Wildlife Sightings (Image heavy)

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:32 am

More from Blackwater: A common grackle unamused by a pine cone.

A size comparison, great egret and great blue heron.

A pair of bald eagles in a field.

A greater yellowlegs.

And a size comparison, great egret and greater yellowlegs.

A glaring osprey.

A pair of great blue herons.

A pair of glossy ibises.

And finally, a semipalmated plover.

Rob

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Mon May 09, 2016 1:39 am

Recent sightings. From Quarry Lake, this spotted sandpiper.

This baby Canada goose.

This great blue heron.

This double-crested cormorant.

This mourning dove:

And this male belted kingfisher.

From Lake Roland, this eastern phoebe:

This blue-gray gnatcatcher.

And this black-crowned night heron.

(Continued.)

Rob

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Mon May 09, 2016 1:45 am

From the NCR trail, a lifebird: this white-eyed vireo.

And again from Quarry Lake, this pied-billed grebe:

This turkey vulture:

This Baltimore oriole:

This gray catbird:

This mother wood duck with two ducklings:

This bathing crow:

And this pair of cormorants.

Rob

Arctish · Post by **Arctish** » Mon May 09, 2016 8:57 am

Those are some great pictures, Mediancat. I especially love the baby goose and the herons.

Did you notice that osprey (posted Apr 25th) has a fish in it's talons? Maybe he was glaring at you because he thought you were going to try to steal his dinner.

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Tue May 10, 2016 2:39 am

I didn't notice the fish till you pointed it out. Thank you.

And thanks for the compliment, as well.

Rob

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Tue May 10, 2016 3:39 am

Nice time out you had Rob.

Weather here has sucked and Thursday i have to go to Japan. Away 9 days. Hopefully I'll get some Japanese animals. I might have time over the weekend to go to the park again.

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Sat May 14, 2016 8:30 am

I'm in Japan again for a week. Business trip. Got here Friday night and have a weekend before works starts. Today I went to the same place I went last year. It's a jungle in the center of Tokyo called the Institute for Nature Study. Basically A tiny nature preserve.

On the way, what's common in any city. A rock pigeon.

A gray Heron I believe. Common here according to the sources I looked up. Looks a lot like the great blue but I guess smaller.

A Eurasian Kingfisher

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker

Another gray heron

Turtle

A little lizard with an ant on it.

Brown eared Bulbul

Another turtle

Jungle crow. Tokyo is infested with these crows.They were making such a racket in the nature preserve.

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Sat May 14, 2016 8:33 am

Another turtle

Tree snake

Two of them

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Sat May 14, 2016 11:55 pm

Oh, very nice.

Rob

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Sun May 15, 2016 9:03 am

Day 2 in Tokyo.

I first went back to the same place as yesterday.

The Eurasian Kingfisher appears to live here. Light was bad.

Diving for the fish

Turtle Pig Pile!

Brown eared Bulbul again. They have a very loud and annoying call.

I got tired of not a lot going on at the nature preserve so I went to a regular city park.

This looks like an immature Asian Tree Sparrow

White cheeked starling. They behave almost exactly like American Robins stopping, watching, listening for food on the lawn.

Eastern Great Tit

Pretty sure this is an immature Eastern Great Tit.

Because the adult was bring it food

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Sun May 15, 2016 9:08 am

It wants MORE!

Adult and looks like an immature Eurasian Tree Sparrow.

On the way back to the hotel a pigeon poses for me.

A fluffy white pigeon

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Mon May 23, 2016 6:57 pm

I didn't get any more photos in Japan after the weekend.

Here are some new photos from home.

An American Robin on the nest. The nest is in a cedar tree above my driveway

A great blue heron was at the swan pond and the redwing blackbirds were harassing it wherever it went.

Two mute swans coming in from across the pond. I'm told they had three chicks while I was away and all have been eaten by predators.

Same great blue flying off across the pond

Still being harassed by redwing blackbirds

A mouse in a crack by the side of the house and the stone wall.

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Sun May 29, 2016 12:44 am

Went to Ocean City last weekend and got in several trips to Assateague Island, whose charms are not limited to its famous ponies. Saw two lifebirds and several birds I rarely see anywhere but Assateague.

Still, to start off, here's a mother and foal.

And a glossy ibis.

A juvenile willet.

A mother killdeer . . . .

And one of its offspring.

A snowy egret.

A diamondback terrapin -- a life species for me.

A female boat-tailed grackle.

Another willet.

And another life species, this American lady butterfly.

(Continued)

Rob

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Sun May 29, 2016 12:57 am

More from Assateague. Here's one of the two lifebirds I got on the trip, a black-and-white warbler.

And here's a greater yellowlegs.

A little blue heron.

I have tentatively ID'd this as another new species for me, an eastern musk turtle.

And my second lifebird, a great crested flycatcher.

A laughing gull.

A ruddy turnstone.

A sanderling.

A very dinosaur-like great egret.

And I finish with a common yellowthroat.

Rob

Sey · Post by **Sey** » Sun May 29, 2016 10:34 am

Bravo! Mendicat and Crazyfingers, I always look forward to your newest photos.

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Mon May 30, 2016 3:31 pm

Really nice set of photos there Rob. Several I have never seen let alone photo. Congratulations on the new lifers!

As for me, I don't have anything interesting to post at the moment. But Wednesday I have to fly to Cancun Mexico for a conference and I expect to have at least Wednesday afternoon before the show to go down to the shore and walk a bit and see what I might see and photo.

I have never been there and have no idea really what to expect. I know that I won't be going out any farther than walking distance from the hotel. Typically I'd check out the location on Google Earth and see what spots of green can be walk to from the hotel. That and the ocean.

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Tue May 31, 2016 1:25 am

Thanks to both of you. It's good to feel appreciated.

Good luck in Mexico, crazyfingers; hope you get some good sightings. Which of my birds have you not seen?

Went to Blackwater again yesterday and had another excellent trip. To start out, here's a male orchard oriole.

Here are five bald eagles and a badly out of focus foreground bird.

I think this is an eastern mud turtle.

One of a large number of northern water snakes.

A snapping turtle doing a little rock climbing.

A common whitetail.

A red-headed woodpecker.

A bullfrog.

A Fowler's toad.

And a question mark.

(Continued)

Rob

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Tue May 31, 2016 1:32 am

More from Blackwater; here's an eastern kingbird.

And an osprey.

A female slaty skimmer.

A pair of great egrets. (Blackwater was swarming with egrets -- and with one other bird, upcoming.)

Here's the other swarming bird, and Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

Great egret, snowy egret, glossy ibises.

A great blue heron with what looks like a little hat.

A painted turtle.

A pair of juvenile bald eagles.

And, to finish, a family of purple martins.

Rob

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Sun Jun 05, 2016 12:22 am

I had to go to Cancun, Mexico for a conference last week. Arrived Wednesday afternoon and came home Friday. It was so hot and humid. I did get out the afternoon I arrived and saw some interesting stuff - at least for me as anything new to me is interesting.

But first for the boring, a young Rock Pigeon.

An adult Rock Pigeon. Funny that city pigeons are the same where ever I go.

A brown pelican out of the dock.

I believe that this is a great-tailed Grackle.

A Tropical Mockingbird

A Black Spiny-tailed Iguana. They were all over the place.

I did not get to see one of these

A Manificent Frigatebird, immature

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Sun Jun 05, 2016 12:23 am

Adult Magnificent Frigatebird

Green Heron

Mangrove Warbler (subspecies of yellow warbler)

The above were all in about an hour and a half walk outside. Being from Boston, MA, I am not used to the heat and humidity of the south gulf coast. I had to go in for a while.

Later as the sun was going down I went out again. Right by the concention center doors,

Hooded Oriole

I went down to the beach again.

More brown pelicans

Female Great-Tailed Grackle

Laughing Gull

A Great Kiskadee

Next day another Tropical Mockingbird

Overall I'm pretty pleased. That was all in less than 2 and a half hours of looking around and within walking distance from my hotel.

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Sun Jun 05, 2016 12:26 am

Rob I forgot to comment on your posts above. You found a lot of great stuff that trip.

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:46 pm

That is a nice run of critters, sir.

Rob

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:59 pm

Some recent sightings, with a lot of insects: This is a blue dasher.

This is a female common whitetail.

A powdered dancer.

An eastern comma, a six-spotted tiger beetle, and an ant.

A pair of ebony jewelwings:

The larva of a ladybug.

A Hobomok skipper.

An eastern phoebe.

A silver-spotted skipper.

And a zabulon skipper.

(Continued)

Rob

Mediancat · Post by **Mediancat** » Sat Jun 11, 2016 10:04 pm

A female wood duck.

A great blue heron:

A downy woodpecker.

A question mark:

A gray catbird perched on a bluebird house:

A frog.

A leatherwing beetle:

A daddy longlegs:

A 14-spotted lady beetle, which would be an invasive species:

And a candy-striped leafhopper.

Rob

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Thu Jun 16, 2016 2:11 pm

For some reason I love the coloring in the female wood duck photo.

Not a lot going on around here. I did get a new lifer yesterday. A Brown Snake in my driveway.

It was perhaps 12-14 inches long and hanging out at the bottom of the driveway were the rain pushes small rocks and sand down. It stayed there for a good half-hour and would have stayed longer if my boy had not decided to start poking it repeatedly.

Unlike a garter snake that leaves the moment it knows that it's being watched, this one just hung out while I took photos from 3 feet away and a boy on the other side. It only left when it finally was poked a few times.