Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Weapon of choice

burgermeister, there are different sub species in north america, plus winter and summer plumage, they can look quite different.

I gotcha. I have only seen them in the Colorado rockies.

Well bird 1 is definitely a Barred Owl, Strix varia. They love wet low wooded areas, so if this was taken near your pond it fits just right.

Bird 2 is I am pretty sure a Gray Jay, Perisoreus canadensis. They are about as tame a bird as you can find. They are rarely found much further south than upstate New York so I have little personal experience with them other than a few trips I have made to NY and Maine.

Both are very cool birds though.

We were snowmobiling in the moose river plains and stopped at an intersection known as the big T, the groomers and snowmobilers bring food for the deer and there are lots of them. The chickadees will eat out of your hand but the jays stay atleast 3 ft away.

My niece feeding chickadee's and deer.

I love chickadees. I believe it was in A Sand County Almanac where Leopold would catch and band chickadees and had several different birds come back for like 8 years in a row... Now that is neat!

Never heard of the Sand County Almanac, I'll have to check with the Library.

It is a great book, definitely a worthy read for any outdoor lover.

AP, if I know you like I think I do, you will love this read. The newest editions [sometime in the 1990's] are replete with photos taken on Leopolds farm. Stunning photography to go along with one of conservationists' holy books.

There's been times when I'm deer hunting (standing) in Northern Wi. that I've had Chickadees land on the gun barrel.

outahere

Pretty Canada geese... If they weren't so common, I think people would enjoy their beauty that much more!

When one sees way too much of something, one can get sick of it.

When I was 12 years old I got a single shot Winchester 20 guage for Christmas.
Got to be a pretty good barn swallow wing shot - served me well later in life on quail and pheasant - still my favorite upland game bird.

I'd go to jail in this day of age for shooting songbirds.

My wife is the bird watcher in our family.
She sits at the breakfast table and ID's all the birds that come to her many feeders outside the window.

George, if you could consistently hit barn swallows in flight, you're a better shot than I! They make doves look clumsy...

I know a very good wingshot that grew up practicing on purple Martins and Swallows.....

You're right George, you'd be in LOTS of trouble doing that today!

There are times that I think Doves are just as hard to hit!

Well, well....
First (and only) bald eagle today at LNP. It had to be. I didn't have the binocs but it it floated in on the wind and warm thermals off the treetops, maybe 200 feet away by line of sight. Fortunately, I have exceptional long distance vision in these old eyes, or I wouldn't even make this post. The head and neck were solid white and I could see the yellow of the beak. The body was solid, very dark brown, and the fanned out tail was stark white. The color changes from the head to body to tail were very clearly defined; no blending. The wingspan and form was defo eagle. I can't imagine it being anything else. Any thoughts to the contrary?

my dad told DIED he wasnt mature enough to read that book, so he gave it to DWIED.

b'ski, a mature bald eagle is kind of like gold......you know it when you see it. i'm happy to report they have moved in to almost all of our foothill lakes here.



might you get osprey's too??



both those shots were taken by a guy i know at lake amador about 30 minutes from my place.

We defo have the opreys. I saw a pair sky-dancing a couple of weeks ago. This bird today was not an osprey. It could have been something else...if there is a bird with the same distictive color description I provided.
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edit; we had an osprey land in a treetop about 500 feet away. It stayed there for about 3 or 4 minutes while I got to zero in with the 10x binocs. The eagle is magnificent, but the osprey is absolutely scary awesome. Those yellow eyes are the stuff nightmares are made of. And the talons...Dude! the talons!

Not a good time to be a bright colored orange koi hanging around the surface of a pond with an osprey around...

The best time that I had with a raptor was running my Springer for a falconer that had a Mexican Peregrine Falcon. She'd flush the pheasant, then sit until I released her. The Peregrine would make that pheasant look like someone opened a feather pillow up in the sky! I said the same thing about that birds' talons. He said that the bird had the longest talons vs. body size of any of the N. American raptors.

Well, I just tried finding that bird, and can't. (on the internet) Any suggestions? I'll try and describe it, but it was about 15 years ago.....

Size, larger than the N. American Peregrine, but smaller than a Redtail - akin to the size of a rough legged hawk, lots of brown, HUGE talons!

I'm sure that he said that it was a Mexican peregrine, and teh guy that got us together (and was there as well) was THE southern district DNR small game/upland game biologist for Ca. He retired in '98 I believe.

As I recall, there are several different subspecies of Peregrine falcon all over the world. The ones found in the east are all reintroduced and are a hodge podge mixture of the other subspecies because of the numerous semi feral birds that escaped into the wild. The subspecies of falcon found in Mexico is actually slightly smaller than was the now extinct more eastern falcon subspecies.

In the 4 years that we have had the wood duck nesting boxes installed, I cannot honestly say that I have actually seen a wood duck at the pond. We got hooded mergansers and mallards to visit, but nothing as colorful as a woodie. Since we are absentee, and the nesting boxes are so far away and inaccessible by land, I have no idea what's been going on...or not.
This past weekend, I finally got to see the skittish little buggers. They did one heck of alot of flying recon missions over the pond, away for awhile, then back over the pond, then finally landing. Their reputation for liking quiet, undisturbed privacy was apparent.
I stood inside our tiny 10 x 12 cabin this morning, peering out the door window, sipping a cup of coffee and looking at our gar/apt project with the day's construction plans going thru my weary brain. 2 woodies came paddling over toward the boat dock, then climbed up the shore to investigate our project.
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Then they took off and flew right over to the seclusion of the flooded timber and decided to check out the digs.
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Yes! Congrats Bski. I sure hope they take up residence in one of your fine boxes...then you can grace us with photos a plenty.

I scared off three wood ducks on my ponds a week ago. I bought all the materials I'll need to build boxes. I am hoping to get them in sometime this week...still probably won't get any takers this year as it's late in the season, but maybe next year.

Very cool. Last weekend I went floating on a creek and saw 10-12 Wood Ducks. They would fly downstream when they saw us. We jumped them about 5 or 6 times over a few miles.

Brettski:

Good news! I'll bet you will have little wood ducks this year. I'm glad that you posted that pic. I will be putting up one of those Mallard Tubes and was wondering how close I could put it to the Wood Duck box.