Birds!

DustBunny · Post by **DustBunny** » Thu Sep 09, 2010 2:01 pm

Here are some wild Quakers that live near me. My kids call them the Screechie Birds

A baby kildeer hanging around my garden

Mom or dad trying to round up the naughty babies that were running in all different directions.

Sandhill Cranes at Jasper Pulaski Refuge

Whooping Crane traveling with some Sandhills... A once in a lifetime sighting no doubt

Pics are kind of crummy, took these from quite a distance.

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Thu Sep 09, 2010 2:34 pm

Great shots everyone, keep em coming!

Post by **daiv** » Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:58 pm

I've never seen that many Cranes in one place - very cool!

peter · Post by **peter** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 10:42 am

Pretty nice!

DustBunny · Post by **DustBunny** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:16 am

daiv wrote:I've never seen that many Cranes in one place - very cool!

It is a staging area. Every year like clock work they congregate by he thousands, hang out,eat, then fly south. The noise they make in such large numbers is deafening. Here is an article about the area http://www.chicagowildernessmag.org/iss ... laski.html

Post by **daiv** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 3:17 pm

Here are a couple bird pictures from Arizona:

Harris's Hawk

Gila Woodpecker

Peterthecactusguy · Post by **Peterthecactusguy** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:51 am

Looks like a Female Gila woodpecker, the Males have a red spot on their heads!

Cool. The Harris' Hawk is on a mesquite tree.

bett · Post by **bett** » Sun Sep 26, 2010 3:35 am

I have tons of bird pictures in my photobucket album. Please feel free to look through them. There's birds from around the world and of all different shapes and sizes. http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/hh10 ... ?start=all
Here's a few good ones that I picked out to post.

A mass of grackles that landed in the field the other year.

Whooper swan striking a pose.

Same swan (or possibly it's partner) shaking.

Baby mystery bird. It's mother is waiting somewhere in the bushes.

Eurasian wigeon duckling. The mother was very friendly (got pictures of her in my album).

And for those of you interested in the skeletal structure of birds...

Skeleton of a house sparrow (which I found as a feather, dust, and dead beetle larvae covered pile of bones in the garage..) which I have cleaned and mounted on a stick on a slate base. I have more pictures of it and the project I made of mounting it in my album.

John C · Post by **John C** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 4:09 pm

Nice pics, but the bird skeleton is amazing! It looks great! Its in beautiful condition too!

bett · Post by **bett** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 1:48 am

Yeah, it was well protected in the garage, so the bones didn't degrade at all from moisture or sunlight. Also, there wasn't anything other than insects that could get to it, so it wasn't chewed up by mice or anything. The wing feathers were so well attached to the wing bones, that I decided to leave them on for looks. Luckily, the garage had also preserved all the ligaments, so I didn't have much work to do for putting it together. I ended up detaching a few pieces like the skull and legs so I could clean them better, and then I used wood glue soaked string to replace the cut ligaments. The wings were already detached, so I had to figure out where they attached, and I never did get it perfect. There was no spot where they fit cleanly because of a shoulder's design, so I had to just stick em where I thought they went. There's surprisingly little information online (at least that I could find) about how the skeleton of a small bird goes together.

John C · Post by **John C** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 2:06 am

Well, wherever it goes, it looks perfect to me! What an awsome job you did!

bett · Post by **bett** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 2:19 am

Heh, thank you.

I like how it came out too, and that it didn't go to waste like the dead hawk I found in the garage once... I really wanted that taxidermied, but it's illegal to kill hawks, and they wouldn't have known if we had killed it or if it did actually fly into the picture window.

John C · Post by **John C** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 2:26 am

bett wrote:Heh, thank you. I like how it came out too, and that it didn't go to waste like the dead hawk I found in the garage once... I really wanted that taxidermied, but it's illegal to kill hawks, and they wouldn't have known if we had killed it or if it did actually fly into the picture window.

That would have been really neat, but I don't think I would have taken the risk either.

Lair3514 · Post by **Lair3514** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 7:06 pm

Pictures from last weekend. Note the red cap on male Gila woodpecker. These guys tend to monopolize the orange.

Maybe someone can help me out on the hawk ID. I'm calling it Ferruginous but not positively. The wingspan and white underside look right but I can't get a read on the color of rest of it (mostly in shadow). It's a fall visitor. Neighbor says there's a nest with young ones. Also says pigeons are frequently on menu. That's why the additional pigeon photo.

Enjoying all the great bird photos. Thanks.

m4rkz0r · Post by **m4rkz0r** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 4:29 am

daiv wrote: Gila Woodpecker

I think those birds building nests in cacti are soooo cool.