Happy Thanksgiving to all of our loyal NuttyBirder.com followers! We are very thankful that so many of you are interested in all of our birding adventures and look forward to continuing to share our stories with you.
Thanks to our friend Brian Zwiebel for this awesome photo of a Wild Turkey that he photographed on Mount Lemmon in SE Arizona. There are several subspecies of Wild Turkey and this one is the Merriam's subspecies that occurs throughout parts of the Western US. In parts of SE Arizona, two subspecies are possible, Merriam's and Gould's. If this were a Gould's it would show a pure white tip to the tail in addition to other identification points. You can learn more about Wild Turkey's here!
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Eagle Creek Park-Eared Grebe
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The Eared Grebe from Eagle Creek Park. Thanks to Aidan Rominger for the photo! |
-Eric
Monday, November 17, 2014
Enjoying the South Texas Specialties in the Rio Grande Valley
Rob writes: A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to lead field trips during the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Birding Festival. I always love any opportunity to bird in the RGV and this trip was fantastic as always!
My trip started out with leading four days of field trips for the festival. I got to visit some of my favorite birding locations in the RGV as well as a place I had never visited, a very cool private ranch north of Harlingen called El Canelo. Although it rained for the first two days of the festival, there were plenty of birds around and we all made the most of the bad weather and found lots of birds anyway!
After the festival, Stephanie and I spent a couple of extra days relaxing and birding out on South Padre Island. It was great to have a couple of slower paced days to recover after birding like crazy during the festival! It also allowed us to spend more time taking photos of all of the awesome birds that we had been watching all week.
My trip started out with leading four days of field trips for the festival. I got to visit some of my favorite birding locations in the RGV as well as a place I had never visited, a very cool private ranch north of Harlingen called El Canelo. Although it rained for the first two days of the festival, there were plenty of birds around and we all made the most of the bad weather and found lots of birds anyway!
After the festival, Stephanie and I spent a couple of extra days relaxing and birding out on South Padre Island. It was great to have a couple of slower paced days to recover after birding like crazy during the festival! It also allowed us to spend more time taking photos of all of the awesome birds that we had been watching all week.
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Although it was very cloudy, we did manage to capture a couple nice sunrise shots one morning on South Padre Island. |
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The Convention Center on South Padre Island is a great place to work on photographing terns in flight, like this Forster's Tern. |
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This Osprey flew a bit to close for the 400mm lens I was using. |
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While on the way to Laguna Atascosa NWR, we spotted a pair of Harris's Hawks. They remained perched until a pick up truck went flying by and I was able to capture a few images as they took off! |
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Stephanie photographed this Green Jay while we were birding at Laguna Atascosa. |
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Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks are common throughout the RGV but I find that Estero Llano Grande State Park is a great place to find some that are close enough for photography. |
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Spruce Grouse in the UP
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A male Spruce Grouse |
I wasn't really looking for Spruce Grouse at my second stop (even though it is a historically good location for them) but, a male popped up on the side of the road and gave some great views. The light was also much better which made for a marginally better photo.
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It was a little dark for photography at my first stop, but you can get the idea of the experience (even if you can't see the birds well). |
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