The little guy and I took a drive this afternoon. I had hoped to get Red-winged blackbird pictures. I got several. None of them are what I had in mind but they’ll do.
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| Agelaius phoeniceus (Red-winged blackbird) See also Red-winged Blackbird on What Bird? |
We saw several other birds we weren’t looking for.
A mourning dove:
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Here’s a link to a less cropped version of the above photo.
| Zenaida macroura (Mourning dove) I love Mourning doves. They remind me of being at my Grandmother’s. See also WhatBird.com |
After catching the mourning dove, I missed a Robin bathing and a practical flyby of a heron. DRAT! Maybe next time.
I pulled into the driveway of someone I know and got this one.
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Since I can never really tell how good the picture is until I upload it to my laptop, I decided to very carefully try for another angle. This is the best I was able to get from without getting closer and risking scaring it off. I have no idea what kind of bird it is. I’ve never seen one before. If someone else knows or has any idea, please post a comment!
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| Thank you to Heidi and the Animal Diversity Web Zookeepers for solving the mystery!This little fellow is a Falco sparverius (American kestrel). He seems to be highly adaptable to his surroundings. He lives in areas where there are wide open spaces for hunting that also have high perches. He is the smallest species within the Falco genus with the exception of the Seychelles kestrel. He hunts large insects, rodents and small birds. Let’s see … that’s about all I can remember at the moment but feel free to read more about this interesting bird on BioKIDS - Kids’ Inquiry of Diverse Species page, “(a cooperative project of the UM [Go BLUE!] School of Education and the Animal Diversity Web).” The U.S. Geological Survey’s website also has a page on the American kestrel with photos that are surprisingly as grainy as mine.. |
In the yard of the person I know, I was surprised to see this pheasant:
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| Phasianus colchicus (Ring-necked Pheasant) See also USGS website |
He wasn’t going to hang around to figure out what I was doing:
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A catttail
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| Typha species. See the okay still looking for something about cattails in Michigan from a Michigan source … Okay, nope. But here’s something helpful. |
Well, that’s it for today.
*Edited to add specific info about the subjects in the photos. Also, another helpful link for identifying birds is http://www.whatbird.com/. Thanks for the link, Marie!
I know! I know! It’s a kestrel! That’s what came and snatched up my junco the other day. They’re very colorful, aren’t they?
You are right! That’s exactly what it is. Funnily enough, I also got an email from the University of Michigan at the same time saying the same thing. Way to go, Heidi! I’m sorry about your junco. :\
I was just thinking about kestrels yesterday… They’re quite common around here.
Have you ever seen miniature woven baskets?* I mean, the kind done with such craftsmanship, that if you see a picture of them, they look large, but if the pic is zoomed out, you see that, in reality, they’re only a couple of inches high. (Hope that makes sense.) I think of that every time I spot a kestrel in my binoculars. Zoomed in, they LOOK like a large predator. But, zoomed out, one is surprised by their dimunitive size.
*Like here — scroll to the bottom: http://www.santarosa.edu/museum/pomocoi.htm