This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
After I posted the photo of the three eagles on September 11 I thought of another photo I took a couple of years ago. To me, it epitomizes what a bald eagle should look like as our Nation’s symbol. I’m thankful that I’m not posting a photo of a turkey at this point.
In memory of the tragic events that occurred nine years ago. May nothing like that ever happen again.
I find hummers to be amazing birds because of their size, speed and maneuverability. According to Hummingbird World, their nests are about the size of half of an English walnut shell. The outer part of their nests is made up of moss and plant fibers. Sometimes it is shingled with lichen. The rest is comprised of plant down and spider web material. Eggs measure one-half inch in length.
Whenever the urge to go photographing hits me my first thought is where should I go? Recently, however, I started feeding song birds at home and I’ve been very pleased with how the birds have responded. Frequent visitors include goldfinches, titmice, nuthatches, chickadees, acorn woodpeckers, scrub jays, California quail etc. However, what has grabbed my attention most so far have been the hummingbirds. No feeder was necessary for them. My wife, Joan, is an avid gardener and one of her gardening goals has been to make the garden attractive to bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Here is an Anna’s hummingbird feeding on a penstemon flower.
I’ve spent several hours now observing and photographing them in our front garden and have been amazed at their territoriality and flying ability. They fly like miniature helicopters. Maybe I should say helicopters are a bit like gigantic hummers. I don’t think helicopters will ever get as maneuverable as hummers though. A hummer’s body shape also surprised me. I had assumed they were slim birds, but they are actually kind of “chunky” looking.
Several years ago I went flyfishing in Lake Almanor for smallmouth bass. As I rowed toward the dam in my pontoon boat I noticed there was a lot of noise and activity at the dam. Swallows were circling the cylindrical dam in large numbers and there were crows flying through the swallows toward the dam’s face. I rowed closer to see what was going on. The crows were flying into the side of the dam feet first. As I got closer I saw what was happening. The crows were crashing into the mud nests of the swallows and grabbing the chicks from the smashed nests. The swallows were powerless to stop it. I’m pretty sure the crows destroyed all the nests and got all the young. It was one of those moments in nature when my emotions really get aroused. I know the crows need to eat, but I still felt sorry for the swallows. I wondered if the swallows would nest there again or find some other place. I never went back to find out.
Fast forward several years. I got a tip that there was a great horned owl nest on a ledge of an old building near my house. I went there and sure enough there was a nest. I was told that a pair of owls has been nesting there for years. Here is a photo of one of the adults and the three young on the nest.
I photographed the owls at the nest for nearly a month. I don’t remember now how long it took me to realize that there were many swallow nests near the owl nest because I was pretty absorbed by the owl family. It was probably when the swallow chicks had hatched and the parents were frequently flying to and from the nests feeding their young. Here’s a photo of some swallows and their nests immediately under the owl nest.
Anyway, at some point a light bulb went on in my head. Great horned owls eat crows. They love them. What I have wondered since then is whether the swallows were smart enough to build their mud nests near the great horned owl nest because they thought building them there would protect their nests from crows or was it just a coincidence? I don’t know, but I like to think they are intelligent enough to nest there for their own safety’s sake. There were no attempts by any crows to attack the nests. This crow was the only one I saw that came anywhere near the swallow nests. He’s about 25 yards from the nests.
Bird nesting is about over now. A couple of California quail families go through our yard every day. Baby quail are very easy to recognize. Many baby birds don’t leave the nest until they are about as big as the adults. Baby quail, on the other hand, are on the move shortly after hatching. They’re all legs. I keep saying to myself that I should photograph the baby quail around our yard, but I never seem to get around to it. I photographed this adult male near the trailhead for Abbott’s Lagoon.
These immature quail were also photographed near the trailhead.
A couple of years ago I was on the road to Pierce Point when all of the sudden the road became full of rabbits. They seemed unusually small to me at the time and I couldn’t believe how many there were. If I researched what they were then I’ve forgotten. Well, just the other day I saw a few more of these small rabbits and I was able to photograph them. Here’s a photo of one of them.
Now that I had photographed one I had to find out what it was. That was easy thanks to Google. These small rabbits are brush rabbits. The name sure fits given where I found them. If they look like cottontails to you that’s because they are a type of cottontail. They are different in two ways though. First, they don’t have any white on their tails. Second, they are noticeably smaller than other cottontails. As I photographed them I noticed that they didn’t stay in the little opening where I photographed them for very long. I think that those that do stay longer tend to live shorter lives.
