Passing by some fields this week and I caught sight of this:
Thats a Killdeer chasing off a female Northern Harrier. There were actually two Killdeer, but I couldn’t get an angle on the 2nd one. I assume the Harrier came to close to their nest.
And I saw my first Pileated Woodpecker:
Now that I’ve gotten a good look at him I think I’ve actually been seeing him flying around but hadn’t been able to ID him from those glimpses.
And I saw my first Indigo Bunting!
The Bluebirds might not be nesting in any of my boxes but they are in the area at least:
We set up a second humming bird feeder in the back, the fights over the one in front are fun to watch, but still…..I’ve been slowly working on inching my way closer and closer to it while the hummers feed, and as a result have managed to get some awesome shots out of it:
I also discovered that at least one of the male Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds (the only breed that normal here) thats hanging around is actually gold throated:
Did some research and it looks like that golden/orange throat isn’t abnormal, but they don’t actually know the cause of it yet. Theories range from a genetic quirk to feather age to some combination there-of.
Managed to catch some shots of a young Bald Eagle being harassed by some crows, but I won’t post the pictures cause they’re pretty horrid. I had to get help IDing the birds on them because of the long range and horrid lighting.
Seen Osprey several times. There’s definitely a nest somewhere not to far south of us, in a straight line over us from the lake, as I’ve now seen an Osprey powering over with a fish headed in direct line flight over my head on several occasions.
The Orioles have completely stopped coming into the feeders. I haven’t changed what I’m putting out for them, and they’re definitely still hanging around the yard as I see and hear them regularly. They’re just not coming in to the feeders. Not sure what happened.
The Ceder Waxwings are back! Haven’t found any nests yet this year though.