#bird of the day

[stickynotebirds]

185. Another man down!

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Varied Bunting

Photo: Matt DuRoss

"Brushy country near the Mexican border provides a summer home for this elegant bunting. The dense and thorny nature of its habitat may make it seem hard to approach, but the bird is not especially shy, and sometimes may be watched at very close range. In Arizona, where its nesting is timed to the summer rains, male Varied Buntings may be in full song on mornings in August."

- Audubon Field Guide

[todaysbird]

[todayontumblr]

new zealand speaks, but tumblr decides

[steadfastpetrel]

drew a color wheel of birds on twitter!

—

image description: A wheel with eight colors. Red has a Northern Cardinal in front of a branch. Orange has a Eurasian Bullfinch and Baltimore Oriole in front of an orange slice. Yellow has an American Goldfinch. Green has a kākāpo in front of a tree trunk. Light blue has a Luzon Bleeding-heart and clouds. Dark blue has a Steller’s Jay and icicles. Purple has a Purple Starling and plums. Pink has a Pink Galah amidst leaves.

[bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Bee Hummingbird

^Image credit: Charles J. Sharp, Wikipedia

Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) 

The Bee Hummingbird, also known as the Helena Hummingbird or Zunzuncito, is the world's smallest bird. It is also classed as the world's smallest dinosaur, as no smaller bird or non-avian dinosaur has ever been found as a fossil. They will typically consume up to half their body weight in food a day.

[libberkib]

House Finch and Purple Finch Gouache and Ballpoint Pen on 8 inch Wood Panels Paintings no. 1 and 2 in a larger series, availability TBA

Print Shop | Commissions | Tip/Donate

[thehappynoodle]

Ptarmigan v2!

[ayan0tateyama]

Inktober Day 25: Bird of the Day - Striped Owl

[skyleeart]

Posting this funky little turkey vulture rendering I did on my self portrait because I think he turned out just darling. Really excited to work on his feathers!

[viagocoded]

I did a six-hour round trip to see European Bee-eaters in Norfolk! A rare sighting here in the UK. I managed to get a couple of photos through a telescope.

@todaysbird

[stickynotebirds]

183. Scarlet Ibis

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Scaled Quail

Photo: Grigory Heaton

"Dry southwestern grasslands provide a home for this blue-gray quail. Coveys of Scaled Quail travel about on foot; even when disturbed, they tend to run rather than flying. In the concealing cover of the short grass they can be inconspicuous except in spring, when males often call from atop fenceposts or exposed rocks. At night, coveys of Scaled Quail roost on the ground in dense low growth."

- Audubon Field Guide

[a-smoll-dragon]

BIRD OF THE DAY I REPEAT BIRD OF THE DAY

[todayontumblr]

Wednesday, September 13.

@todaysbird.

Let's face it: there is not a single day in your lifespan that cannot be improved by a bird. Not one. It may be the beauty and elegance of the swan in motion across the glassy surface of the water. It may be the majesty and power of a kestrel in flight. It may be the lovable banality of the pigeon, simply nodding, cooing, and making its way around a garden or city center near you.

There really is a bird for every mood, every weather, every season, and indeed every day. This is where @todaysbird comes in rather handy. Because, true to its name, they post our avian pals however seems fit for the needs of that day. A ruby-throated hummingbird hunting for insects? A California Condor #69 (nice)? A pigeon in Budapest? A croissant? There is not a bad day that cannot be remedied, nor a good day made all the more sweeter, by a little something bestowed by todaysbird.

[venerablemonk27]

I guess I'm an owl guy now. Just last week I learned about an Eastern Screech-Owl pair that has been nesting in Monona, WI for at least three years, so I had to go take a look over the weekend. The pictures below were all taken on Sunday.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing the left side of the frame, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her left eye is a black slit, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

I visited the nest site a couple times on Saturday between other birding excursions in the area, but had no luck. The tree pretty much hangs over the road in a residential area, so it was super easy to swing by and have a look. It may have been too cold and windy that day for the Owl to want to sleep out in the open.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing the camera directly, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her eyes are black slits, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

I met several other nice birders that were there for exactly the same reason as me. Some just popping out of their cars for a quick look and others stopping to chat or swap birding stories and intel for a while. A mother and son from Monticello, a retiree from somewhere 90 minutes away (he didn't say) who left to seek out the same Snowy Owl I saw a week prior, folks who live just down the block and see the Screech-Owl at least once a week. We learned from past sighting reports that the red morph of this pair is the female and the grey morph is the male, due to their relative size and courtship behaviors. (With many predatory bird species, the females are generally larger than the males, even when coloration between the sexes is identical.) The owner of the house across the street explained that the female has been back living in the nest hole for a couple weeks, but she hasn't seen the male yet this year.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing to the right of the frame, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her eyes are black slits, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

At the end of the day, I decided to wait with one other birder (who had driven about two hours from Menasha) in the hopes that the Owl would emerge before sunset. We weren't completely without luck, as the Owl decided to sleep in until around 5:30pm, when basically all light had gone from the sky. I only saw her because she immediately flew from the hole and landed on a nearby roof to take a look around. Neither of us got a single usable picture, but I could see her well enough through the binoculars to make a positive ID and log my 190th species. My compatriot had to return home that night, but I decided to keep an eye on eBird and pop back over if someone else happened to see the Owl during the day.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing the left side of the frame, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her left eye is a black slit, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

As I'm sure you guessed from the photos in this post, other folks reported the Eastern Screech-Owl sleeping out in the open midmorning on Sunday. So I finished my chores and tossed my gear in the car for yet another short drive to Monona. And much to my delight, she was still there when I arrived, completely asleep and looking quite comfortable! (One of the birders from Saturday had mentioned that she likes to sleep out in the open when it's warmer and not so windy.) I snapped about 700 photos from various angles, then went to meet up with my good friend Rachel.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing to the right of the frame, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her eyes are black slits, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

You see, Rachel got me into birding in the first place, and she and her partner were coming to Madison to visit and go to a hockey game that evening. I made sure to let her know that she better bring her binoculars if she was interested in taking a small detour to pick up a lifer. And being a very well-behaved Owl, the Screecher didn't move an inch from her roost. The light was better this time, so I had to snap another 600 pictures or so. We met a few more birders and checked around the base of the tree for pellets, but didn't find any. We wondered about the species of the tree (I thought ash, she leaned toward box elder), then said goodbye to the Owl. It's certainly fun to pick up a lifer when I'm out by myself, but I find it even more enjoyable to share that moment with someone else.