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Blue tits start looking for a place to nest as early as January, usually beginning to build their nest by late March. They favour cosy cavities: rot holes and cracks in trees, old woodpecker nests. I was very lucky to find and spot this little gem, he was in and out of nest for a constant 6mins the i left the family to it.
Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus)
Another shot from the nest I recently discovered. The adult female is feeding the dominant offspring (pretty sure it is a male) which already spends quite a bit of time poking his head out of the nest. Judging from the calls from the nest, he is not the only youngster.
“Reminiscent of a troupe of wide-eyed clowns, Acorn Woodpeckers live in large groups in western oak woodlands. Their social lives are endlessly fascinating: they store thousands of acorns each year by jamming them into specially made holes in trees. A group member is always on alert to guard the hoard from thieves, while others race through the trees giving parrotlike waka-waka calls. Their breeding behavior is equally complicated, with multiple males and females combining efforts to raise young in a single nest….. Acorn Woodpeckers are medium-sized woodpeckers with straight, spike-like bills and stiff, wedge-shaped tails used for support as the birds cling to tree trunks….. These woodpeckers live in oak and mixed oak-conifer forests on slopes and mountains in the Southwest and West Coast. They’re tolerant of humans, and you can find them in towns where there are acorns and suitable places to store them.”
Status : Least Concern
Source ; Cornell University Lab of Ornithology
Cascade Mountains – Jackson County – Oregon - USA
As I sat waiting for the mountain bluebirds to return to their nesting box my shutter finger got itchy to take some pics... so I decided to play with an HDR shot...
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Madagascan ibis (Lophotibis cristata), also known as the Madagascar crested ibis, white-winged ibis or crested wood ibis is endemic to the forests of Madagascar and is one of the largest birds in the area. Seen at the San Diego Zoo. Conservation status: Near Threatened
Loons will usually lay one to three eggs, which are olive or brown with dark splotches. Both adults incubate the eggs for about 29 days. Upon hatching, chicks are active and covered with down, and will leave the nest within one day. They’re ready to fly about 75 days after hatching.
Coal Tits are often regarded as being a species of coniferous woodland, and while they do nest at higher densities in coniferous woodland than deciduous woodland, Coal Tits do occur in many other habitats, including gardens. The narrower, more slender bill is an adaptation to feeding in conifers. Coal Tits begin nesting slightly earlier than Blue Tits and some time before Great Tits. They will use boxes with small entrance holes and there is some evidence to suggest they might prefer nest boxes with a narrow vertical slit to those with a round hole. Their smaller size means that they are often out-competed by the larger relatives when it comes to finding and defending nestboxes. Coal Tits prefer nestboxes mounted on conifers to those mounted on deciduous trees
Shot through a windowscreen, the nest is located just two meters off the ground on a small electrical meter box with lots of human traffic on the walkway below it. The robin layed no eggs and was gone a few days after we noticed it.
Many thanks for your visits, faves and comments. Cheers.
Laughing Kookaburra
Scientific Name: Dacelo novaeguineae
The laughing kookaburra was first described and illustrated (in black and white) by the French naturalist and explorer Pierre Sonnerat in his Voyage à la nouvelle Guinée which was published in 1776. He claimed to have seen the bird in New Guinea. In fact Sonnerat never visited New Guinea and the laughing kookaburra does not occur there. He probably obtained a preserved specimen from one of the naturalists who accompanied Captain James Cook to the east coast of Australia. Edme-Louis Daubenton and François-Nicolas Martinet included a coloured plate of the laughing kookaburra based on Sonnerat's specimen in their Planches enluminées d'histoire naturelle. The plate has the legend in French "Martin-pecheur, de la Nouvelle Guinée" (Kingfisher from New Guinea). In 1783 the French naturalist Johann Hermann provided a formal description of the species based the coloured plate by Daubenton and Martinet. He gave it the scientific name Alcedo novæ Guineæ. The current genus Dacelo was introduced in 1815 by the English zoologist William Elford Leach, and is an anagram of Alcedo, the Latin word for a kingfisher. The specific name novaeguineae combines the Latin novus for new with Guinea, based on the erroneous belief that the specimen had originated from New Guinea. For many years it was believed that the earliest description was by the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert and his scientific name Dacelo gigas was used in the scientific literature but in 1926 the Australian ornithologist Gregory Mathews showed that a description by Hermann had been published earlier in the same year, 1783, and thus had precedence. In the 19th century this species was commonly called the "laughing jackass", a name first recorded (as Laughing Jack-Ass) in An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales by David Collins which was published in 1798. In 1858 the ornithologist John Gould used "great brown kingfisher", a name that had been coined by John Latham in 1782. Another popular name was "laughing kingfisher". The name in several Australian indigenous languages were listed by European authors including Go-gan-ne-gine by Collins in 1878, Cuck'anda by René Lesson in 1828 and Gogera or Gogobera by George Bennett in 1834. In the early years of the 20th century "kookaburra" was included as an alternative name in ornithological publications but it was not until 1926 in the second edition of the Official Checklist of Birds of Australia that the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union officially adopted the name "laughing kookaburra". The name comes from Wiradhuri, an Aboriginal language now effectively extinct.
Description: The Laughing Kookaburra is instantly recognisable in both plumage and voice. It is generally off-white below, faintly barred with dark brown, and brown on the back and wings. The tail is more rufous, broadly barred with black. There is a conspicuous dark brown eye-stripe through the face. It is one of the larger members of the kingfisher family.
Similar species: Identification may only be confused where the Laughing Kookaburra's range overlaps that of the Blue-winged Kookaburra, Dacelo leachii, in eastern Queensland. The call of the Blue-winged Kookaburra is coarser than that of the Laughing Kookaburra, and ends somewhat abruptly. The Blue-winged Kookaburra lacks the brown eye-stripe, has a blue tail and a large amount of blue in the wing, and has a pale eye.
Distribution: Laughing Kookaburras are found throughout eastern Australia. They have been introduced to Tasmania, the extreme south-west of Western Australia, and New Zealand. Replaced by the Blue-winged Kookaburra in central northern and north-western Australia, with some overlap in Queensland, although this species is more coastal.
Habitat: The Laughing Kookaburra inhabits most areas where there are suitable trees.
Feeding: Laughing Kookaburras feed mostly on insects, worms and crustaceans, although small snakes, mammals, frogs and birds may also be eaten. Prey is seized by pouncing from a suitable perch. Small prey is eaten whole, but larger prey is killed by bashing it against the ground or tree branch.
Breeding: Laughing Kookaburras are believed to pair for life. The nest is a bare chamber in a naturally occurring tree hollow or in a burrow excavated in an arboreal (tree-dwelling) termite mound. Both sexes share the incubation duties and both care for the young. Other Laughing Kookaburras, usually offspring of the previous one to two years, act as 'helpers' during the breeding season. Every bird in the group shares all parenting duties.
Calls: The chuckling voice that gives this species its name is a common and familiar sound throughout the bird's range. The loud 'koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-kaa-kaa-kaa' is often sung in a chorus with other individuals. The Laughing Kookaburra also has a shorter 'koooa The Laughing Kookaburra is not really laughing when it makes its familiar call. The cackle of the Laughing Kookaburra is actually a territorial call to warn other birds to stay away.
Minimum Size: 40cm
Maximum Size: 45cm
Average size: 42cm
Average weight: 340g
Breeding season: August to January
(Sources: www.birdsinbackyards.net and Wikipedia)
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© Chris Burns 2019
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Not sure if this Sulphur Crested Cockatoo has eggs in the nest or not,. Shot from some distance away and heavily cropped.
This hawk was tearing off this vine while the second one occupied the nest. Based upon the bands on the tail, I think it's a Coopers Hawk. The light was bad yesterday. Now that the light is good, I don't see the hawks. Maybe they noticed me watching them and decided to make a nest somewhere else.
Coots (Fulica aura) are diving birds, feeding on lake, river, or estuary bottoms, eating snails, insect larvae, small molluscs, etc. Male and female coots have similar plumage, and are the most attentive parents of all waterfowl.
An Osprey nesting on a telephone pole at the entrance of the old Concord Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, NY.
This Hylaeine bee eventually found an old resin wasp nest that suited her. She proceeded to enlarge the entrance hole from inside and has now hopefully laid eggs there.
Click on the shots on the first comment box and they will appear large.
A pair of kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) share their nest whilst another snoozes on an adjacent nest site on the cliffs at North Landing near Thornwick Bay, East Yorkshire. I suspect both sets of birds hads already raised and fledged the next generation. The chicks that were on other nests were all quite large, with fully developed flight feathers, presumably later to hatch than those already fledged.