Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Hello my fellow birders I apologize for the delay in posts but with family and the holidays I did not get around to posting.  I have tried to squeeze some birding in and today I saw something very interesting.....

My mom and I were outside on our porch when we heard all this birding commotion.  I saw many seagulls flying in circles, which is odd, and heard lots of calls.  I'd never heard such other than being at a zoo so I decided to go investigate.  I joked saying "do you think they are congregating in one of our ponds?"  Lol well sure enough they were indeed!  I'm not sure if it's mating season or if there were good fish in that pond today or what.  The video above shows the magnitude of how many were flying around.  Right after they flew around a bit they would go back to sitting in a group and calling...very strange.  I will research and get back to y'all in the new year.

 

Birders I  would also like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and remember a new year means a new birding cycle so get out there!  Maybe you can compete in the Big Year competitions...you never know!

 

A great day at sea!

As promised there they are and all their majesty lol...a huge flock of Ring-Billed Gulls have certainly come into town!  They were having a grand ole time diving and catching fish.  Then I guess they wanted to take a rest and regroup....perhaps gossip?  Either way I've never seen so many just sitting out there at one time; it was quite comical.

There have been many cold fronts lately that have caused mini-fallouts and many finches have come into town.  I have yet to identify them because they are so fast and I really need better binoculars (shameful I know)....I also saw a Tern hanging out with some Ring-Billed Gulls today which is odd because I did not expect him until next month at least.  I will post a picture of him and have some fun facts for y'all soon!  Happy Birding and Merry Christmas! :)

Osprey

I took this picture while at the beach the other day and boy oh boy was it a great day for birding!  There were tons of birds out over the water!  I've never seen so many at the same time flying and diving for fish and some that were just hanging out floating on the water in a group! (Later I'll write a seperate blog about them with a picture).  I have seen Ospreys at the beach many times but they are never flying over me when I'm ready or have my camera of course!  However that day this lovely Osprey was kind enough to let me take a picture:)  If you click on it you can see up close he is looking down and you can see his yellow eye which is usually hard to see as they swoop by. 

While doing some research of this bird I thought I would add some facts:

The Osprey is sometimes known as the sea hawk, fish eagle, or fish hawk; which makes perfect sense as usually you will find them diving down to collect fish from bodies of water.  The Osprey is around 2-5 lbs and around 50-70 inches in wingspan.  The male and female are very similar but the female has a slimmer body and narrower wings.  That sounds like human males and females...I guess if most of us were flying and diving for our food then all of us women could stay at that slimmer body physique lol:)  This second picture is of an Osprey fighting off a Ring-Billed Gull for the fish it is carrying in it's feet!  The picture is not as crisp as I would like but again if you click on it you can see the fish in it's talons!  I saw them swooping down multiple times so I was very lucky to capture this.  It is incredible to see.  As always....Happy Birding!:)

These feet were made for walking....

A few posts back I showed the Snowy Egret and how they are easy to identify because of their orange/yellow feet and black legs.  Well when I was at a local park and boating ramp (Bing's Landing) this fellow was quite interested in the fish my dad, brother, and I were filleting!  I took a few pictures of him but I wanted a close up of his feet to further illustrate how striking this feature is!  It is very important to identifying him because if the whole leg and foot were black then it would most likely be a Great White Heron (or Great Egret as they are sometimes called).  The Great White Heron is bigger but if you are birding and you see them quickly flying by you can be sure it is a Snowy Egret by those orange/yellow feet and mostly black legs:)  Hope y'all are having a wonderful birding week:)