Last week's bird was a particularly colorful member of the Icterid family found only deep in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, Altamira Oriole (
Icterus gularis). This week's entry might be a little tricky, too.
Since I'm here and writing, in other news, sorry about the dearth of entries of late - just been busy with other things. Meant to put up a post about last week's wildflower excursion to Cedar Breaks National Monument, but never got to it. I did post a number of photos from there
on my Flickr page. Had planned to do some more wildflower and butterfly work this week on my days off, but brisk winds prevented that from happening. Birding around here is a little tougher these days as most species are now pretty quiet and tricky to find. I did lead a bird walk last Monday which yielded 18 species, highlights being a male Western Tanager feeding a couple of fledglings, a couple of Rock Wrens, and a small flock of Black-headed Grosbeaks (first I've seen this year). Around home the only thing interesting/unusual was seeing both male and female Rufous Hummingbirds. Oh, and the "less-than-a-week-old" Mule Deer fawns who were unfortunately seen too far past sunset to even think about a photo.
Good luck with the quiz and hope you find some good birds this week!
The answer to last week's quiz was Dark-eyed Junco. Dark-eyed Juncos come in 5 different races and are different in appearance regionally, this one is of the Gray-headed variety. For this week a duck that may be kind of tough to get a handle on. Or, for some, maybe not.
I guess that a few weeks ago, quiz #156, would have marked 3 years of doing quizzes, though we (okay, I) missed that anniversary. Truth is I've skipped a few weeks here and there and have also thrown in a mammal a couple of times, but I still have bird photos that I've taken that are in my catalog to keep us going for at least another couple of years. And will almost certainly add a few additional species to the catalog between now and then.
I was going through some folders this morning trying to clean up some of the clutter on the hard drive where I keep images and stumbled across this one I didn't even know I had. Kind of embarrassing, really, since it is almost 3 years old. And the only image I've ever made of a Hairy Woodpecker. We'll file it in the proper location for safekeeping . . .
Last Friday as Roxy and I were getting ready to head over to the reservoir (we were actually backing up to leave) I saw a rather large bird go flying by and watched it land in a Ponderosa Pine not far away. Within moments it was on my bird bath and, luckily, I had a camera on the seat next to me. I'd seen the Northern Goshawk there once before, though it was about 20 minutes after sunset and photos (without flash anyway) would have been impossible. It was quite tolerant of me, actually, and I was able to get a few decent pix without the benefit of having my big telephoto. Click on the photo above to be transported to my Flickr page to see more of this magnificent bird at the drip.
Most of my images of last week's subject show the bird with its prey - a big freshwater snail - which would probably have been a dead giveaway as to the identification: Snail Kite. For this week we'll have to another part of the U.S. to test your skills. Good luck & great birding!
From way up north (in this case the Yukon) last week's bird was a Willow Ptarmigan. this week we'll drop about as far as we can go in the "Lower 48". Good luck and great birding!
