Category: Birds

Friday the 13th

A little frustration invaded my soul today as I attempted to photograph the colorful birds at our feeder. We have a resident raccoon, Arthur, who thinks he owns our back yard. He sticks his head in my window, eats the bird food even though he has his own food. He will chase the birds away. We also have squirrels who interfere. Then the gigantic American Crows show up. They make a lot of noise, chase other birds away, and will stuff not one, not two but THREE peanuts in their mouths before taking off. Thankfully, Arthur hates the crows and will chase them away.
I missed out on the beautiful male Cardinal, the Red-bellied Woodpecker and the Gray Catbirds who refused to even participate in this mess, just meowed from the other side of the fence.
 
Eventually my soul mellowed as I managed a few half way good photos.
 
PS: Anyone want a raccoon for Christmas? I’ll pay the postage!

Northern Cardinals

This is my Northern Cardinal page. As I photograph them in my back yard or other places in Florida, I will share them here.

Per Wikipedia, “The common name, as well as the scientific name, of the northern cardinal refers to the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, who wear distinctive red robes and caps. The term “northern” in the common name refers to its range, as it is the northernmost cardinal species.”

There are no Cardinals in Boise, Idaho where I spent the last three and a half years. I missed them very much.

The Cardinal have a special place in my heart as they were my mother’s favorite bird. I rarely saw them in our Pembroke Pines, Florida neighborhood, but in Placid Lakes, Florida we seem to have at least one couple residing in the trees around our home. So thrilled about that!

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Red Headed Woodpecker

Suze and I visited Lake June-in-Winter Scrub Preserve State Park this morning. I was hunting the elusive Florida Scrub Jay, but failed. I did however, capture images of a Red Headed Wood Pecker, which is a first for me. I have seen them before but never obtained a good photograph. The bird was about 100 yards or more distant so my zoom was at 400mm. Had to crop the photos to bring them closer. Still, except for slight noise in the background they turned out pretty well.

 

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Quick Drive to Blacks Creek Road

The sky was totally devoid of any hint of clouds today, so we decided to take a quick ride east of town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A nice short drive is to Blacks Creek Road near Bonneville Point.About 27 miles from our house. We take I-84 out there and usually come back following Blacks Creek Road south of I-84.

We like it because we can get out to true wilderness quickly. One can remain on Blacks Creek Road north of I-84 and eventually wind up in the town of Prairie, Idaho. That is a stupendous drive!

But we only desired a quick drive and about a mile or so passed Bonneville Point is a nice patch of trees and some water where birds are known to hang out.

My goal was the Bullock’s Oriole. They were not cooperating much as it was about high noon and the sun’s rays were like laser beams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also managed to capture an image of a Pale Swallowtail butterfly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The field across the street was littered with White Powder Puff flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two A-10 Thunderbirds,  fully armed, flew over but were right in the sun so my photographs did not come out well. A few other aircraft flew over too, as we are not that far from the approach to Boise International Airport.

We got back at 2 PM, so a nice short ride.