Some random bird photos from Central Idaho this month. Tree Swallows readily use bird boxes intended for Mountain Bluebirds, which is what has happened here. This youngster looks about ready to fledge, but was still begging for food whenever another Tree Swallow flies by. WC took this shot mostly for the neat shadow of the…
Several times in recent years, WC has seen juvenile birds demonstrating that human kids aren’t the only juveniles who are sometimes dumb as bricks. Here’s a juvenile hatch year Common Redpoll. It is literally surrounded by seeds, and clearly well fed, but it is begging for food. It wants food from its parent. This is…
Even the birds are patriotic this year. Happy 4th of July to all of WC’s readers.
There’s things WC has never really wondered about until it’s right in front of him. Like, “How does a Crossbill drink water.” Crossbills, for nonbirders, are a genus of birds with a specially adapted bill that allows them to quickly and efficiently pry open spruce and pine cones and extract the seeds. A Red or…
“Rails” are a family of birds – the Rallidae – that live and breed in marshy wetlands. Sora are the most abundant and most widely distributed North American rail, breeding from across the Canadian boreal forest (and occasionally in to Alaska) to central Arizona. But being “abundant” and “widely distributed” doesn’t mean “easy to see.”…
WC’s late friend, Ken Philip, an avid lepidopterist, once accused WC of neglecting 90% of the animals on the planet by focusing on birds. It’s true. Insects, of course, represent by far most of the animals on the planet, some 6 to 12 million species. So now, 3,000 plus blog posts along, WC will finally…
As reported earlier, WC is chasing birds, this time in central Idaho, in the mountain forests of the Idaho Batholith. Here are a few shots. The target bird in a half day of birding was the Boblink. We saw them, and even got photos, but nothing to post on the Web.
