorious orange:

Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis saya) eyeing the sea from a cypress:

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 21, 2024 • 8:15 am

Please send in your photos, or at least get them ready to send, as I’ll be gone from this Wednesday through Thursday, the 31st.  Today we’re featuring the birds of Iceland taken by physicist and origami master Robert Lang, traveling on a June Center for Inquiry cruise featuring Richard Dawkins. (Robert’s flower pictures from the same trip are here.)  Robert’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Iceland Birds (etc.)

Continuing my recent trip to islands of the northern Atlantic—heading out from Ireland taking in Orkney, Shetland, the Faroe Islands, and then Iceland—here are some of the birds (and a few bonus mammals) we saw along the way. Most of these are from Iceland. (I am not a birder, so IDs are from Merlin ID and/or Wikipedia; corrections are welcome.)

An Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisae), taken at Grimsey Island, the northernmost spot of Iceland with a bit extending above the Arctic Circle. Visiting brought home how powerful the warming influence of the Gulf Stream is; it was light-jacket weather when we visited in June and the ground was covered in thick grassland. By contrast, six months earlier, I was slightly across the Antarctic Circle along the Antarctic Peninsula (so also in midsummer), and all was glaciers, snow, and ice:

Also from Grimsey, a Common redshank (Tringa totanus), presumably the T. t. robusta subspecies (which, according to Wikipedia, breeds in Iceland).

We visited the tiny island of Vigur, which is a habitat for Common Eider ducks (Somateria mollissima). As the photo shows, they are strongly sexually dimorphic. The island is owned by a couple who gather the eider down for use in pillows, quilts, and the like; because there are no predators on the island and the ducks are used to humans wandering about, they are quite tolerant when some of those humans are visiting tourists. They have cute chicks:

Eider duckling:

A European golden plover (Pluvialis apricaria), also from the grasslands of Grimsey:

A Black guillemot (Pluvialis apricaria) (I think), a species that is widespread in the North Atlantic:

The juveniles are mottled:

A Northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), nesting in the cliffs of Grimsey. (Wikipedia tells me there are both dark and light morphs; this must be the light one):

A snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), the most northerly recorded passerine in the world. I saw this one on the main island of Iceland:

One of the more distinctive seagoing birds seen along the Grimsey cliffs is the Razorbill (Alca torda), the closest living relative of the extinct Great Auk:

But the by far most distinctive seagoing bird is the Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica), the iconic bird of the northern Atlantic and whose representations fill tchotke shops all over:

Their clown-faced makeup is unbelievable!:

Although the majority of the wildlife we saw were birds, there were a few mammals here and there. This grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) seems to be floating quite high in the water; in fact, it’s basking on a barely submerged rock. (This is off the coast of Vigur island; that’s an Eider duck next to it):

And not an example of wildlife, but in honor of our host, I spotted this moggie wandering the streets of Ísafjörður, a tiny town in the northwest (and wildest) region of Iceland:

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 12, 2024 • 8:15 am

Oh no, we’re running low. That’s a poem, but it’s true. Please send in your wildlife photos if you have good ones. Where, for example, has Athayde Tonhasca, Jr. gone with his instructive biology + photo stories.

Well, today we do have photos—a group contributed by ecologist Susan Harrison from UC Davis. Her captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

A hunt for red in October

Here on the West Coast, autumn foliage seldom gets more chromatically intense than yellow to rusty orange.   But the arrival of fall around Davis, CA, is heralded by piles of brilliant red tomatoes along the roads. These fruits have struck asphalt upon falling off of trailer-truck bins 10 feet high traveling at highway speeds, and yet many of them remain unbroken.  For this miracle we can thank the crop scientists who, in the wake of 1960s farmworker shortages, created a mechanically harvestable tomato that transformed the farm landscape. You wouldn’t want these tough beauties on your salad, but they are cannery fodder:

Contemplating the annual tomatocalypse made me wonder if equally vivid reds could be found in nature at this time of year, when most flowers, fruits, and bright-plumaged birds are gone from northern California and southern Oregon. It took both some searching outdoors and some resurrecting of past photos, but here’s what I found.

Acorn Woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) on a granary tree:

Lewis’s Woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis), a species that often looks black, and is surprisingly hard to catch flashing its full colors in the sunlight:

Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus):

Red-Breasted Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus ruber):

Spotted Towhee (Pipilio maculatus) with devilish eyes:

Red-Eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans); the large female was being courted by the smaller male, who kept swimming in front of her and waving his claws in her face:

California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum), a fall-blooming favorite of hummingbirds and gardeners:

Manzanita (Arctostaphylos manzanita) stem, with live bark surrounding a lichen-covered dead patch, illustrating how the slippery red bark may be effective at preventing the attachment of other organisms (lichens, insects, fungi…):

Manzanita berries, the bright color of which seems puzzling since the seeds are thought to be mainly dispersed by mammals, which have monochromatic vision; I’ve spared you the ubiquitous sight of berry-packed coyote droppings:

Black-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) fawn, eating admittedly non-native apples:

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 20, 2024 • 8:45 am

Doug Hayes of Richmond, Virginia, is back with his “Breakfast Crew” series of bird photos (and a new mammalian member of the Crew). His captions and narrative are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

The gang is back! The past few months have been quiet at the backyard feeders as plenty of food was available in the surrounding wooded areas along the James River. We also had a pair of hawks build a nest a few yards over which kept activity to a minimum. The hawks seem to have moved on now. With the cooler weather, the Breakfast Crew has returned with the usual members, plus a new mammalian member of the crew, Pat the Bunny.

A common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) chows down at the basket filled with peanuts and sunflower seeds:

A female house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) levitates while waiting for a male to finish his meal:

Only peanuts will do for the red-bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus). They will dig around, tossing aside sunflower seeds and corn until they find a peanut:

We don’t get very many American goldfinches (Spinus tristis) in the yard, even though they are fairly common throughout the neighborhood. This day, four of the little guys showed up:

White-breasted nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis) are regulars in the yard. They tend to be hit and run feeders, snagging a sunflower seed and flying back into the trees to eat:

A juvenile brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater):

Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis) are among the regular visitors to the feeders:

This mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) decided to give perching on the crook a try. It stayed there for some time, despite looking uncomfortable:

We had a population explosion among the Northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) this year. There are nearly a dozen juveniles that show up most mornings, most of them seem to be females:

This male cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) was going through a molt a few weeks ago and was completely bald. Now he seems to be regrowing his head and cheek feathers:

Carolina wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) are another bird that underwent a population explosion. Dozens of these noisy, curious little birds hang out in the yard most of the day:

A tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) about to take off with its meal. Another bird that grabs a quick meal and takes it into the trees to eat.

Downy woodpeckers (Picoides pubescens) love peanuts, just like the larger, red-bellied woodpeckers. They will take suet when I put it out:

Pat the Bunny, an Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus), has been hanging out in the yard for over a month now. I think Pat lives under one of the sheds at the end of the yard. The rabbit is most active late afternoons, but I have seen it eating scattered seeds under the bird feeders in the morning:

Photo information:  Sony A7RV camera body, Sony FE 200-600 zoom lens + 1.4X teleconverter, iPhoto Cobra 2 monopod, Neewer gimbal tripod head. Auto ISO, shutter speed ranging from 1/650th to 1/2500th of a second, photos resized and tweaked with Adobe Photoshop (Beta) v25.13