Barred Owl is a beauty...

    Photo by BarrytheBirder

BARRED OWL

(Strix varia)

This is the first Barred Owl I have ever photographed and it was a thrill.   It was so close and patient with me.   It stayed for several minutes until I had finished.   This was near my home in King City.

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BarrytheBirder

Dendroica cerulea

The Cerulean Warbler photo (at left) was in an email I got from the Cornell Lab eNews for November.   What caught my eye and surprised me was the colour of the warbler's legs.  It's legs and toes are blue.   I'd never noticed this before but one learns something new every day.
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BarrytheBirder   

22,000 kilometre round-trip migration each year...

Photo: Vagabond Images

AMUR FALCON

(Falco amurensis)

Over the course of  12 months, this remarkable bird of prey flies from Siberia to south-east Africa, and then back to Siberia, finishing an extremely long 22,000 kilometre migration.   These falcons breed in south-east Russia and northern China, followed by a migration through India and across the Arabian Sea to southern Africa where they spend their winters.   Along the migration route, they spend a month in Nagaland, one of India's smallest states in the far north-east of the country, where they fatten up and strengthen themselves by feeding on insects.   Their winter diet appears to be a wide range of insects either in the air or on the ground, but they also take small birds, mammals and amphibians to feed feed their young in the breeding range.  As many as 1 million Amurs will make the stopover in Nagaland (see photo below).   Their immense and spectacular roost in Nagaland is reputed to be the largest by any species of falcons in the world.

Photo: Rami Sreenivasan

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BarrytheBirder

Night sky above the capital of Italy...

Photo: Tiziana Fabi / AFP / Getty Images

Here is a simple photo that creates an impression of purpose and intention.   Starlings are seen flying in front of the moon above Rome.

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BarrytheBirder

A new namesake discovered...

Photo: Ch'ien Lee / Minden Pictures / Alamy / Yale University Press

WALLACE'S HAWK-EAGLE

(Nisaetus nanus)

Photo: Kenth Esbensen

Until today, I did not know there was a bird of prey with the same name as my surname: Wallace.   The raptor is the Wallace's Hawk-Eagle (Nisaetus nanus).  To my surprise, it is one of the smallest eagles in the world.   It weighs no more than a large pigeon.   It is found in Southern Myanmar, southern Thailand and the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra.   Sadly, it's conservation status is 'vulnerable', like several others of the world's eagle species.   The photo at top is from a newly published book 'The Empire of the Eagle: An Illustrated Natural History', by Mike Unwin and David Tipling.   Their book, newly published by Yale University Press, celebrates the world's 68 eagle species in all their grandeur.   Its release follows the release in February of last year of The Enigma of the Owl.
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BarrytheBirder

2018 Audubon Photography Awards

                                                                                                    Photo: Dan Ion /Audubon

Pictured above is one of the photos from the 2018 Audubon Photography Awards.   A young Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) is accosted by a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea).   To see all category winners plus the top one hundred contest photos go to the 2018 Audubon Photography Awards website.

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BarrytheBirder

Goldfinches...oceans apart

Photo: Thomas Warnack / AFP / Getty Images

A multicoloured European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) is seen above on a withered sunflower in Langenenslingen, Southern Germany.   European Goldfinches are native to Europe, North Africa and western Asia, plus they are now found in Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay.   Below is an American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) which I photographed in my backyard in King City, Ontario.   American Goldfinches are found from southern Canada to northern Mexico and do make short migrations, although the goldfinches in my backyard are here year-around, including the cold, snowy winters.  American Goldfinches are very chummy  and congregate  and feed together regularly (see photo at bottom).   There are five goldfinch species in the world. 

Photo above and below by BarrytheBirder

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BarrytheBirder

A World Heritage Site...

                                                                                  Photo: David Levene for the Guardian

Swan at Kew Gardens ~ London

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BarrytheBirder

INCA TERN ( Larosterna inca)

 Photo: Ronald Wittek / EPA

Inca Terns, with their red bills and feet, plus distinctive white mustaches, are normally found along the coasts of Chile and Peru in South America but the one pictured above is a resident of the Heidelberg Zoo in Germany.   The males and females have the same colourful appearances, as seen in the photo below with a young bird in Chile.

Photo: Cristobal Alvarado Minic

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BarrytheBirder

SHARP-SHINNED HAWK and COOPER'S HAWK

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Pictured above are two hawks that are regular visitors to our backyard.   On the left is a Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus) and on the right is a Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii).   Seen separately, it always takes me a short while to decide which I am looking at, because of their similarities, which include shape, size, colour and feather pattern.   I've never seen these two birds sitting live, side-by-side.   But when I see them pictured as above, the differences become more obvious.   Two differences, among others, are the size of each hawk and the eye colours.  The Cooper's Hawk is 40-45 cm long, while the Sharp-shinned Hawk is shorter; only 28 cm.  The Cooper's eyes are reddish-orange, while the Sharp-shinned's eyes are reddish-yellow.   What beautiful birds.

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BarrytheBirder 

Venezuelan Red Siskin (Carduelis cucullata)

    Photo (above): Fernando Liana / AP                                          

  Photo (below): Siskini

Venezuelan Red Siskens (above) perch on branches in Vargas.   40 farmers in the country's coastal mountains of Carayaca have stopped cutting trees down in a strategic first step to creating a viable habitat for the threatened species.   Red Siskins have sold online for over $300 and the demand is high in eastern Europe and Asia.

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BarrytheBirder

More Dave Kemp photos from British Columbia

All photos by Dave Kemp

Snow Goose (white morph)

Snow Goose (dark morph) 

Dark and white morphs

Snow Goose (dark morph) ~ wings resplendent

Great Blue Heron

Ready to land

Touch down

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BarrytheBirder

Canadian west coast Bald Eagles...

Photos by Dave Kemp

My friend Dave Kemp, a birder and photographer from British Columbia's south-west mainland coast, just sent me these two photos of Bald Eagles that he took near Finn Slough, on the south arm of the mighty Fraser River.   Bald Eagles are often referred to as American Eagles in the United States.   The Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalius) is also the national bird of the US.   Dave takes photos of these magnificent birds quite often and I am so grateful to receive copies of them to share in this blog.   Best wishes my friend. 

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BarrytheBirder

GDR European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018

Photo: Cristobal Serrano

Cristobal Serrano of Spain is the Overall Winner in the 2018 German Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.   The photographer flew his drone high above huge flocks of Lesser Flamingos (Phoeniconaias minor) on the muddy banks of Lake Bogaria in Kenya.   Because of the dry season, salts and minerals from the volcanic subsoil are highly concentrated, creating rich colours visible from the air, contrasting with the array of pink dots of flamingos.

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BarrytheBirder

America's national bird...

                                                                                   Photo: Gary Cameron / Reuters

A Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) returns to its nest after capturing a fish at the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River in Maryland, about 50 miles from Baltimore, USA.   It is a short hop for the big birds to reach the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays that empty into  on the Atlantic Ocean.   The fish-eating sea eagles gather around the dam and grow in numbers towards the year's end.

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BarrytheBirder

British Wildlife Photography Awards ~ 2018

COAST & MARINE WINNER

"Storm Gull"

(Lesser Black-backed Gull)

Photo: Craig Dunford

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BarrytheBirder

Often a backyard bully...

Photo by BarrytheBirder

THE GRACKLE

Menacing?  Threatening? ... Bluffing?

It depends, I think, on whether you are an American Goldfinch 
or a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

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BarrytheBirder

Filling the skies...

Photo: Gutner / SIPA / Rex / Shutterstock

A murmuration of Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)  is seen in Ludes, France.  Ludes is a commune in the Marne department of north-eastern France...the heart of champagne country.
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BarrytheBirder

Originally called the 'Sea Pie'

Photo: Isabel Hernandez / Solent News

American Oystercatcher

(Haematopus palliatus)

An American Oystercatcher attempts to feed a plastic balloon string to its chick, mistaking it as food, on Bradley Beach, in New Jersey, USA.

Please comment if you wish. 

BarrytheBirder

Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii)

                                                                                                  Photo by BarrytheBIrder

This splendid Cooper's Hawk is a regular visitor to our backyard where it hunts for small birds at the feeders.   Its bird-of-choice for a hearty meal is a plump Mourning Dove.  It's not successful on every attempt but is successful enough, often enough, to maintain its impressive size and healthy appearance, as seen above.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Results for the 31st Project FeederWatch Season...

Photo by BarrytheBirder

BirdWatch Canada has just published the results of Project FeederWatch 2017/18 for Canada.   It lists the top 10 birds for five Canadian regions. One of the five regions is the province of Ontario.   The top ten lists for each region are based on the percentage of FeederWatch locations in the region that hosted each species at least once between November 2017 and April 2018.   Below is a list of the top 10 birds recorded in the Ontario region...

               Black-capped Chickadee - 96

               Dark-eyed Junco              - 92

               Blue Jay                           - 90

               Downy Woodpecker         - 90

               American Goldfinch          - 85

               Mourning Dove                 - 83

               Northern Cardinal             - 76

               White-breasted Nuthatch  - 68

               Hairy Woodpecker            - 64

               European Starling             - 63

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BarrytheBirder

The Crow

                                                                                                    Photo by BarrytheBirder
the old crow lingers
on his cold and barren branch
although I draw near

~ Haiku by Bobby Ball

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BarrytheBirder

Crow shows no respect...

                                                                                    Photo: Jack Taylor / Getty Images
Richmond Deer Park
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames

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BarrytheBirder

Do crows migrate?

Photo: Joe McKenna / Flicker Creative Commons

My sister Diane, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, posted a photo of  crows on Facebook and wondered if crows migrate in cold weather.   I think many people wonder the same thing.   Yes, in fact, crows do migrate ... partially ... and in the north, especially.   In the summer, crows will migrate north as far as the North West Territories to James Bay to Labrador.   Those northern crows head south for the winter.   But that may be only as far south as the Canada/US. border or the Great Lakes.   The photo below was taken in the fall, near to where I live north of Lake Ontario.  Crows, when not nesting and raising young birds, are very communal and do flock with other crows ... sometimes even in the tens of thousands.  This is especially true on winter nights.   They are omnivores and will eat anything they can get their beaks on; mostly waste grain in the winter.  

Photo by BarrytheBirder

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BarrytheBirder

The WWF Living Planet Report ~ October 2018

Photo: Max Orchard / Parks Australia

Christmas Island Frigatebird

(Fregata andrewsi)

One of the world's 10 most critically endangered birds

" We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet 
and the last one that can do anything about it".

~Tanya Steele, Chief Executive Officer

World Wildlife Fund UK
The Living Planet Report 
 October, 2018

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

  

A slight change of pace...bees from 'Down Under'

Photos: James Bryce Dorey

    Palaeorhiza (Cnemidorhiza) disrupta

BEES of AUSTRALIA

Photographer and author James Bryce Dorey has created an outstanding book 'Bees of Australia', showcasing the species unique to Australia, using macro photography.  Dorey states that 75% of Australian food crops rely on animal pollination, but native bees face serious threats; among them climate change, habitat loss, exotic species and pesticides, which are all threatening bee populations.   Pictured here are just four of the species featured in Dorey's spectacular book. 

    Leioproctus amabilis

    Ctenocolletes smaragdinus

    Hylaeus (Macrohylaeus) alcyoneus

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BarrytheBirder

Big bird...

Photo: Regis Duvignan / Reuters

Bird trainer Valerie Recher is seen training what appears to be a Gryphon Vulture in the town of Frouzins near Toulouse, in southern France.   This species of vulture can have a wingspan from 7.5 to 9 ft.
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BarrytheBirder

Have diabetes, heart disease, stress, mental illness?

Photo by BarrytheBirder

Try 'nature prescriptions'

Doctors in Scotland's Shetland islands are to start prescribing birdwatching, hiking and beach walks in the Atlantic winds to help treat chronic and debilitating illnesses for the first time, according to The Guardian newspaper.  Doctors on the islands will be permitted by the archipelago's health board to issue 'nature prescriptions'.  Patients will be given calendars and lists of walks drawn up by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds showing them particular bird species.   Patients will be encouraged to go hill walking on Shetland's upper moors, and directed to seaside paths to watch Fulmars and spot Long-tailed Ducks, oystercatchers and lapwings.  National Health Service Scotland is not suggesting that nature prescriptions will replace conventional medicines.   The program is to supplement normal treatments ... so why not?
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BarrytheBirder

From the Arctic Circle to Scotland...

Photo: Ken Jack / Corbis / Getty Images

BARNACLE GEESE

(Branca leucopsis)

Barnacle Geese fly above the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds Mersehead Reserve on the Solway Firth in Dumfries, Scotland.   Tens of thousands of Barnacle Geese return to the Solway each autumn from their breeding grounds in the Svalbard Archipelago inside the Arctic Circle, a distance of 2,600 km due south.
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BarrytheBirder

The Australasian Robins...

Photo: J.J.Harrison

SCARLET ROBIN
(Petroica boodang)

Canada has one robin species.   Britain has one robin species.   The countries making up Australasia however have collectively almost four dozen robin species. The bird family Petroicidae includes roughly 45 species of robins, which are often referred to as the Australasian robins.   Australasia includes Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and numerous islands as far east as Samoa.   Being a one-robin Canadian, I suppose I have to be content with the old saying: 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'. 
Please comment if  you wish.  
BarrytheBirder