A quizzical look?

                                                                                Photo: Phichak / Alamy Stock Photo

This Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala) is perched and seems to be pondering what is to be seen by looking into the distance in Thailand.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

This cozy group looks like Mallards to me...

Photo: Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

A duck and her ducklings are seen swimming in the River Svisloch in Minsk, central Belarus.   I know very little about Belarus waterfowl, but this charming family looks like Mallards to me.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

A Cattle Egret can be elegant...

Photo: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

A Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) is seen at Lake Van, in the far east of of Turkey.   It is found around the world in the tropics, sub-tropics and warm-temperate zones.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Keeping it in perspective...

Photo by BarrytheBirder

There is an eagle in me 

that wants to soar,

and there is a hippopotamus 

in me that wants 

to wallow in the mud.

                                                           -- Carl Sandburg

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace

Warblers in our cedar hedge...

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Black-throated Green Warbler (immature)

Black-throated Blue Warbler

Canada Warbler

American Redstart (female)

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

'Good morning' ... at the kitchen window

 Photos by BarrytheBirder

Ruby-throated Hummingbird (female)

Archilochus colubris

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Life goes on...

Photo: Chaideer Mahyuddin / AFP / Getty Images

An egret flies over a mangrove at sunrise near Banda Aceh, on Sumatra in Indonesia, where over 170,000 people were killed in the 2004 tsunami that was created by a massive earthquake.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

"In London, you say..."

                                                                                                    Photo: Ilyas Ayub / Alamy

A Ring-necked Parakeet (Psittacula krameri) is seen in central London, in England, where the species has become well-established, to the surprise of many.   The ring-necked, or rose-ringed, parakeet, is the United Kingdom's most naturalized parrot.   It became established in the wild in the 1970s after captive birds were released or escaped.   They are able to survive British winters with the help of garden feeders.
Please comment if you wish.
BarrytheBirder

"I'm coming...I'm coming..."

Photo: Costfoto / Barcroft

A Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops) feeds its young at a nest with a front door and a back door, in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, largest city in northeastern China.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Young European Starlings are insatiable...

 Photos by BarrytheBirder

Young starlings are as big as their parents but will not feed themselves.   Parents providing a constant supply of seeds from the feeders are harassed by as many as four or five of their offspring at the same time.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

First juvenile Starling ...ever ...anywhere

Photo by BarrytheBirder

EUROPEAN STARLING

(Sturnus vulgaris)

In all my years as a birder, I have never seen a juvenile European Starling ... until today.   It appeared with a group of adult birds and was being fed by, what I assumed, were its two parents.   It was the same size as the parent birds, but it refused to feed itself, even when sitting on top of a feeder (see photo below).   It was quite aggressive and demanding about being fed.   It was dusky brown in colour with a pale throat, short tail, and a long beak, like its parents. 

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Another foreboding of the planet's future?

Photo: Danita Delimont  / Alamy

Tufted Puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) are seen preening on a cliff.   A study found between 3,150 and 8,500 seabirds died over a four-month period from October 2016 in the Bering Sea, probably as a result of climate breakdown.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Bee-eaters are so colourful - there must be a reason...

Photo: Ronald Wittek / EPA

European Bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) gather on Trees branches in Lambsheim, Germany, where at least 239 pairs have been spotted.   In summer, they are one of Europe's most colourful birds, but they winter in tropical Africa.
Please comment if you wish.
BarrytheBirder

Big eaglets may not be ready to hunt yet...

Photo: P.J. Hahn / AP

Eaglets are seen sitting in a large backyard nest, in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana, USA, while one of their Bald Eagle parents leaves the nest.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Even its leg appears to be white...

Photo: Phil Wilkinson

A 'one-in-a-million' albino House Sparrow has been spotted in a Scottish border town.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

From a Guardian picture essay...

 Dalmation Pelican by Helmut Moik

Snowy Owl by Vincent Munier

Images pictured above are just two of previous winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.  The images appear in a book by Rosamund Kidman Cox, published by the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, London, England.

Please comment if you wish.
BarrytheBirder

Godwits get it...

Photo: Mark Whiffen / Project Godwit / RSPB

Black-tailed Godwits, hand-reared at WWT Welney, Norfolk, UK, after their eggs were freed from muddy farmland, have flown thousands of miles home for the summer.   Experts were doubtful the eggs, found encased in dirt, would hatch.   The birds were released on the Fens before flying south for the winter.   The rare waders, named Estragon and Dill, join 16 other Black-tailed Godwits which have returned to where they raised as part of Project Godwit - a partnership between WWT and the RSPB, now in its third year.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

A.K.A. 'diablotin'

                                                                                        Photo Kate Sutherland / USFWS

Pictured above is a Black-capped Petrel (Pterodroma hasitata)  off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA.   An international team of seabird experts has captured Black-capped Petrels for the first time.   Ten were banded and released with transmitters as part of an effort to prevent the extinction of the 'Little Devil', as this bird is known on its Caribbean nesting grounds.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Hundreds of years later in Britain...

                                                                                                         Photo: Nick Upton

A White Stork pair is seen arranging nest material in an oak tree on the Knepp Estate, West Sussex, UK.   The pair could become the first wild pair to successfully breed in Britain for hundreds of years.   The enormous birds are brooding three eggs on the re-wilded estate as part of a project to re-introduce the species to south-east England.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder

Pacific island home to 3 million birds...

Photo: Dan Clark / USFWS

Black-footed Albatrosses

The  US government plans to strafe Midway Island with poison aimed at eradicating mice that are rampaging through one of the world's most important sites for seabirds.   Each year, albatrosses return to the same nesting spot to meet their mates where they spend time getting re-acquainted through billing and dancing rituals, after spending a year apart, at sea. The area is home to three million seabirds, including the largest colony of albatrosses in the world.

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder