Zoo Two

Red Wolf 

Sichuan Takin

Turkmenian Markhor

Red Panda

Snow Leopard

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Rosamond Gifford Zoo

 

Grey Wolves 

African Red River Hog

Bactrian Camels

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This Week's Favorite

Cooper's Hawk

Palm Warbler

 Birds....

Eastern Phoebe

Osprey

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Egret

Eastern Meadowlark

Black-capped Chickadee

Bonaparte's Gull

Migration equals fun times

Swanicus Plastica

Solitary Sandpiper

Nesting on the Cliffs of Silo

 

The Lynk Street nest

A friend was kind enough to alert us to the presence of a Common Raven nest on a silo at another friend's farm earlier this spring. (Thanks Bill!)

We were able to document and photograph the nest, thus confirming that ravens were breeding in that atlas block.

A few days later out on Lynk Street, we passed another, similar silo. "Stop!" I called out urgently to my official driver. I remembered that for the past two years we have seen a raven hanging around that farm yard, perching in weird places, all year round including the dead of winter.

Sure enough there was a nest at the top of the silo ladder. This week Kris and I found chicks there begging eagerly to be fed.

That led me to remember the ravens we found feeding fledglings out on Pavlus Road late last summer....right next to yet another silo. I checked that one and sure enough a pair of them were hanging around it, but it is too far from the road for me to discern whether there is a nest on the ladder or not.

But I'll betcha there is.

Still more thought on the subject and I remembered a pair of ravens playing in the wild winter winds atop the ladders and structures at the mill where we buy our cow feed. Wonder if they are nesting somewhere among those structures as well.

It is interesting to me that out of three breeding pairs we have documented in Montgomery County every single one was either nesting on or closely associated with an empty farm silo. 

You can bet we will be peering at silo ladders as we wander around counting birds this spring.

Birding Lake Montgomery

 

Pectoral Sandpiper

We always called it that although you won't find it on any map, because the lake is really just a low spot in a corn field near my parent's house. It is well below road grade and probably undrainable. Thus it fills with water every spring and has since the folks bought the place when we were small. We used to skate on it when we were kids, racing down the furrows between the rows of corn stubble. 

For years we watched for the school bus out the kitchen window, and noted the interesting birds that stopped to partake of insects from the mud, and enjoy a nice handy feather wash.

Habit dies hard, and when we were working on parceling out the remainders of their lives yesterday, I stopped to peek out over the kitchen sink.

Whoa! Something brown moved at the edge of the water line.

Greater Yellowlegs

I ran through the house like an idiot, grabbing bins and camera along the way, and shouting that I had a bird.

And, oh, what a bird I had. Well, birds really. Around that humble puddle were an interesting pair of Canada Geese, a couple of amorous Killdeers, a few screaming Red-winged Blackbirds, and a Greater Yellowlegs, which is a pretty good bird for Fulton County. However,  best of all was a Pectoral Sandpiper. That one was unusual enough that I had to fill out that yellow rare bird line on eBird mobile, and he made the state rare bird alert this morning. 

Killdeer

I was kind of chuffed to identify him properly, as sandpipers are hard and I am not good at them. However, another birder found one a couple of counties to the east the other day and I decided to do a bit of studying in case by some amazing happenstance I found one.

This bird hit all the check marks, bi-colored beak, sharply defined line between streaked breast and white belly, yellow legs, faint eye-line.

I was thrilled to find such a cool bird in such an unlikely place.

I think maybe Dad sent him.

Check out the pigmentation on this Canada Goose
Such abnormalities are actually quite common and
we see several every year

Anyhow, it was my first opportunity to submit birds via the International Shorebird Survey protocol on eBird, and I did so.

I am excited for shorebird migration season and can't wait to hit the river mud flats, when and if we get the car fixed. 

Meanwhile, I learned something this week. I had been trying to learn shore birds as a group, even taking a Cornell identification course...twice...and am still confused. However, when I concentrated on ONE species at a time, albeit a fairly distinctive one, I got it right on the first try.

So, I am going to pick out likely visitors and look over photos of them carefully, and read the field marks, and try to learn them better. Here's hoping....

April Foolishness

 

Killdeer making more Killdeer

There are three Hooded Mergansers in this photo
but one of them is slapping the other in the face with
a set of wet wing feathers, while his girlfriend looks on

Bald Eagle carrying nesting material

Hooded Merganser photobomb

Goose!

It is definitely spring.....

Adventuring

 

I only see a few swans ever, but these sounded like Trumpeters

A good friend conveyed us out to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge yesterday and what an adventure it was.

The weather was supposed to be neutral, not a lot of precipitation, cloudy, but not horrible. Turned out it snowed most of the day, sometimes quite eagerly and it was cold, cold, cold.

Which in no way dampened our enthusiasm for the banquet of birds the swamps and mucklands served up. 

Tundra Swan

In fact we found the Route 31 mucklands, of snow goose fame, without much effort at all. We were just hunting for a couple of other good places of which we were already aware, and there they were, stretched out in front of us and absolutely thronged with ducks. I get excited if I see one Redhead Duck here on our river. There were hundreds of them alone.

No Snow Blue-winged Teal

Just add snow and shake well Blue-winged Teal

I don't think it would be much of an exaggeration to say that there were a thousand Northern Pintails in various locations, three-hundred American Wigeon, Ring-necked Ducks, Scaup, at least one of which I was able to identify as to Greater/Lesser (it was the latter), Northern Shovelers, Green-winged Teal galore, Blue-winged Teal, in all their natty glory, a few Wood Ducks, Mallards and Canada Geese, of course, and a nice bouquet of Bald Eagles sending them up out of the grasses for our enjoyment. Tiny Buffleheads bobbed for minnows, accompanied by flashy little Hooded Mergansers as well.

Northern Shoveler looks a little grumpy

Oh, and both expected species of swan too, Trumpeters and Tundras scattered here and there.

What we saw

Heavily edited

The Snow Geese have mostly left the area for their northern nesting grounds, but three-hundred or so gave us a nice look arrayed across a hilly green hayfield, then a pair of Ospreys tending a nest capped off an amazing day.

The weather did not make for great photography, but the company and the ducks made for great fun. The signage in the region has been much improved, which helped us find several really good new places to observe birds. Thanks Kris for a really great time. Ralph and I shared your sammiches for supper and they were good!

If you zoom in really close
there are ducks out there...

Ducks....

Just the

 

And the Carolina Wren.....