Black-bellied Plover

I got the Wacom Intuos tablet hooked up to the MacBook Pro this morning and needed a test picture to practice on. Heres the result; a nice Black-bellied Plover from last year when we were down in Florida at Fort Myers Beach. It was nice evening light over the Gulf of Mexico and I just sat at the waters edge and let him come closer and closer. He was very friendly.

Peregrine

Up at the Hawk Watch yesterday we had a much closer view of a young Peregrine Falcon than we normally get as they cruise along the ridge. Bob who is also a Falconer brought along his young Peregrine for a day out on the ridge.

Peregrine Falcon

2nd Mountain

I often mention 2nd Mountain and the Hawk Watch. I was up there yesterday afternoon and it started out with bright blue skies and the odd cloud to pretty cloudy with even a touch of rain. The birds didn't mind though. Heres a few pictures from yesterday.

Nice colors on the way up

ditto

Looking North, Sharps Mountain with just a hint of Stony Mountain in the background.

Looking South through Blue Mountain and Indiantown Gap.

Looking West with Hawk Watchers.

Subject: HSR: Second Mountain (18 Oct 2014) 255 Raptors
Date: Sat Oct 18 2014 17:11 pm
From: reports AT hawkcount.org

Second Mountain

Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, USA

Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 18, 2014

-------------------------------------------------------------------



Species            Day's Count    Month Total   Season Total

------------------ ----------- -------------- --------------

Black Vulture                7            118            136

Turkey Vulture              31            247            355

Osprey                       2             30            106

Bald Eagle                   5             39             86

Northern Harrier             2             45             61

Sharp-shinned Hawk         191           1795           2091

Cooper's Hawk                9            147            203

Northern Goshawk             0              0              0

Red-shouldered Hawk          0              4             13

Broad-winged Hawk            0              6           2963

Red-tailed Hawk              5             97            163

Rough-legged Hawk            0              0              0

Golden Eagle                 0             13             15

American Kestrel             3             44             93

Merlin                       0             28             38

Peregrine Falcon             0             22             30

Unknown Accipiter            0              3              5

Unknown Buteo                0              0              1

Unknown Falcon               0              2              3

Unknown Eagle                0              0              0

Unknown Raptor               0              3             13

Swainson's Hawk              0              1              1



Total:                     255           2644           6376

----------------------------------------------------------------------



Observation start time: 07:00:00

Observation end   time: 15:30:00

Total observation time: 8.5 hours



Official Counter:        Dave Schwenk



Observers:        Andy Francis, Joan Renninger, Jonathon Heller, Ken Ricker,

                  Mike Dale, Morris Cox, Rosemary Spreha, Steve Walthius,

                  Tom Power



Visitors:

Ken & Pat Ricker, Dick Shott + 6 others





Weather:

WNW 3-12 winds under am sunny sky becoming mostly cloudy in the pm. Temps

in the 50's.Rain shower moved through to the east late in the 7th hr,

effectively shutting down activity as only 10 birds were seen from then on.





Raptor Observations:

2 ad BE, 8:27, 12:48, 3 juv BE 8:45, 10:43, 10:48





Non-raptor Observations:

5 N ravens, 8 monarchs



Predictions:

Strong NW wind, mostly sunny but colder.

Brown Creeper from the archives

I noticed one of my Brown Creepers working it's way up an oak in the yard yesterday and thought how I'd like to get some more pictures of them. I'll have to wait until it gets colder for that so that I can attract them to a setup using some nice peanut butter and suet mixture. I delved into the archives back to  January and March 2006 for these two images. The first was in January and the second in March, they were taken with my Nikon D70 and D200 with a 300mm f/4 lens.

Brown Creeper 

Brown Creeper

An old friend

I got reaquainted with an old friend the other day. I was up at the 2nd Mountain Hawk Watch trying to photograph a very friendly Monarch. I only had my little Sony pocket camera with me and as I rarely use it I wasn't getting the shots I wanted. Morris kindly offered me the use of my old D300 and 18-200mm lens which I had sold him a couple of years ago. Still an excellent camera. I got a lot of good shots over the years with that camera and lens combination. Heres a couple of the very friendly Monarch.

Monarch

Monarch

Gulls

To the vast majority of non birders a big, squawky white bird that shits all over your car at the coast is a Seagull. To a birder there is no such thing as a Seagull except of course for Jonathan Livingston Seagull which I once read a long, long time ago. There are all sorts of 'Gulls' but most definitely no 'Seagulls' except for the aforementioned ficticious Jonathan Livingston. To the non birder trying to clean the shit off his or her pride and joy it's pretty obvious that they don't give a crap what sort of bird did it but to the birder it makes all the difference in the world.  There are people who absolutely love Gulls, they love to visit garbage/refuse dumps and bodies of water where they tend to congregate (both the birders and the gulls). Now these birders or Larophiles as they are known get their jollies in the identification of the big white squawky birds that just shit on your car.

Here's a selection of Gulls from my travels, I think I've got the ID right but if any Larophile reading this knows better please let me know.

Laughing Gulls

Ring-billed Gull

American Herring Gull

Heermanns Gull

California Gull

Western Gull

A typical Larophile Blog Confessions of a Larophile