ABCs of birds - Letter S

[Patti from Kentucky]

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.

[dale]

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

[dale]

drawing of a supercilious SNOWY

 
Dale

[Patti from Kentucky]

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.

[Patti from Kentucky]

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.

[dale]

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

[gayle]

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

Gayly

[dale]

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

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.

[Patti from Kentucky]

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

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

[dale]

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.

[Patti from Kentucky]

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.

[Patti from Kentucky]

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.

[dale]

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.

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."

[gayle]

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

[Patti from Kentucky]

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

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