Breeding season underway...

Photo: Xinhua / Barcroft Images

Egrets arrive at the Xiangshan Forest Park, also known as the Fragrant Hills Park, in Nanchang, in East China's Jiangxi Province, on the northwestern outskirts of Beijing.   Thousands of egrets have settled at the park for the breeding season.
Please comment if you wish.
BarrytheBirder

Swan copes with garbage around nest.

Photo: Scanpix Denmark / Reuters

A Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) nests in debris on a lake near Queen Louise's Bridge in Central Copenhagen, Denmark.  The elegant swan is likely less than favourably impressed by the city's detritus that has befouled her nesting spot...a sad scene of incongruity.

Please comment if you wish. 

BarrytheBirder

Backyard visitors

Photo: Robert Wallace

My Brother, Bob, who lives just north of Parry Sound, Ontario, just e-mailed me the photo above of White-tailed Deer and Wild Turkeys foraged in his backyard.   There's still lots of snow up there, by the looks of it.   Meanwhile, in our backyard, yesterday, in King City, just north of Toronto, Linda and I were potting dahlia tubers on the back patio, when a  pair of male and female Mallard Ducks landed beside us and checked out the thawing flower beds for a few minutes.  This was the first time we have had a mallard in our suburban backyard.   The pair of Mallards brought our backyard bird list to 61 species.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder   

Flamingos return to Albania

 

    Photo: Gent Shkullaku / AFP / Getty                                Photo: Bryan Scully

GREATER FLAMINGO
(Phoenicopterus ruber)

Greater Famingos fly over the Karavasta Lagoon in the Divjake Karavasta National Park, in Albania.   After Almost four years after Albania instituted a moratorium on huntingtion of the species has started to stabilize.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Fixing up the nest...

Photo: Sergei Gapon / AFP / Getty Images

A stork carries a branch while building a nest, in front of the Orthodox church in the village of Krevo, 100 kilometres north-west of Minsk, Belarus.   Storks are large well-known birds with long legs, long necks, long bills and they belong in the Ciconiiformes family.   19 species of storks live around the world.
Please comment if you wish.
BarrytheBirder 

A notice to readers of my other blog: 'Camera on King'

If you are one of the readers of my other blog " Camera on King", which I temporarily stopped about 4 months ago, while I underwent cataract surgery; I'd like to tell you that I am back in that saddle and  able to see well enough to photograph and publish photos of my beautiful, green community of King Township, in Ontario, Canada.  Comments on my photos and descriptions are always welcome.
Kindest regards,
Barry

Geese love the Netherlands

Photo: The Guardian

Netherlands most popular country for geese in Europe

The Netherlands pays tens of millions of euros to farmers every year to compensate for damage to crops caused by Greylag, Barnacle and White-fronted Geese which number between 1/2 million, in the warmer months, to 2.5 million in winter.   Intensive farming and the temperate climate are the apparent causes.   Motorists are being warned to beware of hundreds of geese breeding on the highway edges and intersections.   Reducing the goose population back to 2005 levels would involve the gassing and slaughter of 500,000 birds.   In the interim, drivers are advised to be extremely wary of the geese.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

World is in the 6th mass extinction of its history...

Prothonotary Warbler photo 
by Helena Reynolds                                                   Roseate Tern photo by Brian Burke                                                                                                                 

THEIR FATE IS OUR FATE

                      -- Peter Doherty, Nobel Prize-winning immunologist and author

In my April 13th blog, I mentioned that Prothonotary Warblers and Roseate Terns were endangered in Ontario.   I was quoting from 'Birds of Eastern Ontario' published by Dorling Kindersley Limited and written by David M. Bird, Ph.D, Director of the Avian Science and Conservation Centre at McGill University in Montreal, in April of 2013.   Dr. Bird includes over 350 birds species in his guide, and 126 of those are designated as Rare/Declining/Vulnerable/Localized or Endangered, leaving 225 species listed as secure.  Numbers like these are being found in areas all over the temperate and tropical world.   It's not too late to reverse this decline and protect the birds in the air, the animals on the ground and the creatures in the sea.   If we protect their future, we will live to enjoy our own.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder     

World Press Photo Contest 2018 Winners

 Photo: Corey Arnold

Nature - Singles: First Prize

A Bald Eagle scavenges for scraps of meat in garbage bins of a supermarket in Dutch Harbour, Alaska, USA.  This photo, by Corey Arnold, won first prize in the Nature - Singles Category of the 2018 World Press Photo Contest.

Photo: Thomas P. Peschak

Nature - Singles: Second Prize

Rockhopper Penguins do what they do best as they navigate the coast of Marion Island, a South African, sub-Antarctic territory in the Indian Ocean.  This photo, by Thomas P. Peschak, won second prize in the Nature - Singles category. 

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Much anticipation...

Photo by BarrytheBirder

WRuby-throated hummingbirdW

(Archilochus colubris)

I'ts coming around to that time of year when Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will be arriving from their spring migration in my neck-of-the-woods: southern Ontario.  For many of the past several years, they have been arriving on May 10th, but have also arrived a few times, as much as a week prior to that date.   It's been a cold rainy/snowy spring so far, hereabouts, and I wouldn't be surprised if they arrive a little later this year.   Some years, Indigo Buntings and Baltimore Orioles (see below) arrive at the same time, or just after, the 'hummers'.  We shall see what we shall see, however, and with pleasant expectations.   A comparative reference shows that early spring migrants in Britain appear to be 20 days late this year.

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

These flycatchers are occasional wanderers to southern Canada...

Photo: Peter Llewellyn / Alamy

VERMILLION FLYCATCHER
(Pyrocephalus obscurus)

A male Vermillion Flycatcher (above) is seen perched on a branch of a tree in Jocotepex, Jalisco, Mexico.   This flycatcher occasionally reaches northward from southern Texas into eastern North America, where it creates quite a stir among local birders.   This is also the case with Scissor-tailed (Tyrannus forticatus) and Fork-tailed Flycatchers (Tyrannus savana) that sometimes stray northward from Mexico, Texas, Florida and the Atlantic coast.   The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, which I saw (one time only and a 'lifer') in southern Ontario, many years ago, has been known to nest rarely in the east in Virginia and North Carolina. 

SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER

Photo: Terry Sohl

FORK-TAILED FLYCATCHER

Photo: Scott Buckel

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Natural colouration in the abstract...

Photo: Yuri Smityuk / TASS

MANDARIN DUCK

(Aix galericulata)

A Mandarin Duck is seen (above) on a tree by the Solyonaya Protoka River, outside Vladivostok, Russia.  Below, is a photo by, Stephano Ronchi, of a male and female Mandarin Duck.   The bottom photo, by Foto Martien, shows a mutation, called a White Mandarin Duck.   

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Camouflage: natural colouring of an animal to blend in with its surrounding

Photo: Mats Janson / Alamy Stock Photo

COMMON SNIPE

(Gallinago gallinago)

Photographed in Nynashamn, Svierge (Sweden)

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Tender moment at dusk...

Photo:Ronald Wittick / EPA

MWHITE STORKM

(Ciconia ciconia)

A White Stork is seen feeding its mate (above) in a roof-top nest, near sunset, in Philippsburg, on the Rhine in western Germany.   The ICUN ranks the status of  White Storks as of 'least concern'.   They winter in Africa by the hundreds of thousands.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Many Black Kites perish...

Photo:Diptendu Dutta /AFP / Getty Images

Over 60 Black Kites die in India

Photo: Azak / Tehran Zoo

Sick Black Kites (Milvus migrans) lie on the ground, above, at Bengal Safari veterinary hospital, in Siliguri, India.   More than 60 of the large medium-sized birds of prey were recently found dead overnight, due to an unknown cause of death, a forest official said.   Global population of Black Kites is estimated to be 6 million.  The birds are widely distributed throughout Eurasia, Australasia and Oceania.
Please comment if you wish.
BarrytheBirder

Cormorant forages as deep as 120'

 Photo: Alexander Mustard

BRANDT'S CORMORANT

(Phalacrocorax penicillatus)

Photo: Teddy Lovat / Howcheng

The legs of a giant oil rig off the coast of California form a maze for this swirling scene of the hunter and the hunted.   Alexander Mustard took this photograph, at top, of a Brandt's Cormorant flying through a shoal of Pacific Chub Mackerel.   Predators such as sea lions, porpoises and dolphins also regards these rigs as prime fishing
sites.   The Brandt's use the oil rigs as both underwater larders and platforms for roosting, while drying their wings.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Ontario bird quiz...

What are the two wild bird species

designated as endangered*

in Ontario?

* 'Endangered' means a species that lives in Ontario but faces immediate extinction or extirpation.

Photo: Alix d'Entremont

PROTHONTARY WARBLER

(Protonotaria citrea)

In Ontario, the Prothontary Warbler is found in the warm climate of the Carolinian deciduous forests, particularly in the south-west  portion of the province.   10 years ago, there were only between 28 to 34 individuals in Ontario.

Photo: Gabriel Lugo

ROSEATE TERN

(Sterna dougallii)

A medium-sized tern, similar in appearance to several other species, The Roseate Tern is primarily a tropical bird, and while it usually breeds in tropical waters, some reach up to the north Atlantic temperate zones; including Ontario where it has bred in scattered localities.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Ibis crisis down under...

Photos : Rick Stevens

WAustralian White IbisW

(Threskiornis molucca)

Tip Turkey, Bin Chicken, Rubbish Raptor, Dumpster Chook - the Australian White Ibis goes by several unflattering names. However, it is a true, urban, success story, scavenging in cities across Australia, as wetlands have been greatly declining.   Wildlife photographer Rick Stevens has photographed numerous ibises in the city of Sydney and many have been published as part of 'Australian Cities Week'.  There are up to 9,000 ibises in the Sydney region alone, twice as many as in the country's inland wetlands,

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

A scene that speaks of China...

Photo: Shi Guangde / Xinhua / Barcroft Images

A Chinese Egret (Egretta eulophotes), a.k.a. Swinhoe's Egret, glides over the Qishu Lake at Huangshan, in East China's Anhui Province.   Chinese Egrets are listed as vulnerable due to loss of habitat.   As many as 3,400 individuals can still be found breeding China, the Koreas and far eastern Russia.
Please comment if you wish.
BarrytheBirder   

Subgenus of White Cockatoo...

Photo: Allan Collins

Photo: P Stubbs

Huge flocks of noisy, white Western Corellas are to be found (above) in the trees that line the Darling River in Bourke, Australia.   Western Corellas are one of six species, three of which live in Australia.   Three other endemic species are to be found in the Phillipines, Indonesia and the Solomons.   They are rather small cockatoos with pale bills, some red to their bills and yellow-tinged underwings.

Please comment if you wish.

Barrythe Birder   

Also found on four continents...

Photo: Mei Yongcun / Xinhua / Barcroft Images

WWHITE WAGTAILW

(Motacilla alba)

Here's another bird (similar to yesterday's Bluethroat) that is also found on four continents, including Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, where it infrequently shows up in Alaska.   The Wagtail certainly gets maximum impact from its black and white appearance.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Found on four continents...

Photo: Ronald Wittek/EPA

BLUETHROAT

(Luscinia svecica)

A Bluethroat sits on a stalk in the Wagbachniederung Nature Reserve in Waghausel, near Karlsruhe in Germany.   Bluethroats live in Europe and Asia and winter in North Africa and the Indian subcontinent.  They can also be found in western Alaska.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Pelicans in Australia

Photo: Mezzanine1/GuardianWitness

PELICANS IN SILHOUETTE

Australian White Pelicans (Pelecamus conspicillatus) are seen in flight (above) near Penguin Island, off the Western Australia coast.  They look as spectacular in silhouette as they do in their normal colours.   There are eight Pelican species in the world and the Great White Pelican is found in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Fiji, and Indonesia.  

Wikipedia Photo

The closest living relatives to penguins are the Hamerkop (Scopus umbretta) above, found in sub-Sahara Africa, and the Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) below, found in tropical east Africa.

Wikipedia Photo

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Egrets in China

Photo: Xinhua / Barcroft Images

GREAT EGRET

(Ardea alba)

Great Egrets are seen, above, in Xiangshan Forest Park in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi Province, China.   Great Egreats are found in most of the world's tropical and temperate regions.   They are also known as Great White Egrets and Great White Herons.   The long feathery plumes growing from the back are called aigrettes and appear during the breeding season.   Pictured below are Great White Herons which I photographed at Luther Marsh, about 1 hour from my home in south-central Ontario.

 Photos by BarrytheBirder

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

First Turkey Vulture of spring...

Photo by BarrytheBirder

TURKEY VULTURE

(Cathartes aura)

I saw my first Turkey Vulture of the year this past Sunday, April 1st, in the hamlet of Temperanceville, in King Township.   I can recall many years ago never seeing a Turkey Vulture in southern Ontario, and then a few years ago seeing them in southern Ontario in summer.   Now they appear in early spring and remain until late fall.   They are readily recognized up close by the large dark body, red head and white bill.   At a distance they are recognized by their flight, as they rock from side to side, with their wings held upward in a shallow V.   Their wing-beats are deep and slow, with  minimal flapping.  

The Ontario Field Ornithologists website reports that 12 Turkey Vultures were spotted in the Niagara-Queenston area on April 2nd, plus a Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) on the same day.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Spring harbinger...

Photo by BarrytheBirder

American Robin

(Turdus migratorius)

THE ROBIN

     THE ROBIN is the one

     That interrupts the morn

     With hurried, few, express reports

     When March is scarcely on.

     The robin is the one

     That overflows the noon

     With her cherubic quantity,

     An April but begun.

     The robin is the one

     That speechless from her nest

     Submits that home and certainty

     And sanctity are best.

Emily Dickinson (1830-86)

Please comment if you wish.

Barrythebirder