Category Archives: Uncategorized

Young Hummingbirds (in my previous post) aren’t the only juvenile visitors to my backyard. There was a family of Cooper’s Hawks nesting somewhere in the wooded area near my home. One or two would come close on occasion and there was a period when I could hear the young hawk begging food from the parents.Continue reading “Cooper’s Hawk”

Birds have to learn their lessons, just like us. I photographed a young Ruby-throated Hummingbird trying to figure out my feeder. He or she was trying to get at the fluid from underneath instead of using the ports on the top. I guess it wasn’t paying attention to mom when she was using the feeder.Continue reading “Life Lessons”

I watched some Great Egrets hunting for small fish and caught some of the action with my camera. Great Egrets, like herons, stand still or move very slowly as they wait for their prey to get close enough to snatch with a quick thrust of their head. This Egret prowled the edge of a tidalContinue reading “Great Egrets”

We think of a vagrant as someone, who by circumstance or choice, is a wanderer who often lives by begging. A vagrant bird is one who is found outside its normal wintering or breeding areas. Scientists aren’t certain about why some individual birds wander so far afield. It may be a storm system that drivesContinue reading “Feathered Vagrant”

The Pileated Woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in North America. It’s about the size of a Crow and measures up to 19 in. (49 cm) long with a wingspan up to 29.5 in. (75 cm). They are forest birds that like older forests with large dead trees and fallen wood where they can find theirContinue reading “Pileated Woodpecker”

This is a follow up to my previous post with photos of Terns diving for fish. I came across an interesting sequence while culling and sorting a large number of photographs from that same morning. I use my camera’s burst mode since I am usually photographing active birds. These six photos cover a span ofContinue reading “Fast Food ala Tern”

There are two Terns that breed along the Massachusetts in coast large numbers, the Common Tern and the Least Tern. We do see other species, but they are uncommon. I happened to be on the shore of Plum Island Sound when a large group of Terns were feeding right near the shore. The Least TernsContinue reading “Terns”

The Piping Plover is a endangered species that breeds along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina into the Canadian Maritimes, as well as in the upper Great Plains into Canada and the southern shore of Lake Superior. Their primary wintering sites are along the southern Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. There are breeding colonies on PlumContinue reading “Piping Plover”

This is the time of year when birds are quieter and more, shall I say, discrete? It’s nesting time, territories are established and chicks are being hatched or fledged. Birds seem to be a little more secretive as a result. I will see far less birds in an hour in the field than I didContinue reading “There’s Always Something”

My last post was about the Indigo Bunting. This post is about another bird of the blue persuasion, the Eastern Bluebird. This common bird is not a threatened species at the moment but the numbers are declining due to habitat loss, pesticide use and competition from other species like Starlings. The use of nesting boxesContinue reading “Eastern Bluebird”