Be careful to not be beneath them when they let loose. There is a huge amount of bird poo! Made that mistake once boat cruising near some houseboats. I could not wait to get home to wash my hair!
Be careful to not be beneath them when they let loose. There is a huge amount of bird poo! Made that mistake once boat cruising near some houseboats. I could not wait to get home to wash my hair!
Gulls are prone to dropping bunker busters as well.Be careful to not be beneath them when they let loose.
I watched a snipe do a funky boogie dance, once.Successful snipe hunts. In common usage, a “snipe hunt” is an adventure to capture a mythical beast – a hopeless cause, a wild goose chase (though if you have ever encountered a pissed-off goose, you would want to give it a wide berth). But in fact, while “birds aren’t real”, Wilson’s snipes are, as pictures already in this thread have demonstrated. But snipes are well-camouflaged, stealthy, and fast, erratic fliers. About once a year, I catch a passing view of a snipe as one bombs overhead or as one disappears into the reeds.
But sometimes, you get lucky. And during a recent visit to Billie Frank Jr. Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, I lucked into a cooperative snipe. I wasn’t expecting to find a snipe. Who does? But I was watching a flock of feeding Northern pintail hens feeding at the transition from a freshwater marsh to grassy field. I noticed that one of these individuals was not like the others. In fact, there was snipe in the group, perhaps 30’ away from me.
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The pintails soon wandered off as they kept actively foraging, but the snipe remained. It did some hunting for food, some preening, and some relaxing.
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I came back an hour later and it hadn’t moved more than 10’.
My wife was excited for me that I had such as good view of the snipe, but unhappy that she wasn’t there as she was working. But the universe rewarded her (and me) a few days later when we visited Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. We didn’t see one or two snipes, but nine (!!!) individuals. These snipes were dozing, preening, and feeding along the edge of a peninsula at the edge of the refuge. [How many snipes can you see in this picture?]
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They weren’t as close to us as the singlet that I had seen a few days earlier, but they made up for it in numbers. That one group included more individuals than I have seen in total in 20 years.
Steve
Actually, it was a woodcock now that I think of it.I watched a snipe do a funky boogie dance, once.
That is an immature black-crowned night heron. The sparrow is a juvenile white-crowned; see the yellow-orange bill. A golden-crowned juvenile would have a gray bill.Variety. Most are long shots with a Sony A7RV and are heavily cropped. I can't tell if the grainy shot is a Bittern or an immature Night Heron. Any thoughts on which it is? Not sure about the Sparrow either.
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I stand corrected on the sparrow! Thanks to Steve and Jim!Nice images = thanks for sharing! I'll go with an immature black crowned night heron for the top image. I'm not great with sparrows but I think that's a female golden crowned sparrow.
Not my box. That one is one Hayward Hill Rd off Highway 10 across from where the Thorp Highway ends above the Green Bridge on the Yakima. I have a ton more bluebird shots so I'll dig up a couple more.Nice mountain blue bird. Your nest box?
Gotta love those birds. Although, there are very few bird I loathe.