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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-24-2024, 06:55 AM
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K10D + RMC Tokina f8 500mm mirror (as b-b-b-bul-lack-and-white bokeh monster)
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-03-2021, 12:13 PM
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Folks don't pay attention that way unless they give a hoot.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-05-2020, 05:28 PM
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My grandfather, who was horse farming in the early 20th Century, said he noticed a decline in (Eastern) Bluebirds when they went from using white oak fence posts to other kinds. Perhaps the woodpeckers first made suitable nesting holes in those oak posts, which then the bluebirds and other hole-nesters could use. I've also read that back when orchard keepers didn't trim off any or many dead branches, bluebirds would nest in the ends of large broken dead apple branches in which the core had rotted out leaving a suitable cavity. We usually have a couple of bluebird pairs nesting around our pasture, they may be using wild cavities, since often we have wrens in our bluebird nest boxes.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-03-2020, 03:14 PM
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That may be, but I knew a guy who went to grad school, and his ornithology teacher only called them "rock doves." My friend said he got so confused, because when he looked around all he could see were pigeons.
They are still remarkable birds, though I generally think very negative thoughts about introduced species. Anybody who's ever seen your "feral pigeions" darting between moving taxi-cab wheels to pick up green popcorn on the streets of Chicago, the day after St. Patrick's day, can't fail to be impressed!
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-03-2020, 01:33 PM
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Pigeons are are actually Rock Doves. Originally, in the wild places in Europe they came from, they nested along cliffs. But here and now they have adapted to using building ledges, bridge structural members, barn lofts, and similar man-made things as substitutes. They have an amazing range of colorations and patterns, and perhaps we shouldn't forget the value of homing pigeons (same species), who at one time were very valuable for communication. In World War I, peoples lives were saved because of military communiques carried by homing pigeons.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-23-2020, 06:19 AM
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Is a gos-hawk the same as or different from a gosh-awk?
:) :) :)
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-18-2020, 11:55 AM
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I realized that our young barn swallows must have fledged, when I walked out to the barn this morning and the air was full of squadrons of them zipping around after insects!
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-11-2020, 12:07 PM
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We have a bald eagle in our neighborhood, but it doesn't seem to get in photo range. We occasionally see it fly from one area of cover to another. The turkey vultures are much more obliging, not that I have gotten a good picture of them yet. ;)
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-11-2020, 05:17 AM
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I actually wasn't sure of your tone or intent. But it seemed like a moment when it was worth reminding whoever might reflect on those pictures that raptors and other predators don't always get as much appreciation or understanding as other creatures. And, if they want to eat goose, they can't buy it bloodless, plucked, and packaged at the supermarket or butcher shop like we can. ;)
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-10-2020, 05:11 PM
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I try not to think of predatory wild animals as being more vicious or brutal than a bull bison eating prairie plants or tearing up the turf in a conflict with another bull bison. (It might even be more dangerous to be near the Bison eating its lunch.) Predators are generally far fewer in number than their prey animals. And after all, it is as natural for a young eagle to kill prey for its meal as for the average 3rd Grader to devour his or her peanut butter sandwich. Also, we seem to be rather selective about which predators we apply those labels to. A bass is a predator, a bluebird is a predator, a house cat is a predator.
Not meant as a critique of the pictures, which I like very much!
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-06-2020, 04:21 AM
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Such beautiful birds, but they can act foolish when they get tipsy from eating too many old, fermented berries from eastern red cedar trees.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-24-2020, 06:24 AM
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Several decades ago a few were accidentally released in the St. Louis area, and they have slowly expanded their range. They are more slowly invasive than the English Sparrow.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-23-2020, 12:53 PM
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The Bobolink is a bird that should be common in Illinois, and was when most farms were small and diversified and included significant proportions of pasture and hay meadow. I remember reading about them around 1980, when they were already about 97% reduced from their former population levels here.
With annual migrations extending from as far north as prairies in central Canada to grasslands in southern Argentina, the Bobolink is the farthest migrating land bird of the Americas.
Thanks for letting me see a recent picture of one. I've only seen them in books and magazine articles.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-22-2020, 04:20 PM
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Look like the European Tree Sparrows we have a small population of here in Western Illinois.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
04-12-2020, 03:22 PM
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Turkey Vultures' mothers think their cute.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
04-07-2020, 06:12 AM
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I always miss the Juncos when they go back north to breed in the warm weather months.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
04-01-2020, 07:38 AM
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We have his "Rufous-sided" cousin here. But I haven't heard his song--with the rhythm of "Drink-YOUR-te-ee-ea!--just yet this spring. They make enough noise scratching in the leaf litter under trees and bushes that it can give away their location as well.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-19-2020, 05:55 PM
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We've had lots of Canada Geese in our area for a long time, and if there is much water open during the winter they never really migrate south. When it freezes up hard here, they only migrate far enough southward to find open water, and when we get a thaw they are back here very quickly. However, with the reflooding of a large Illinois River floodplain lake near here, we have a lot more snow geese migrating through spring and fall, and a lot more pelicans in warmer months. The Canada Geese don't seem to mind the company.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-13-2020, 01:02 PM
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With some birds, you have to be a pretty good bird call impersonator to get a response, but Chickadees aren't that persnickety. Often they aren't terribly skittish about being near humans either if they are in good Chickadee habitat. You could probably use a lot of kinds of syllables, so long as you got the tone and rhythm close enough.
Yes, everybody try it.
Not just for kids, for old geezer photographers, too.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-13-2020, 12:39 PM
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If you hold your nose and try to imitate a chicadee's tone and rhythm, saying "Chic - ah - dee - dee - dee," you can sometimes get them to answer back. Years ago, when I led nature walks, sometimes I'd have second or third graders try that. You should have seen their eyes when the birds replied to them over and over.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-13-2020, 12:34 PM
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Some winter birds feed in flocks, and where there are bird feeders, a flock will arrange them on their daily feeding route. An area where feeding has been totally dropped will get X-ed OFF of the flock's route. They won't even go there. To get goldfinches in the winter, I have to be sure to feed them seed in the summer when they are spread out more. Then when winter comes the ones that had been coming to my feeder will be sure their flock comes there. If I wait until winter to put out feed, I might never see a goldfinch in my yard until spring.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
11-17-2019, 10:26 AM
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I read that several years ago, but I don't think land-use practices have changed in those two places in ways that would change that balance much. One has to remember that a gigantic chunk of Colorado is east of the Rockies and consists of dry virtually treeless range land. Then in the mountains you have steep rocky slopes and areas above the treeline where there are few trees. New Jersey, by contrast, is extremely well watered, and, while it has some hills and low mountains, they would in most cases create refuges for trees not impediments to them. In New Jersey, anywhere you don't cut trees, they will be popping up and growing; you can't make such a blanket statement about Colorado. Some of New Jersey's older towns probably have enough mature trees in them to call them forests, if not wild forests. New Jersey is known as the Garden State. There are a lot of trees in that garden.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
11-16-2019, 09:18 PM
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A lot of people don't know that there is more forest in New Jersey than in Colorado.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
11-16-2019, 09:17 PM
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Those Watership Down rabbits are good to see. So different from our local Eastern Cottontails.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
10-11-2019, 04:35 PM
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I can't help but suspect that there could be a significant difference in look and lifestyle between a Gos-Hawk and a Gosh-Awk.
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