The Backyard Birdman

Osprey Portrait all photos by Rick

There is a long recorded history of eagles pirating fish from ospreys. A naturalist from England by the name of Mark Catesby first reported this pirating phenomenon back in 1731. Although there is a question as to how common this practice is, it is an incredible sight to see. Rick, a fellow bird lover from the Bird Forum shot a superb series of photos of just such an event. I hope you like them.

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Anna’s Hummingbird (male) photo by Mark Schmitt

This incredible shot of the male Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte annas) was taken by Mark and later enjoyed while listening to a beautiful piece of Baroque music entitled “Spem in Alium” by Tallis.  These beautiful combinations of nature and man make the human spirit soar.

These incredible little birds have an amazing way to protect themselves during very cold weather.  They lower their internal thermostat at night, becoming hypothermic, by going into a state of torpor. (more…)

Red-tailed Hawk at lunch in downtown San Francisco

photo series by Glenn Nevill

I discovered this unbelievable story in the Yahoo group of “Raptor Watch” and just had to post it here. This is a photo of a Red-tailed Hawk having its lunch on a downtown sidewalk in San Francisco, California. As you can see from this photo there are several people standing around looking on, not really knowing what to do or what to think about this event.

You can see this entire photo series here: Hawk Lunch

I think this photo series deserves a warning that some of the photos are graphic so, for those of you who may be squeemish about this sort of thing, you have been warned. Just remember, raptors are birds of prey and they are part of the food chain. Most raptors feed on birds, small mammals, reptiles and insects. This is a normal process of nature.

You can also see some super raptor photos at Glenn’s page here:

Raptor Photos

He has some incredible photos of Peregrine Falcons that you have to see to believe! For your convenience, I have listed Glenn’s page in the blogroll also.

Hey everyone, I know this is a little off of the birding subject but I always want to pass on good information when it comes around.  If you are into blogging this is something you won’t want to pass up.  A free program on blogging, come on.  And from a group of folks who really know what they’re doing.

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Crow Attacking Red-tailed Hawk photos by Cleve Nash

Back on October 15th this year I wrote a post titled “Why are birds of prey harassed or mobbed”. You can read it here: Birds of Prey Harassed. Well, I recently came upon a photo story of a Red-tailed Hawk being attacked by a crow and I wanted to share these great photos by Cleve Nash. (more…)

Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo regalis) photos by Mary Claypool

What in incredible way to bring in the new year!  Our local Wintu Audubon Society chapter had a couple of excellent Christmas Bird Counts to end the 2007 season!  The last count in our area was done on December 29th with a total of 126 species counted.

The following day was gorgeous and the birds were all out searching for food after several days of bad weather.  One of the incredible birds I was able to see the last Sunday of the year was the beautiful Ferruginous Hawk. (more…)

The last Christmas Bird Count in the Redding area was a great success.  On Saturday, December 29th, we nearly broke a 34 year record for number of species, 129 tallied in 1991.  We totalled 126 species, just shy of the record, in spite of the bad weather of mixed rain and snow all day.  Get the full report here: Redding Christmas Bird Count

“The first official Anderson River Park Christmas Bird Count was awesome!”, reads the opening line of Rob’s CBC report, and was it ever!  We all had a great time bird watching and counting in some super locations.  We had a total species count of 123!  To read the complete report go to: Anderson River Park CBC

Unfortunately I was not able to take part in the Fall River CBC but it was a great success this year.  You can get the full story and all the particulars here: Fall River Mills CBC .  They had a total count of 119 species!