Author Archives: birdsinmyviewfinder

A female Yellow Warbler has captured quite a prize. She was flitting and hopping through the branches of a large tree so I think she was bringing her catch to her nest that was hidden deeper among the foliage.

I do a lot of birds-in-flight photography, always hoping to capture a little extra action. These photos show an Eastern Kingbird closing in on it’s prey, a small insect, and snatching it. Kingbirds are a member of the flycatcher family but, interestingly, they are primarily fruit eaters when wintering South America.

A female Mallard just about to touch down in the pond.

There are two owls in this photograph. Long-eared Owls have a color pattern that makes them very inconspicuous in the cedar and fir trees where they roost during the day. These two came a little further out into the open than usual. The temperature was about 15F (-9C) and the March sun was shining directlyContinue reading “Long-eared Owl”

Well this date seems to have gone sideways. This is a tussle between male and female Boat-tailed Grackles over some table scraps at an outdoor cafe. I’m not sure who tried to steal from the other but it doesn’t look like these two will have a second date.

This is a Rough-legged Hawk in flight showing all of its identification markings. However, it is a light morph so the tail is only dark along the edge instead of having a solid black band along the end of the tail. This is probably a female since there is less mottling on the wings andContinue reading “Rough-legged Hawk”

The Loggerhead Shrike is a songbird with a raptor-like beak. Shrikes, also known as “butcherbirds”, prey on insects and small vertebrates including other birds. They lack the powerful beak and the strong talons of a true raptor. But they can hold prey well enough to use their beak to dispatch their prey with a biteContinue reading “Snapshot: Loggerhead Shrike”

I caught these two birds landing together in very shallow water in a mudflat. The surface provided an excellent mirror. A Killdeer is still in the air as an American Golden-plover touches down on the flat.

This Brown Pelican has just surfaced with his catch only to be accosted by a Laughing Gull. The gull is boldly moving in to see if it can somehow snatch a fish from the pelican. A gull being a gull.

My previous post generated a bit of interest in this photogenic raptor so I am posting a few more pictures that I took that day. There were actually two Swallow-tailed Kites in the air that morning. The first one we noticed had a prey item in its beak. It later transferred it to its talonsContinue reading “More Swallow-tailed Kite”