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Chowing Down

Yesterday was Thanksgiving—the only national American holiday where we all have license to stuff ourselves until we explode. I did. Did you?Interestingly the birds at the suet dough station were following suit. Especially the blue jays.Blue jays are creatures of boom and bust. When they find food in abundance, they load up as much as they can in their large, expandable throat pouches, and take it away to cache. This is a hedge against leaner times......

Male wild turkey ready to do what male wild turkeys were born to do.In bright sunlight, an adult turkey's feathers show beautiful iridescence.I wonder if any of the Pilgrims or First Peoples at the original Thanksgiving took the time to consider what a cool bird the turkey is. Or did they simply add it to their life list before shooting it with the blunderbuss and dropping it in the big black cauldron? Most ponderable, that.If you're into learning......

Of all the species of birds I am not seeing today on my snow-covered farm in southeastern Ohio, perhaps none has a more interesting hunting strategy than the Harris' hawk.Did you know that Harris' hawks hunt cooperatively in packs composed of family members? It's true. The hunting groups may number as many as a half-dozen birds and they fly in one or two groups until potential prey is flushed, then all pursue it. When prey is captured and killed,......

I call this one: "Devil Bunny, Tire Swing, Moon, and Pear Tree."I have been having fun with my two remote nature cameras. One is a Wingscapes BirdCam designed to take daytime images at feeders, nest boxes, bird baths, etc. The other is a MoultrieGameCam designed to take nighttime images of wildlife. Many hunters use gamecams to see what deer are coming in to a feeding station or what game is using a certain trail.The night cams have motion sensors......

Moment of Zen

I recently watched this mist moving over a mountain lake in Tennessee. I was up and outside, shortly after dawn. It was crisply cold and there was no sound—not a call note from a bird, no rustling of leaves, no sound from the wind on the water.Such a peaceful moment was, I thought, worthy of shari......

Like you, I've spent a lot of time in recent years wondering what ever happened to Omar Sharif. Well, you never know what you'll learn at a birding festival. At the recent Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, I found out what happened to Omar. He's running for office in South Texas.His campaign staff needs to use their spell-checker before ordering signs.I hope he won since it seems like he's not doing much in Hollywood anymore.Happy Unheavy Fri......

Black shine yellow eyeGreat-tailed grackle eats dog foodbow-wow-wow-sckrkkttshh......

The camera's date is wrong, but the cameraman's mad ID skilz are in full force.While digitally flipping through the images from the front yard Wingscapes BirdCam this morning I was shocked and pleased to add ANOTHER new bird to the property list here at Indigo Hill. If you look in the lower frame of this image, you'll see a nice shot of a fox sparrow (of the eastern legless race). But it's the OTHER bird I am super excited about. The one in flight.......

Snow falling on sumac. Hey wasn't that a book?There's a wet snow falling here in SE Ohio, with the temperature hovering just above freezing. It's not yet sticking on the roads. The barometer is calling for more.The feeders are stocked and today's specials are: homemade suet dough (really popular with our regular customers), unsalted peanuts (sans shells), and black-oil sunflower seed.I am marking the bird spa for early retirement. Bob the chipmunk......

If this were one of those motivational business posters, the caption would probably read:Every ascent has its perils.I'd like to invite you, my creative bloggawkers, to contribute a caption for this photograph (forget the business/inspirational constraints).Here's one to get you going:"Dude! I can see your HOUSE from here!"Got it? Fire at wi......

I was glad to have my spotting scope along. I kept it set on midget and the kids dug the great bird looks. Photo by Liz Gordon.During the recently completed Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, I gave a presentation my most recent book, The Young Birder's Guide and discussed how we adults can help to get more kids into birds and nature. And that was fun and seemed to be well-received.What was even better was getting to take two groups of local kids......

Even though it's a non-native invader of our fair land, I have to admit that the Eurasian collared-dove is a good-looking bird.This species first came to our hemisphere via the Bahamas in the 1970s. Now it's found throughout the South and great flocks can be found around town grain elevators in the Great Plains. It is universally considered one of the most successful colonisers of all birds—easily spreading itself across Europe, Asia, and as far......

Gray feathers with buffy edges and tips help the pauraque blend in to its habitat.OK Blogsters. Here's the answer to the mystery photo from yesterday, which several of you have already sussed out.It's a pauraque (paw-RAH-kee; sometimes called common pauraque, often mis-spelled paraque or parauque). This member of the caprimulgid family (nighthawks, whippoorwill, poorwill, etc) makes it across the border from Mexico only in southernmost Texas. Like......

"You can't tell me there is no mystery"—Bruce Cockburn.I am taking guesses as to what this is in this photograph. It is a shot that I digiscoped on Sunday, November 9, at Estero Llano Grande State Park near Weslaco, Texas.Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?Answer and story tomorrow. Good night and good lu......

While birding the King Ranch a few days ago, we encountered these curious white-tailed deer bucks. They were wondering where the food was. On this huge Texas ranch, the wildlife managers sometimes scatter deer feed along the roads, so I'm sure these guys mistook a bunch of birders for the chow wagon.The bucks we saw had small bodies compared to our Ohio white-taileds, but the antler racks on these Texas animals are huge! Aside from cattle ranching......

Black-bellied whistling-ducks at rest at Estero Llano Grande State Park near Weslaco, Texas.I spent yesterday afternoon with a handful of friends, walking the trails at Estero Llano Grande and doing some casual birding and some even more casual bird photography. ELG is one of the World Birding Center sites in south Texas.It's been a long, heavy-duty week, month, year. Time to kick back and have an Un-heavy Friday to start the weekend. And I wish......

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Nice to know, in spite of major things happening in this big old goofy world of ours, that the birds just carry on with their lives.I set up a Wingscapes BirdCam on our new platform feeder this weekend and got a few images of our regular customers. Still need to reset the camera's date and time I see....If you've never tried a remote birdcam, you might want to—it's a lot of fun. The Wingscapes BirdCam is really user-friendly. I think it took me about......

I've seen a lot of tanager species in my years of bird watching. Both summer and scarlet tanagers nest on our 80-acre farm in southeast Ohio every summer—more scarlets by far. Tanagers come in a wide variety of color schemes, often involving bright red, yellow, or orange. Yet my favorite tanager is one that comes in subtle hues: the blue-gray tanager.Blue-gray tanager in Cerro Azul, Panama.I can't tell you why I like the blue-gray tanager best of......

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Chowing Down

Happy Thanksgiving

Birds I Am NOT Seeing

GameCam Night Pix

Moment of Zen

Unheavy Friday

For A Grackle Eating Dog Food

Alcid Indigestion

Hello Winter!

Unheavy Friday

Young Birders in Texas

Una Paloma

Pauraque

What Is It?

Deer Prudence

Unheavy Friday

New Day

Bird (Life) Goes On

My Favorite Tanager

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