Rfalconcam Forum

I hope I'm not jumping the gun, since I don't remember Aafke giving us our next set of instructions, but I think Tuesday starts the letter S, and it's Tuesday morning (Eastern Standard)!

S is for Sandhill Crane...in mid November I attended the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.  The refuge is managed mainly to provide habitat for wintering Sandhill Cranes; they control the wetland to provide the shallow water the cranes need to roost at night, and they grow corn, which the cranes love to feed on!

The first photo is one of my successful attempts at digiscoping (it helps to have a cool, bright sunny day with no humidity).  I thought the second photo was a good "essence of my experience" photo...watching a crane come in for a not-very-graceful landing where a few thousand of his closest friends are amassed.

Eventually I'll put together my full album from this trip, after I weed through them.

OH PATTI those are STUNNING!

In contrast, a horridly fuzzy one -
STILT - I took this in Rotorua, NZ, where it was wading in the warm thermal pools (not the seethingly hot ones - no scalded stilt ankles here).
I don't know what flavor stilt this is.
Stilts are related to avocets, apparently.
dale

drawing of a supercilious SNOWY

 
Dale

S is for Snow Goose!  I saw gazillions of these during the same trip to New Mexico; they were happy to partake of the shallow wetlands and prodigious corn crop provided for the cranes.

In the first photo, a Bald Eagle had just spooked a huge number of them off their resting pond, and the second is a closeup.  The taller geese are the Snow Geese; the short ones are Ross's Geese, which Annette covered nicely under the letter R, obviously...

The naturalist who taught my crane workshop said that the Snow Goose is the story of a conservation effort that worked too well; once wildlife refuges were provided for wintering geese, their numbers rebounded to a level that is harming their fragile nesting grounds.

S is for Swallow-tailed Gull.  We took these photos on the island of Genovesa in the Galapagos.  They are very striking gulls; and had nests all around.  The first photo shows a chick hanging out with one of its parents.

YOW someone's on a roll.
Killer gull photos, both of them.

Hmmm...hard act to follow, that one.

Sun Conure - the LOUDEST of my past pets.

-a photo of him pretending to be a pear;

-a photo where he's posing with another S-BIRD, albeit of a plastic subspecies.

Dale

Terrific contributions, ladies!  I am still working on mine.

Gayly

Who you calling a lady? I saw a BLACK SWAN in New Zealand, but have no photo of it. 
A lady would have taken at least a modest snapshot.

Is that the same bird?  Why is he so yellow in one photo and so red in the other?

vagaries of flash?

maybe a different year? dunno. Same bird for sure. Made enough racket for 10.

Behold the Spotted Towhee...this was taken at a bird banding demonstration at a Nature Conservancy property where Jeane and I vacationed many years ago.  It was in New Mexico (again...but a different trip).

This bird has been duly recorded, received his jewelry, and is about to be released.

My final photo for the morning, in the interest of giving someone else a chance, is a Solitary Sandpiper.  We took the photo in the Canadian Rockies.  As might be expected given his name, he was solitary.

you know, Patti - I just remembered; I got him when he was still really young; when they are little they have tons of green, but one of these photos may have been an intermediate stage and one of the fully mature bird. Although he was never really "mature."

Stilt, Black-necked

This is one of my all time favorite shore birds  In the first image, there is an avocet in breeding plumage in the background.  First three images are from the Monterey Bay Aquarium aviary.  The last is a common sight along the bay.

Gayle

I like your fuzzy photo...it looks a little impressionistic.

Last one for me tonight - will pass the torch to the west coast...

Drawings of Chris's rockstar SCREECH OWLETS when he took the owlbox down (2 different years) to attach a branching stick.

From his photos. If I had a screech owlet on my hand I'd take pictures of it too.

Dale

Gayle - I LOVE those white spots on your stilt's head. False eyes, like on a fish.
Mine was a different kind of stilt than this. Do you know what kind?

Spotted Towhee

Towhee from my feeder.

Gayle

White Stork

White storks from the Bornheim cam.

Gayle

Saddle-billed Stork

This large, five feet, stork is African.  He is seen in these screen captures with a grey heron which seems little by comparison!

Gayle

Sandhill Cranes

I do not have them by the thousands, but sandhills are common in Northern California.  Each year, my nephew, who lives in the Central Valley,  calls to tell me fall has arrived whrn he hears them fly ver his house.

Gayle

Sandhill Cranes , finis

These are from a few years ago in Wisconsin.  The water hole group was in Crex Meadows in northern Wisconsin and the closs ups were made at the Internationa Crane Foundation in Baraboo.

Gayle

Incredible TEXTURES and COLORS and LIGHT in the sandhill photos, Gayle!

6-foot-tall towhee looks like he could bite your head off. Funny how if you magnify "cute" with a good strong lens it turns into "Don't make me come over there...!"

Steppe Eagle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppe_Eagle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppe_Eagle)

The first one is from 2007-I have the actual picture hanging on my office wall-one of my favorites EVAH!

Ei

Scaup, Greater

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Scaup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Scaup)

Spectacled Eider

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectacled_Eider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectacled_Eider)

Snowy owl

(Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

At the extreme northern margins of the arctic tundra lives the Snowy Owl, the northernmost, heaviest, and most distinctively marked owl of North America. Largely diurnal, it spends much of its time perched still and silent on prominent lookouts, waiting to make forays for prey.

First photo-Adult male   Second photo-Adult female   Third photo-First year male

Stonechat, European

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Stonechat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Stonechat)

Snow Bunting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Bunting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Bunting)

S is for Starling (classified in the phylum Chordata , subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Passeriformes, family Sturnidae)  Mynahs, grackles, and (usually) the oxpeckers, are all part of the startling family!  Also called the Common Starling by those with a grudge!!

Okay, I'll take on the Not Beloved Starling.  In general, they are not liked, to put it mildly, as they form loud & noisy flocks and are just a plain ol' nuisance, as they drive smaller, more desirable birds away.  Why is smaller always better...?  They are actually Old World birds, which were introduced into New York, in the latter part of the 1800s, thinking that the Starlings would eat away their problem with an infestation of bugs, but, once they were full to the brim of their crops,  they flew on and spread efficiently across the entire North American Continent.  Gotta love a survivor!!  Well, maybe not...  Anyway, Starlings have black feathers, which are iridescent and caught in the right light, show lovely yellow dots mixed in with greens and blues.  They have a long, yellow bill which is good for debugging and stabbing berries and recognisable short, stubby tails ("Short tail = Starling, Long tail = Grackle"  Learned that saying when I just a little squirt!) .  At night, they love to pick a house covered with vines, fitting every last tail in and creating such a racket that neighbours have been known to secretly rip the vines down in the dark of night, much to the consternation of the house owner!!  Really!  Oddly enough, the word to describe a bunch of these characters is a "murmuration" -- why I don't know, as they sure don't murmur...  They also are known to form into incredibly huge ribbons doing an amazing dance across the sky!  It is quite breath-taking! Check this out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9175000/9175793.stm

The strange thing for me was that we had no Starlings all Summer!  The wee sparrows were in seventh heaven!  Nothing to fight with over food, except the pigeons, and they were faster!  But, when I was trying to go to sleep at 5am, it was quiet...too quiet!!  No Starlings!  I asked for an immediate delivery from Rochester, but none came until a few days ago...  It's murder getting anything over our Canada-USA border!!  And the duty tax...well, never mind.

I am attaching three photos -- none of which is much good, but you can find Starlings in them, if you get out your magnifying glass!



These trees have been sitting covered with uneaten red berries, until the Starlings finally appeared a few days ago!  Now these birds are in ecstaticy!  Sorry about the litter -- very windy day and I'd already picked up my 10 pieces of litter for the day...  Oh yeah -- the black spots are the Starlings!



Again, the red berries, the black things, which are the Starlings!



This is tricky...  In the sky, to the (picture's) right of the obnoxious round sign is a large murmuration of Starlings heading for said sign and the building around it, including the metal staircase.  This was at the intersection Yonge and Dundas Streets -- right downtown.  There were hundreds and hundreds of them and could be heard over the downtown noises, which is impressive!  It was interesting how no one else was interested -- although I stopped several groups of people and pointed the Starlings out...  Anyway, get out those magnifying glasses or you'll just have to trust me!  :hysterical:

And, just in case you are into architecture, more than birds, here is another definition of Starling:

star·ling
• n. a wooden pile erected with others around or just upstream of a bridge or pier to protect it from the current or floating objects. (The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English | 2006 )

Each to his or her own! 

Anne in Toronto
 

Aafke, your photographs and videos are wonderful!  Thank you so much for sharing!  And for thanks also for devising this ABC of birds!

Gayle

I second that. Thank you again, Aafke. This was a great idea.

S is for Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher.

This bird is primarily a Mexican/Central American bird, but some of them hang out in the mountains of southeastern Arizona, which is where I saw it.

Here's more info on the bird:
http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/396/overview/Sulphur-bellied_Flycatcher.aspx

S is for sucky picture of a Scarlet Tanager!  Taken in Lake Erie this past may, where, like a typical tanager, they like to hang up high in a dark tree canopy, where the camera's flash doesn't reach.

One of my favorite tanager experiences was at a forest in Western Kentucky where we saw a pair in a large oak flying out one a time to catch bees in mid-air!

Snow Geese

More on Snow Geese.  As Patti pointed out, conservation have worked far too well as populations are now in the millions.  The tundra breeding grounds are being degraded and as other species prefer the same areas, those populations are suffering.  A big reason for the rebound of snow geese is the good condition of the birds on their winter grounds.  In Northern California, for example, in  the northern end of the Central Valley the principal agricultural crop is rice.  In the fall, rice growers flood the paddies allowing the geese to harvest the gleanings.  In addition, wild life reserve areas are planted in crops specifically for birds to harvest.

Bag limits on snow geese have been increased to 20 per day.  Even so hunting has not dented the population.

Below are some flocks in Northern California.

There are some amazing photographs from above in the tundra in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:  Seasons of Life and Land by  Subhankar Banarjee.

And to totally blow your mind see the video of 1.2 million snow geese at Squaw Creek National Wild Life Refuge in Missouri:

http://vimeo.com/3856735

Gayle

Snow Geese (yet again)

Still more snow geese!

These photographs are of snow geese in the air.  By the last one they finally get it together!

Gayle

I shot several videos and photos that attempted to capture the snow geese phenomenon, and couldn't quite do it...but there were only a few tens of thousands at the refuge I visited, not over a million!  I know I should be wringing my hands over the degradation of the breeding grounds (and I am concerned about that), but experiencing thousands of birds swirling in a chaotic, cacophonous mass is one of those top 20 wildlife experiences...

Patti

Sandpiper

I found this little beauty in the Pribilof's and made no attempt to further identify it!

Years ago when I first became seriously interested in birds, a friend and I were strolling along Ocean Beach in San Francisco.  We came upon a group of small sand pipers flitting in and out with the waves,  Confident that I could identify them once I got to my book, I memorized the characteristics.  At home, my book showed fifty or so sandpipers.  Since then, I eschew labels and enjoy them for their themselves!

Gayle

Song sparrow

This is a lovely rendition by Rod McIver, a writer and painter of nature.

Gayle

Starling

I'm with you, Anne.  Starlings may be nuisance foreigners, but individually, they are nice to look at and watch the iridescence change colors n the sunlight!

Gayle

Southern White-faced Scops Owl

This is a fully nocturnal small owl of South Africa.  A screen shot from safari.tv.

Gayle

Gayle, I'm sure you have a photo of a starling, but isn't this a grackle?

I'm pretty happy that I've gotten halfway decent at the "easy" birds, but don't even much bother with the hard ones unless I've got such a good opportunity that there is really no excuse not to try.  Hard ones meaning shorebirds, gulls, and sparrows.  For example, if I'm at the beach with a scope, and am getting consistently good, long looks at shorebirds, with perhaps other birds that I do recognize (killdeer, for example) around for size comparison, and I happen to have my field guide in front of me where I can go through the book page by laborious page, comparing the photos, behavior, and field marks with the bird clearly in front of me, only then might I make an effort at the "hard" birds.

S is for Sanderling -- these are the little shorebirds most of us have seen running just at the edge of the surf...always getting out of the way of the incoming wave seemingly just in the nick of time.

The first photo is typical...the second was an unusual sighting for me because I've rarely seen them not foraging frenetically.  Both photos were taken in Cape May, New Jersey.

Gayle - Thank you for the incredible snow geese!!! I just love the formations in the sky in the photos - you can see those same layers in parts of the video, too - a tremendous video, including the voice yelling, "I'm SO gonna get crapped on, and it's SO gonna be worth it!"

Patti - the scarlet tanager picture is not sucky at all, if you see it not as a photo of a red bird but a photo of redness itself (that happens to need to appear in the form of a bird - it'd be too scary to see redness with nothing there).

What is SUPER EXTRA not-sucky, though, is the light in the second (not-frenetic) sanderling photo

dale

black swans - not the one I didn't get a shot of in NZ but the ones I took scores of pictures of in the Berlin zoo.

Dale

no introduction needed- he'll introduce himself

S is for Sparrow -- House Sparrow, that is!

The sparrows in downtown Toronto had a good Summer -- no Starlings to hassle them!  For this one season, they were the "kings & queens", in charge of dust holes, bushes, everything!  Common as they are, they are a lovely wee bird...often overlooked!  So bright looking, so quick, so bright!  By the way, a group of sparrows is called a host or a flight.  Take your pick!  These particular sparrows were in Riverdale Farm Park -- the old site of the original Riverdale (Toronto) Zoo.  It is a nice walk from my place and there's always something interesting to see!  If you're ever in Toronto, it's a nice place to just relax, under a canope of huge, green trees!  Anne in Toronto



This little one was playing peek-a-boo with me in the bush.

Such bright looking wee birds!

These sparrows were kicking dust up a good foot, when they really got into their dusting!  They were at it for at least 1/2 hours and really seemed to be having a good time!!

Spotted Redshank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_Redshank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_Redshank)

Absolutely!  Thanks for catching this Patti.  I plead tired eyes!

Gayle

S is for Shoveler

The Northern Shoveler is also a duck. You can recognize him at his large spatulate bill.
In The Netherlands we have a lot of water, that's why we have lots of ducks.
greetings Aafke

Patti, I want to send the Sanderling too but your pictures are so great that it will make no sense. I'm wondering how you make such a good picture of such a busy bird, thanks.
greetings Aafke

That's quite a bill!  What a handsomely coloured duck!  Thanks for showing it to us, Aafke!
I sure hope all that water stays behind the dikes!  I am seeing, on the news, that Holland is getting huge amounts of snow!!

Best wishes,
Anne in Toronto

Surf Scoter

http://www.seattleaudubon.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=84 (http://www.seattleaudubon.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=84)

(http://www.iconbazaar.com/animals/birds/stork_white1_2b.gif) S is for Stork, White Stork

The White Stork is a very big bird and looks very impressive with his black and white feathers and his long red legs and bill.
We are very lucky to have a few of them in The Hague.
I visit a nest for the first time in 2004. We looked for a long time before we saw the little white pile, yes a baby in the nest!

This movie is from last year when we visit an other nest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyBVCnNsKAY

greetings Aafke

This one's for you, Aafke - I took this one at the Berlin Zoo as well.  dale

couple more swans, one with friends. Prague, I believe.

Good choice of friends!!   :wub:   A in T

Great videos and beautiful pictures.I love all the pictures you "Lady's"make on your trips and know there names and find them back in your albums.I read all the post,but don't have time to post myself. I know I have to make time,but I'm a little chaotic.Thanks Aafke for this game.I love to see so much pictures of birds I've never heard of.And I love pigeons too Anne,you are so good with them!

Greetings Carla :sparrow: :birdhum: :hummer: :finch: :hawk: :falcon: :falcon2: :pfalcon: :whistle: :chick3: :hatch1: :eagle: :eagle2: :thanksgiving: :cockatiel_yellow: :cockatiel: :mini-bird: :penguinspin:

Oh, Carla...  They are so easy to be good with!  They come into my life, sharing their antics freely, allowing me to peek into their world!  They even allowed me to have one of their little squabs live with me, showed me how they cared for it, glared at me when I laughed at the now fledgling hanging upside down from the air conditioner and then cooooed him down!  And then they asked Aafke to name him -- Piet Hein -- and seemed very content with such a fine name!  Pigeons are good friends!  They will see you through hard times by remaining constant, friendly, hungry!!  :rofl:



Okay, so I snuck one more pigeon photo in!  :hysterical:

Anne in Toronto

I found this among my Berlin Zoo photos of birds and for the life of me couldn't remember what it was. I asked Aafke and I think she has it figured out - she said Secretary Bird!  As far as I can tell she's right.   dale

One more STORK to add to the storks already here - I don't think I saw this one.
I identified yet another of my Berlin Zoo photos, thanks to help from Aafke!!! (that is to say, Aafke identified the beast for me)

MARABOU STORK
a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It breeds in Africa south of the Sahara, occurring in both wet and arid habitats, often near human habitation, especially waste tips. It is sometimes called the "undertaker bird," due to its shape from behind: cloak-like wings and back, skinny white legs, and sometimes, a large white mass of "hair."  (wikipedia)


I like the second shot, which, like my swan photos below, shows the bird all twisted up

dale

GIANT EXTINCT STORK, really giant, just discovered

They're also calling it Marabou, oddly.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101211/ap_on_sc/as_indonesia_giant_stork

Wow 6ft? Pretty cool.

I see this bird in my yard all winter, but it has never sat still long enough to get a picture before.  Not that it's a great picture by any means, but the field marks for an ID are there...



"...note the single dark spot or 'stickpin' on the breast, and the solid red-brown cap.  Bill dark above, yellow below; 2 white wing bars."  (Peterson's Eastern Birds)

S is for American Tree Sparrow (Spizella arborea)

All about birds (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Tree_Sparrow/id)

I'm sure the American Tree Sparrow was posted before, but I wanted to post it again to show a not so great picture can often be enough for a good ID.

Ei

And what exactly isn't good about this photo!?  :clap:

Well, the grape vine covering most of the bird's face, for one thing.Some would trash it. I think it tells it's own story.  Thanks!

Ei

Just makes it look like it's playing peekaboo! ;D