Category: birds

Fly Fishing

Osprey in flightI saw lots of raptors this evening while I was out walking, but only one osprey. I don’t usually see them on “my” part of the river, so even though the quality of this photo isn’t superb, it moved right up to the top of my photo of the day list. I didn’t see him catch a fish, but he did dive after them a couple of times. Hopefully he eventually caught something for dinner tonight.

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Talons

Talons belonging to Echo, the great horned owlI have no idea what happened to my June 3rd photo. Me being me, I trust that I took a photo that day, but I can’t find one with that date, so I’ll have to assume it was crap and was deleted in a fit of frustration. I looked through June photos that haven’t been posted here and was surprised that I never uploaded one of Echo, the resident great horned owl at the nature center near my house.

Looking at the date this was taken, I remember that Echo’s photo was bumped in favor of a rattlesnake I ran into that day. So, as a filler here is a close-up of Echo’s lethal talons. If I need a filler in the future, maybe you’ll get to see her face.

Or you can just look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skelly10/9161251343/

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Figaro…figaro…figaro…figaroooo!

Male house finchI most often hear the “singing” of musically-challenged birds like scrub jays, magpies and crows around here, so when someone who can actually carry a tune drops in, I take notice. This little guy was singing his heart out the other day. It was a nice break from the battle cry of the jays as they dive into the yard, so I hope he comes back again.

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Dive!

Brown pelican diving near the cement ship - ss palo altoOne of my favorite birds is the California Brown Pelican. Most of the pelicans I saw last week were showing their breeding plumage like this one diving after a fish near the sunken concrete ship, the USS Palo Alto (enlarge image to see more detail). Not even a second after I took this photo, the bird was completely under water with only a splash marking the spot where it had entered.

The California Brown is the smallest of the pelicans, but its wingspan is still an impressive 7 feet across. I love how prehistoric they look, like small pterodactyls.

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