Birding!

[danotaylor]

Do these Stone-Curlews follow the common theme so prevalent among Ossie wildlife? I mean...biggest, meanest, fastest, most venomous, kill-an-adult-human-in-seconds type of stuff?

The one standing up in your last pic looks like he isn't gonna take any guff from anybody...

Haha, thx for your reply and question mate. They’re are a non-venomous, mostly terrestrial bird, lol They do fly, but mostly walk around the place. They think they own my mum and dad’s yard and will hiss at you like a death adder if you get too close. Any threat though and they scurry off like the whimps that they truly are. All talk and no action mate

I wanted to get a pic of them sitting. They literally stretch their lower leg out in front of them so that their leg form looks like an arm chair. It’s the weirdest looking posture. Once I decided that would be an interesting posture to capture and share they gave me the middle finger on that one and I didn’t see sitting like that the final 2 days I was there 🫩

Addendum; I borrowed this from google images to show ya what I mean…

 

[Peacock_bass_fr]

I sure am glad I found this thread!
Birding was a hobby of mine since I was 7 and my dad got me a camera for my birthday. years later, I still love going outside and taking pictures of birds, one picture of a hummingbird even winning me 250$ in a bird competition! I will share some photos when I dig them up. The coolest thing to me is how birding led me into fishkeeping. Since I was so into birds at the time, my dream was to own a parrot. Since that would have been to much work, my mom (shout out to my wonderful mom) was kind enough to get me a fish tank. Instead of a parrot, she got me a tiny little parrot fish. 6 years later, he is alive and well, and I now have 6 fish tanks, 3 ponds funded by shoveling snow in the winter and built by myself, all because of a camera I got when I was 7. Crazy how these things work out! Here is my “parrot”

 

[esoxlucius]

Funnily enough I was fishing last weekend and I saw a bird which immediately had me thinking about this thread. I scrambled to get a picture of the bird I saw but it was just a fleeting visit to a nearby shrub. By the time I got my phone out it had gone.

The bird in question was a long tailed tit. Not a rarity in the UK by any means but out of all the tit family it is one that I have never seen before.

Below is a picture of one, a nice little bird.

 

[Ulu]

Dark-eyed Junco, widespread throughout North America, numerous colour variations, very common in fall and spring migration hereabouts. I expect to start seeing them in the yard here any day now. Not sure how common or uncommon it is in your neck of the woods, but the range maps show that it is a year-round resident in much of California.

TLDR: basically just another sparrow.

We do see lots of brownish sparrows, but this one had a very blue head. The photos don’t show it properly.

 

[Ulu]

We would see more birds but Charlie and his clan are cleaning out the feeders. My wife spends $$ on wild bird food = fat squirrels.
I snuck right up on his butt with the camera.

I snuck right up on his butt with the camera. (These pics will enlarge)

 

[jjohnwm]

Back in the day, when I kept and bred a couple species of python and also had a wondrously voluptuous pet Boa constrictor, Charlie and his clan were welcome to visit my yard any time...and they were encouraged to stay...forever...

 

[jjohnwm]

There are few bird groups more exciting to see, and especially to add to my Yard List, than owls. One of the especially cool species of owl is the Long-Eared Owl. They look somewhat like the much larger and much more common Great Horned Owl, but they are more shy and retiring. Generally speaking I'll see 15 or 20 Great Horneds for every Long-Eared. Last night was one of those special occasions.

Duke decided that he needed to go out at around 2:00am, as I was getting ready for bed after an atypical late-night movie session. We stepped outside into a lovely warmish spring night; even at that hour the temperature was only a few degrees below freezing, the sky was clear, the air was still, the moon was near-full and the stars of a rural sky were brilliant, as was the aurora borealis. The landscape is still completely snow-covered, and these factors conspired to make it a very bright and well-lit night.

Duke was carefully triangulating the exact perfect coordinates for this particular loaf to be pinched off, and as I stood and gazed across the fields I was astonished to see a beautiful Long-Eared Owl perched atop a birdfeeder pole only about 40 feet from the deck. He was watching Duke and me, swivelling his head from one to the other, but he didn't seem too concerned about our presence. Owls in the yard are not a new thing; they are attracted to the voles and mice that are in turn drawn to the area beneath the birdfeeders where food is dropped by sloppy eaters. But a Long-Eared! I've never seen one so close to the house before.

The bird was so still I might have missed it completely, but as Duke assumed the position he let a surprisingly loud fart, causing the bird's head to snap quickly in his direction. This sudden movement is what caught my eye.

When Duke and I went back indoors to bed, the bird was still sitting atop the pole. A few minutes later, just as I slipped into bed, I glanced out the window to check...and he was gone.

Owls are cool.