The Gipper Posted January 13, 2020 Report Share Posted January 13, 2020 This photo of a Snowy Owl was taken by my son just yesterday at the Finger Lakes Airport. It is very rare for this species to be outside of Canada I understand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gipper Posted January 13, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2020 My son has had a wide variety of interests and hobbies over the years. But the one he has been on now for a couple of years is an interest in this "Birding" (don't call it birdwatching...or you will be considered gauche apparently). And nature, primarily bird, photography. He can be quite intense when he shows an interest in something....but for what its worth, this can be an interesting and infectious hobby. I don't get into it like he does, memorizing what each species looks like, and memorizing their sounds. But I do it tangentially to my travels. If I see a cool bird, I will take a photo, and ask him what this thing is. Being a scientist (molecular biology) he of course is very scientific about it, both the birding and the photography. I just do the thing casually during my travels as I said. Nevertheless, he attends Cornell, and Cornell is like the pre-eminent bird study entity in the nation (associated, I believe with the Audobon Society). There are some websites they have developed that you can consult.that make birding much easier. Also, Cornell is pre-eminent in trying to preserve bird species, many of which have disappeared. So, if you have an interest check these out : https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home Cornell has also developed an app for bird identification that you can download on your phone. I have not tried this yet, but apparently, with this app, you can take a photo of a bird and apply that to the app, and it can more or less tell you what kind of bird you have seen, called Merlin: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ If you want to know where you can go to find different kinds of birds, you can check out eBird, also developed by Cornell. This can show you where different birds have been spotted in different locations.....even like down the block from you with their "hotspots" that you can check out. https://ebird.org/home I know that a lot of bird enthusiasts do a lot of traveling around to try to locate species in order to observe them. So, if you have an interest in where you can travel to see a wide variety of bird species these are are pretty big "hotspots": Texas coast, particularly from Corpus Christie to Galveston, and east of there. Cape Canaveral area Florida Much of the east coast of the US from Jacksonville to Savannah. The Outer Banks; Assateague to Rehobeth Beach; Cape May NJ is a big one. Cape Cod to practically NYC along Long Island Sound, and also over to Fire Island. The Great Lakes shores are very abundant. Oddly, around Denver/central Colorado San Francisco Bay area. In other countries: Central America is abundant, as is the northwest portion of S. America...Columbia/Peru/Ecuador. The Malay Peninsula, Kenya, and believe it or not The Himalayas. So, this bird business may make some of your travels more interesting, or at least give you something to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calfoxwc Posted January 13, 2020 Report Share Posted January 13, 2020 I have pictures of a baby Great Horned Owl I came across in our woods. Sent it to wildlife in Ohio - they were intrigued. The owl just sat there watching me - I was within 8 yards of it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gipper Posted January 16, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2020 This is another of his photos of a red tail hawk, taken in Cuyahoga Valley NP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Browns149 Posted January 17, 2020 Report Share Posted January 17, 2020 I’m SHOCKED cal didn’t post a picture of woody woodpecker 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairHooker11 Posted January 18, 2020 Report Share Posted January 18, 2020 I was thinking the Trashmen... then Ghoulardi.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasAg1969 Posted January 18, 2020 Report Share Posted January 18, 2020 When I lived on the coast of Venezuela near a small town called Moron, we would watch waves and waves of green parrots fly one way in the morning for feeding I am sure and the opposite way at dusk. The screeching was just one continuous uproar as they all flew over. I have no way of knowing how many there were but it had to be in the thousands. Also from time to time we would see flocks of Scarlet McCaws flying over. Has to be one of the most beautiful birds in the world. https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=scarlet+macaw&fr=yhs-symantec-ext_onb&hspart=symantec&hsimp=yhs-ext_onb&imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%3AFilePath%2FAra_macao_-flying_away-8a.jpg#id=2&iurl=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-oh8d9ft2pIw%2FUOZ6KSIfuTI%2FAAAAAAAACb4%2FoCsc0AXZPa0%2Fs1600%2FScarlet%2BMacaw%2BParrot.jpg&action=click 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gipper Posted February 11, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 11, 2020 Says Phoebe. This is a photo of an enlarged photo, ergo the tilt and the graininess. Taken in Death Valley NP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorka Posted February 13, 2020 Report Share Posted February 13, 2020 Can any one identify this monster? Got into my van one morning and staring me in the face was this giant bird shit patty on my windshield...I estimate it's size at around 5 inches across! I have had hawk nests in my back yard but their shit streaking down the trunks of the trees was mostly white with small amounts of green or brown...this shit on my windshield was all brown! A condor? If you look closely I had turned on the wipers for one pass before turning them off in order to take the picture. It had pretty much dried. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gipper Posted February 14, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2020 Your brain splatter 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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