Saratoga Springs, NY
On October 7th we had our first sunny day in over a week and everyone came out to play.
The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. |
It was the sight of three blue birds playing in the sunshine that brought me outside with my camera. They were whizzing to and fro at high speed. I’m still a complete novice with the camera so I just pretty much winged it (excuse the bad pun) and took a ton of pics. The majority were rubbish, but some I like and there were a few surprises. The photo below was taken without the zoom so it’s heavily cropped and blurry, but I included it because the color is so gorgeous. Amazing that the only difference between it and the bird in the opening shot is how the sun hits it. You can also see how desiccated the leaves are from the lack of rain around here.
In the following two pictures I was aiming for the bluebird in flight, I had no idea that there was a second blue perched in the tree and I certainly had no idea that there was a northern flicker on the tree at the very right. Again very cropped and blurry. I Haven’t seen a northern flicker for at least two months, but when I did it was usually on one of these three trees or on the ground foraging for ants.
Both male and female northern flickers from the east have a red crescent on their napes, this is absent on western birds. The flight-feather shafts of the eastern birds are lemon yellow as opposed to the rosy red of the western birds. Eastern males have a black malar (moustache) while that of western birds is red. When I blew up the photo it seems as though he has a malar so I’m pretty confident that this is a male. Unlike most woodpeckers flickers spend a lot of time on the ground foraging for ants and beetles and according to Cornell
they will often go after ants underground (where the nutritious larvae live), hammering at the soil the way other woodpeckers drill into wood. They’ve been seen breaking into cow patties to eat insects living within.
Supposedly they often perch on top of horizontal branches, but I have only ever seen them attached to the trunk. I’ve also never heard them drumming.
I really love the raspberry plumage of purple finches. They are really sweet birds who are always on the go and chirp non stop. They are wary and curious at the same time.
Blue jays are always a lot of fun to watch. Their loud, hoarse call is one of the few I recognize immediately. They are bossy birds which is why I loved that the little guy in these next two photos is giving him major stink eye.
That blue sky is the real thing too, no playing around in editing other than cropping and blue jays don’t need any help to look gorgeous either.
No way to tell if this White-throated sparrow is male or female as they look the same, but I saw three or four of them chasing each other around. The tree he is under is popular with birds of many species, it’s also right by my window so it’s the most visible. It’s the tree the blue bird is perched on, the mockingbirds loved it, as do the finches and the American robins used it for shelter.
The white-throated sparrow in the pic is a white-crowned morph and Cornell's All about bird's had this to say:
The White-throated Sparrow comes in two color forms: white-crowned and tan-crowned. The two forms are genetically determined, and they persist because individuals almost always mate with a bird of the opposite morph. Males of both color types prefer females with white stripes, but both kinds of females prefer tan-striped males. White-striped birds are more aggressive than tan-striped ones, and white-striped females may be able to outcompete their tan-striped sisters for tan-striped males.
I also discovered that while not closely related, they occasionally mate with Dark-eyed juncos and produce hybrids.
I’m always ragging on the pigeons because of their bullying ways, so I thought I’d include a picture of one by way of apology.
There are a lot more crows around then I realized. I did see a bunch of them gang up on a perching red-tail in the spring, he left PDQ.
This pic was actually taken five days after the others. The hawk was huge and very high up. What always amazes me is how they can completely disappear and reappear while you watch, they just wink in and out of view. Guess that’s why they are such successful predators.
And finally the bees. Actually it’s a bee singular and a wasp.
The last of goldenrod is just beginning to fade.
It’s amazing what some blue sky, sunshine and a few charismatic birds can do for the soul. Thanks for stopping by and sharing my back yard.
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Now It's Your Turn
What have bird and insects have you seen in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments.
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