Nature

[Typhoon]

Kazakhstan

[Typhoon]

f3xXLxIbiXw

[Antipatros]

Mentzelia decapetala (evening star; sand lily) opens for the evening. This species is pollinated by moths.

2021 hours:



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2036 hours:

[noddy]

nice set antipatros.

inspiring to see a place that isnt mid winter and effing cold .. makes me yearn for spring and being able to use my camera again

[Antipatros]

When blue jays first moved into this area in force, about 15 years ago, we often had one particular jay visit our feeders. If it was dissatisfied with the crowd of sparrows, chickadees, and nuthatches, it would mimic the call of a kestrel. This caused consternation amongst the smaller birds, which scattered to the four winds, leaving the clever jay alone to gorge itself at its leisure.

But time and tide wait for no bird, and eventually its visits ceased.

Then the other day, I heard a kestrel in one of our trees. There were several nesting pairs near us, but they don't generally drop in uninvited, so I was intrigued. Of course, it turned out to be a blue jay mimicking a kestrel in order to have the feeder to itself.

I am forced to wonder if this is not a descendant of our old friend, using an old family trick. That would certainly not be beyond the blue jay's close relative the raven.

The intelligence and adaptability of ravens have been well-known since Biblical times. Native Americans revered the raven; their lore is replete with stories of its considerable capabilities. They even used ravens as ISR drones, watching them to determine an enemy's position and line of march. German mythology also makes much of the raven, particularly in the legend of Barbarossa and Kyffhauser.

[noddy]

my only source of sanity is watching nature, my missus is always getting mad at me for wasting valuable house improvement time ;P

i live at the bottom of a hill which is the interchange between 3 completely different environments - the suburban, the forest and an estuarine river, so i get a spectacular amount of variety.

crows and parrots are immensely clever critters, its a constant source of enjoyment watching their sneaky little lives play out.

male 28 parrot in full battle cry, defending the nest from a suspicious intruder.



rainbow lorrikeet feasting on pollen.



local crow extracting a treat.



musk duck, they sound like computer games (electronic beeps and blurps) and they never come to the shore




black cockatoos, simmilar huge size to a macaw and nearly extinct due to retarded forest management that never allows the trees to get large enough to provide enough food or hollow branches for them to feed or breed.

[Antipatros]

Gorgeous shots, Noddy. I'm dreading the autumn and winter, when so many of our birds migrate south.

[Parodite]

Very nice Noddy.

[noddy]

thanks

I'm dreading the autumn and winter, when so many of our birds migrate south.

I have just come out of winter - spring did sprung last weekend, however ours is mild by most standards and the migrations mean different birds rather than a lack of them.. the black cockatoos are a winter only bird in my region.

my photo gear isnt weather sealed and doesnt have enough aperture or iso for bad light so i only rarely get a chance to use it during the winter months.

[Antipatros]

This slough is a very short walk from my front door. It extends a good mile onto the Tsuu T'ina Indian Reserve, but these scenes are within about 200 feet of the nearest city houses.







Great blue heron: pretty common here, but I don't often get this close to one.


r

[Antipatros]

We had nale white-winged crossbills show up on New Year's Day 2012. They belong in the mountains or a few hundred mils north of us, so it was a bit unexpected. These shots were literally taken through my living room window. I blame the tricky, late afternoon winter lighting for the deficiencies of the first one.


Male white-winged crossbill

A few days later, the females appeared:

[noddy]

love the crossbills, its interesting when the dimorphism doesnt leave the female a boring brown, as a stranger i would think they were a seperate sub species.

we also get a blue heron, they are shy and arent very common in the more habitated areas.



when i first got my property it was a wasteland of lawn and ornamentals which i immediately tore out and replaced with local flowering plants that attract birdlife.

several years later i have 4 different honeyeater families living fulltime around my front porch and am surrounded by birdsong, its my voluntary aviary and they never leave

an oversaturated picture of my favourite, the white cheeked honeyeater with impressive "mutton chops" .. alas i hadnt worked out how to tame my camera settings when i took this.



the wattlebird, named for the 2 red fleshy blobs that hang from its head



the tiny shy little brown honeyeater which is about the size of my thumb.. needed a 500mm lens and alot of patience to get this bugger.



and a common silvereye hunting cabbage moth catterpillas in our mustard plants.

[Typhoon]

Wow. Those are outstanding images. Thanks for posting.

[Antipatros]

Yes, the diversity and beauty of bird life is truly astonishing.

[noddy]

please let me know if im photo spamming, i shoot around 100 shots a week when the weather comes good and dont really have much sense of when im rambling on too much .. it gets worse because my understanding of the light/camera/lens constantly improves and my geek gets all excited

its wonderful living in an isolated diversity hotspot, many of our local plants have gone on to become ornamentals on the world market.

one of our many unique banksia plants which come from the coastal scrublands.



a stunning eucalyptus with beetle harvesting the pollen.



the "rose of the west" which is another eucalyptus, nearly extinct in its habitat which has become either farmland or suburbia but saved by being an ornamental.



a parrot bush seed

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

Noddy and Antipatros, your birds and your bees and your flowers are so adorable................

[Antipatros]

I tried to get some blue jay shots yesterday but they just were not cooperating. They'd swoop in, grab a peanut and be off again before I could even grab my camera. It's too bad, since they're resplendent in their new plumage. They looked like puny vultures a week or so ago, with their heads featherless.

I especially like the "rose of the west," Noddy. I wish we could grow such beauties (you lucky people!) but it's not going to happen in gardening zone 3b with winters to below -40C and crazy termperature fluctuations in chinooks. I'll just have to stick to Explorer roses....

[Antipatros]

Peter Sherrington, Golden Eagle Migration In The Rockies

The Big Picture Begins To Emerge

http://albertawilderness.ca/issues/wild ... nload/file

April 2002:

At 11:30 on March 20, 1993, in company with fellow AWA member Des Allen, I noted the first migratory Golden Eagle (although I didn’t know it at the time) to be seen in the Mount Lorette area. At the end of the fall 2001 migration, 20 migration seasons, 1,515 field days and 14,448 days later we had recorded a staggering 69,677 migratory Golden Eagles out of a total of 84,280 migratory birds of prey.

These data have been gathered entirely by a small group of dedicated volunteers who in recent years have been spending an average of 11 hours a day at the Hay Meadow site by the Kananaskis River. We have endured temperatures ranging from –30 to +30OC, wind gusts often exceeding 100 km/hour and every kind of precipitation imaginable. Why do we do this?

The Mount Lorette site conducts the only systematic daily count of migrant raptors in the whole of Western Canada and is one of only about ten such sites in western North America. It is also almost unique in the world in that we monitor the same migratory population in both spring and fall at the same location. As birds of prey, and especially eagles, are top predators in their ecosystems, studying their populations gives us information about changes in their habitats and threats to their (and ultimately to our) survival.

It is amazing now to think that before 1992 almost nothing was known about Golden Eagle migration in the mountains...

I've sat in on the Mt. Lorette eagle count myself. Thank God the serious birders are willing to share their scopes. To the naked eye, the eagles are just black dots moving incredibly fast over the mountain tops.

Rocky Mountain Eagle Research Foundation

http://www.eaglewatch.ca/

Autumn 2011 Final Count Report

Summary and highlights

This was the 21st consecutive year that some form of fall count has been conducted by RMERF members and was the 20th conducted at Mount Lorette.

The combined species count of 3899 is 8.9 % below average, but October 5 saw passage of 578 migrants of which 556 were Golden Eagles, both of which were record fall counts for the site.

Eleven species occurred in below average numbers and median passage dates were generally later than average. The Golden Eagle count of 3466 is 4.6% below average and slightly tempers but does not alter the declining trend for the species at the site.

A nine-day October reconnaissance count at Piitaistakis-South Livingstone saw the same October 5 peak with 519 birds (453 Golden Eagles) recorded, followed by 508 birds (474 Golden Eagles) on October 6. The hourly passage rate of birds was almost twice that for the same period at Mount Lorette.

The highest count at the Steeples Ridge reconnaissance site on the western flanks of the Rocky Mountains near Cranbrook, BC, was also October 5, when 89 raptors (50 Bald and 28 Golden Eagles) were seen in 3 hours. A new late fall and winter count at Beauvais Ridge in SW Alberta found migration persisting well into the early part of 2012, but some of the movement may represent systematic evening roosting flights.

Eagle Counting

Place of the eagles

http://www.albertasouthwest.com/eagle_counting

The most spectacular attraction for ornithologists and amateur birders is without doubt the spring and autumn migrations of golden eagles and other raptors. The birds ride the strong updrafts generated by prevailing westerly winds when they slam against the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains.

One particular site is the focal point for both birds and birders. The modestly sized mountain, easily accessible from Crowsnest Pass, is the southernmost point of a chain of mountain ranges continuing uninterrupted all the way to the Yukon.

Each spring, eagles, hawks and other raptor species converge on this single hill from wintering ranges dispersed across the American West. Here, they soar in tight circles to gain altitude and then glide northwards at astonishing speeds. In fall, the same birds, and their young of the year, return to the hill from where they fan out to their cold-season hunting territories.

This hill and its importance to migrating birds was familiar to native peoples long before contact with Europeans. For thousands of years, natives mined chert from the top of this mountain and traded the translucent rock to tool and weapon makers across the continent. They could not have helped but observe the avian migrants. Ancestors of the Blackfoot named the ridge Piistaistakis--Place of the Eagles.

With the introduction of iron to native cultures, demand for chert disappeared and along with it all human awareness of the high-altitude eagle movements. It was only in 1992 that the great golden eagle migration was rediscovered by scientists, aided by serious amateur bird enthusiasts. Since then, the seasonal migrations have been meticulously monitored. More than 100,000 golden eagle movements have been recorded....

Inevitably, the locals want a piece of the action:

Festival of Eagles

October 13, 2012

http://www.canmore.ca/About-Canmore/Com ... agles.html

Every October, the Town of Canmore celebrates the migration of the Golden Eagle through the Canadian Rockies with the Festival of Eagles. Join serious birdwatchers and amateur bird lovers in the autumn celebration of the ancient migration of the Golden Eagle. Share in the spirit of the eagle, take part in guided eagle-viewing hikes, or listen as interpreters explain the ancient phenomenon of these birds of prey. Take time to see the daytime interpretive show and featured evening speakers - always a sell-out event!

The Canmore AJHL hockey team is even called the Eagles.

[noddy]

I tried to get some blue jay shots yesterday but they just were not cooperating. They'd swoop in, grab a peanut and be off again before I could even grab my camera. It's too bad, since they're resplendent in their new plumage. They looked like puny vultures a week or so ago, with their heads featherless.

tis always the way - i put on the big bird lens and they dont show but the little critters are everywhere... change to the macro and the critters hide away and the birds start doing something interesting... i dare say over the next decade as i upgrade and have spare camera bodies i will go full-retard and have multiple cameras hanging off every spare limb. my poor missus will be even more embarrassed to be seen with me than she is currently.

I especially like the "rose of the west," Noddy. I wish we could grow such beauties (you lucky people!) but it's not going to happen in gardening zone 3b with winters to below -40C and crazy termperature fluctuations in chinooks. I'll just have to stick to Explorer roses....

yikes, "each to their own" .. i start blubbering like a baby when it drops below 18c during the day and refuse to live anywhere it gets below 5c at night

I've sat in on the Mt. Lorette eagle count myself. Thank God the serious birders are willing to share their scopes. To the naked eye, the eagles are just black dots moving incredibly fast over the mountain tops.

id love to get involved in that sort of thing, im trying to work out how to refactor my life and do more for our large endangered cockatoos before its too late.

[Typhoon]

please let me know if im photo spamming, . . .

Turning Japanese?

Post as many of your great nature photos as you like.

Likewise for Antipatros

and anyone else.

[noddy]

please let me know if im photo spamming, . . .

Turning Japanese?

buahahahhaha, i single handedly try and rescue your economy and break stereotypes about your tourists, id help the germans too (zeiss and leica) but alas dont have the budget for it

Likewise for Antipatros

and anyone else.

yes, more from antipatros, the only way im ever going to appreciate that part of the world is from a warm room.
and more from anyone else, have no fear about photo quality, its the subject that matters.

[Typhoon]

. . .

musk duck, they sound like computer games (electronic beeps and blurps) and they never come to the shore



. . .

I remember seeing musk ducks in Down Under. Hugely entertaining. The duckling appeared to want to get close to us on shore, but the mom kept beeping him away.

[noddy]

im jealous havent managed to watch the ducklings in the wild yet, but this year im working next to a lake that has them and its coming into the right season so im hoping to fix that.

the first time i heard the male doing his full range of serenade noises i kept looking around for the person with the handheld game turned up too high and it took me several minutes to finally work out that it was actually the bird.

[Endovelico]

Maybe we shouldn't forget what we are doing to the things we love...

[noddy]

the previous few posts.

nearly extinct due to retarded forest management that never allows the trees to get large enough to provide enough food or hollow branches for them to feed or breed.

The combined species count of 3899 is 8.9 % below average, but October 5 saw passage of 578 migrants of which 556 were Golden Eagles, both of which were record fall counts for the site.

nearly extinct in its habitat which has become either farmland or suburbia

endo if you seriously think nature lovers arent aware of the destruction im not sure what to say.

i have nothing but venom for the middle class aholes who are desperate to bring in a vanity carbon tax yet demand all the bushland is cut down to avoid fire hazard and all the birds must be shot/poisoned due to mess and disease risk and all the large animals killed for fear of danger.

the only real solution is less humans and my dark side of that viewpoint leaks out as doom n gloom pron... maybe some disaster will stop us creating a dead ball of concrete and tar.