The Daily Bucket is the place where we record and share the things we've seen in Nature. This time of year it could be about the changing colors of the forest around you or northern migrants at your bird feeder, or the fact that frosty nights have stilled the insects in your neighborhood. Doesn't matter where or what it is or how big or small, if it's part of the natural world around you then we'd love to hear about it. So please join in and tell us what Nature's been up to in your neighborhood. And let us know the general area you are reporting from, such as sunny beach in Southern California, an Ozark hillside, second floor apartment in New York, or a cabin deep in the Maine woods. It's all good.
A few days ago Mrs. burnt out and I took a drive down along the Missouri River to admire the fall foliage and maybe take a few pictures while we were at it. We decided to forgo the quicker highway route for a slower more casual one via gravel roads. This route offered both a better chance at spotting birds or other interesting animals along the way and safer options when pulling over to stop and take pictures if we did see something interesting. The choice of roads payed off well when after we pulled onto the gravel road, we had only driven a short distance when she spotted a juvenile Red Shouldered Hawk, Buteo Lineatus, sitting in a recently harvested field apparently having just captured something for it's breakfast. Her words of "Hawk, Hawk, right here, stop, stop", caused me to pretty much slam on the brakes which of course spooked the poor bird and we watched in dismay as she took wing but was delighted when a few seconds later she landed just in the woods at the edge of the field. I hadn't even turned off the engine yet when I heard my wife's camera clicking away and a few seconds later mine was keeping pace with hers.
The pictures below are a compilation of photos that both of us took that day.
It was obvious that the bird was eating something but on the little camera monitor I couldn't tell what it was. Only later, after transferring the pics to the computer did I realize it was a snake, as near as I can tell a yellow bellied racer.
She ate like she was very hungry and seemed oblivious to us as she made short work of her three foot long meal.
When she had finished she sat there for a couple more minutes and then flew up into a nearby tree, probably the one she had been using as her hunting perch from which she had first seen the snake. She sat there and ruffled and shook her feathers a few times and then raised a foot to her beak. I'm not sure if she was using her talons to clean her beak or using her beak to clean her talons.
After taking care of that chore it was time to do a bit of preening.
After cleaning up she went right back to hunting and we watched her for quite a while in the hopes that we might get double lucky and actually get to see her spot and catch her next meal.
Eventually she finally seemed to notice us and gave us a rather hard look that seemed to say she wasn't all that pleased to have us interrupting her hunting. We decided to take the hint and moved on to see what else might be waiting down the road for us.
We continued on down the road stopping here and there along the way to take a few more pictures. A few butterflies caught our attention as did a log full of turtles in a roadside pond. A great blue heron stood in the shallow water on the opposite side of the pond. We saw an eagle but when we spotted her she was already out or range for the zoom on our cameras and was soon no more than a speck in the sky.
But the highlight of the day were two absolutely beautiful Redtailed Hawks which were circling over a ridge. Between the two of us we were only able to get a few photos and the birds were fairly high so the photos aren't real sharp but still manage to show the elegant beauty of the pair. That pair led me to do a bit of research on Redtail plumage and that subject turned out to be a great deal more complicated than I had imagined. I decided to write a little bit about what I found and I've been working on a diary about it and will probably publish it towards the end of the month. I'll save the few pics I have of those birds for that diary.
This was originally the end of this diary but Monday I got my outboard motor back from the repair shop so Tuesday we took it out on the Missouri River for a test drive. I'm happy to say the motor ran fine and on top of that we had some nice opportunities to get a few more pics of Red Shoulders, this one an adult bird . This bird was pretty high up and we were maxed out on zoom, so the pics aren't real sharp but they do manage to show the contrasting plumage between the juvenile above and the adult below so I thought I'd post a some of them here.
This bird is yet a different bird, one of a pair that we see from the house pretty often.
The next four pics are of the bird we saw at the river. Mrs. burnt out gets credit for all of them except for the stoop which I somehow managed to come up with, but have no idea how. We are pretty sure he got whatever he was after since he never reappeared after disappearing into the trees.
We also saw a pair of adult bald eagles soaring over the river, and we even managed to get a couple decent pics of them.
Our Junco flock is growing, and I saw two male Rufous Sided Towhees today in the back yard. I don't think they were local birds because I haven't seen ours for about three weeks. The turkey vultures are gathering into larger and larger flocks so they must be getting close to taking off too.
That's about it from mid Missouri. Tell us what's happening in your neighborhood.