Bird of the Week

[GWashington1732]

not the greatest shot but its not often i tr and get birds in flight

That's not bad. Flying birds are hard to get anything other than blurry color jumbles of; except turkey vultures, but that's because they're huge and come awfully close to hovering at times.

[GWashington1732]

It was really sunny out yesterday so I took the bazooka out for a while.

I got this Great Blue Heron with the bazooka. I was mad because I scared it when I walked back into the woods and the camera was on the tripod 30 feet away. Then I realized that it landed about 50-60 feet away right in front of the camera. Some girl was sitting on the bridge that's just out of frame to the right, she kept giving me dirty looks.

Great-Blue-Heron.jpg

Lesser Yellow legs also taken with the bazooka yesterday.

Lesser-Yellow-Legs.jpg

I don't remember when I took this, it might have been today, but I took it with the crapped out 75-300mm. There's no way to do that with the other monstrosity.

Lesser-Yellow-Legs-in-FLigh.jpg

Ring necked duck. I took this today, I got really really lucky as I was able to approach it twice without it flying away. I got really close the first time, took about 20 pictures, and realized I had no card in the camera, so I ran and got one and got close again. This was not with the bazooka, too cloudy today for that.

Ring-NEcked-Duck.jpg

[GWashington1732]

Today in the wonderful world of birding.


An Eastern Towhee Foraging. I was laying under the bushes gradually moving closer to it. It didn't seem to mind; after a few minutes it got used to me. This was with the 75-300mm

Eastern-Towhee.jpg

After about ten minutes of me laying under the bushes with it. With a 50mm lens. Unfortunately, it was a nice warm day and I pulled just shy of a dozen ticks off of me in the next couple of hours.

Eastern-Towhee-2.jpg

An osprey, not the best picture, but I didn't bring my bazooka with me.

Osprey.jpg

And it went after something when I tried to get close.

Ospreyfly.jpg

Later on it flew over a couple of times but it didn't land again while I was there.

Ospreyinflight.jpg

[Gevonovich]

Keep them coming GWashington!! Great photos. The dirty looks comment...still has me laughing.

[Jakeboy]

At my local bait and tackle shop today. Very friendly little guy!

[GWashington1732]

I was out at Forsythe all day. I walked the 8 mile wildlife drive and took about 730 pictures.... I kept about 80.

A bunch of brants (brant Pl.?)

Brant.jpg

Double-crested Cormorant

Double-Crested-Comorant.jpg

An Osprey with an afro.

Frosprey.jpg

Herring gull, most likely, it's common. If it's not, then I just hit the birding lottery because the only other thing that looks enough like it is a yellow legged gull, but there's never been a sighting of one in NJ and only about five sightings in the US

Hering-Gull.jpg

An osprey either attacking or mating with another. I don't know what that thing is to the left, other than dead. It might be a competing osprey or a gull that got too friendly. It's not dinner though, osprey eat fish.

Osprey-attack.jpg

[GWashington1732]

Another Osprey.

Another-Osprey.jpg

This is a domestic goose that hangs out on one of the lakes on campus.

Domestic-Goose.jpg

Some snowy egrets.

Snowy-Egret.jpg

Canada Goose.

Canada-Goose.jpg

A couple of great black-backed gulls.

Great-Black-Backed-Gull.jpg

[GWashington1732]

Last set from yesterday, this didn't really work out well but I tried to get some peregrine pictures. I tried using my bazooka (600-1300mm) with a 2x extender on it and I haven't really worked out the process yet, if it's even possible at this range. These are the better shots.

Flight, you can't tell what it is, but it flew off of their little platform and no other bird is stupid enough to go sit up there with two peregrine falcons.

Perigrine-FLight.jpg

Dinner... yummy. (I assuming here)

Perrigrine-Dinner.jpg

All the way to the left on the perch.

Perrigrine-Perch-1.jpg

Just to the right of the supporting post

Perrigrine-perch-3.jpg

How far away I was (50mm lens). I might be able to get closer on the other side, but not by much, maybe 30 feet closer. If I ever get the opportunity to work out there, I'll try to get some real pictures.

Perrigrine-sign.jpg

[GWashington1732]

Content wise it's nothing special. But I really liked this picture from today for some reason.

Lakeshot.jpg

[jms2021]

I visited the Stiegerwald Lake Wildlife Refuge last week, saw some crazy Canucks. Seems so strange...a goose in a tree.

I have a few more pics of this guy (and his mate?) They were up there last time I went (about 3 weeks ago) and I think they may have been on the path later that day as well.
All in all I took a LOT of pics of the area and birds there. I may post some more later.

[GWashington1732]

I thought this goose was dead the first time I saw it. This one's always sitting in the same spot and there's another one nearby. There's a nest, I hope they hatch before the end of the semester so I can get some pictures of the little baby gooses . They'll be pretty well confined to the small shallow ponds when they hatch and they won't be able to fly away so there may be weally cute picture in the future. Provided that they don't get eaten first .

Goosenest.jpg

This one is nothing too special, just a pigeon. Except that I saw it in the middle of the woods in South Jersey. That's a bit unusual.

Pigeon.jpg

Two of them flying away.

Pigeons.jpg

Tree Swallow. It is not carrying a 1lb coconut, but I believe that it beats it's wings 42 times every second. It took me about 45 minutes just to get this picture. It got to the point where I was just blasting away hoping that one of them would just pass in front of the lens. There's no way to focus on one because they fly every which way.

Tree-Swallow.jpg

Yellow-rumped warbler I had a very hard time figuring out what it was. I took it by accident while trying to track one of the swallows.

Yellow-Rumped-Warbler.jpg

[jms2021]

Speaking of accidental bird pics. I didn't even know this guy was there! Almost looks like a bald eagle going for some lunch! I don't know if it is or not, but if I zoom the pic in real far it looks like one to me. (but just ask my girlfriend...almost every duck I see is a mallard....even if it isn't

I wish I had better zoom, but I have a point and shoot (a nice one, imo) Heres a zoomed out view of the area.

I am worried that I might start liking photography too much and outgrow my camera and feel the need for a DSLR....luckily I am far from that I think

[rokclmb]

Here's my bird of the week:




These were taken at the tsurugaoka hachiman shrine in Kamakura, Japan.

[GWashington1732]

Speaking of accidental bird pics. I didn't even know this guy was there! Almost looks like a bald eagle going for some lunch! I don't know if it is or not, but if I zoom the pic in real far it looks like one to me. (but just ask my girlfriend...almost every duck I see is a mallard....even if it isn't

Could be a bald eagle, but based on the way it's flying, I'd say it's more likely an osprey. Before they dive after fish, they hover like that for a few seconds and it looks exactly like that; it's really cool to watch. I have some video of the hovering, but I keep missing the dive because my camera can only film for about 15 seconds. I do have one with a fish however.

Ospreywithfish.jpg

[jms2021]

I think you are right, I think most of the eagles around here (based on my very limited experience) are around Vancouver Lake. That area has train tracks, and I don't imagine many birds would like that noise.

[Ebbtide]

Frank is ready for the playoffs!

[MVG]

[Planterz]

Can I play?



OK, so it's not a bird, but it has wings and it flies...

[GWashington1732]

I took hundreds of pictures this week, these were the only two good ones of birds. I can't get my hands on my new lens soon enough.

Another tree swallow, slightly better than the last

Tree-swallow2.jpg

The goose nest I've been watching. Still no goslings in sight, but they should be hatching any day now, she's been sitting there about three weeks. The male doesn't seem to mind me anymore so hopefully I'll be able to get some decent pictures once they hatch. And hopefully they'll stay put in this pond until I can get my new lens out there.

Goosenest2.jpg

[chrisa62401]