Final Irricana post of birds and critters

Our final morning in Irricana produced a drizzly morning mist fog as in a surreal dreamscape, it was beautiful soft and grey, though slightly chilly and the birds were fluffed against the cool breeze that kept them grounded.

 The clay-colored sparrow sang no matter what the weather was doing, sporty bird he is.

 The chipping sparrow priceless expression makes me think he may be grumpy about the rain.

Wet Warbler in a soft rosy hued drizzle.

 During spring a lot of chase happens on ponds across the county as males defending their females chase off interlopers or chase their females.

 Shorebirds flight, take notice as there is a Phalarope amongst the smaller birds.

 On the drive home we take backroads and came across a large pond and as we had seen only one other vehicle on the highway we stopped for our lunch by the pond. It looks like Muskrat had the same idea.

We ate while listening to a froggie choir, nothing like dinner and a musical.

 American Robin, I love how the beak of the Robin turns a brilliant yellow for a short time in spring.

 Bees at the pussy-willows. Though there were plenty of bees at this clump of bushes I've seen very few in the City this year so far.

I leave off with another frog, isn't it beautiful.

May we all walk softly upon this earth and care for her in a gentle and kind way. All the beings, mammal, bird or bug are our relatives in the big circle of life. We are all community and must go back to relating as community for if one is endangered, we all are endangered.

More birds from Irricana area and fox

 Willet?

 This bird had no concern for me. As I stood still it ventured closer though it did assess me at one point and must have deemed me as of no threat. Being about twenty feet away when I decided to return to the truck I slowly backed up till I was at the pavement before turning. When I looked back I was happy to note the bird was still feeding.

 Marbled Godwit flight. I spotted this bird lift off from the marsh in the distance and luckily it flew closer heading to the field. I quite like the soft blur of the landscape behind the Godwit.

 Ibis sunset.

 White-faced Ibis foraging in flooded roadside ditches. An excitable moment to say the least as I've only seen these colorful birds from a far distance at Frank Lake a few years ago.

 Amazing iridescence these birds possess. I'm now wondering how best to represent them in paint. May have to consider doing a large 3x4 foot canvas. Oh ya, another winter project coming up, but for now its camping and birding, time to gather reference and enjoy being in the field watching and soaking in the essence.

 Have no idea what this bird is, but it flew above the campers every night chattering and making a fuss. I must have taken about fifty photos but as it flew so fast and being dusk this was the best shot the camera could capture. 300 prime lens and extremely heavily cropped as this bird was quite a ways up.

 Red-winged Blackbird female? 

I have never seen one with such bold markings before, hence the questioning.

 Another special surprise, a Swift fox hunting in the pasture, behind to the left a duck pair can be seen.

 We watched him or her catch and eat a few rodents before trotting off with one in its mouth. I figure it must have a den in the area.

Say's  Phoebe

Even though I have many bird books its sometimes its hard to figure out who's who. I am thinking  Kingbird though the underside looked quite cinnamon rather than yellow.

 Savanna Sparrow. Such a lovely wee bird.

 Hawk. 

 Another who am I; this one was very difficult to spot, I saw the garbage and peered through my lens to see what it was and behold, saw the bird. Solitary Sandpiper identified by John, thank you.

  Chipping Sparrow in the rain.

 Clay-colored Sparrow all puffed against wind that blew cold on this drizzly monday morning.

Want to see more? 

still waiting still

Waiting, waiting!
My new (broken) camera is still not back, its pretty frustrating to miss the good shots due to the slow speed of my old Rebel, but man-o-man the Rebel was built well.  I am happy the D50 is getting repaired, but its frustrating all the same; seems it was not my year to buy electronics. I got the crappy camera and the crappy i-mac. I have been attempting to put my photos on disc so I can return the mac, and what a pain to go through 20,000 photos for about the third time. Nothing works right. I finally came to the realization that I have to go through and delete fuzzy shots and make adjustments on only enough for the disc, burn it then start on the next batch. I previously have gone though all these photos and when I went to put them on disc found that old fuzzy already deleted shots were back in i-photo and adjustments and crops have reverted back to the original photo, grrr, its enough to drive a sane person madd let alone someone like me, lol.

Any how enough of the griping, here are some shots taken with my old reliable Rebel.

I kept hearing this strange little bird right outside the window so I ventured out in my PJs to investigate and this is what I found, a baby chipping sparrow.

The parents were busy feeding at least three chicks that were scattered about. I wonder if the storm the other night tossed them from their nest or whether its usual for the parent to have to cover a large area of ground to feed their fledglings. Maybe its safer that way.

The parent made quite a raucous when I ventured round the other side of the house, the reason being this second chick was in the grass. These were taken using a 300mm lense so I was not close to the babies. I don't like to place stress on the birds as its quite a job to take care of these little hungry mouths.

I like this shot, he jumped up out of the grass and posed before he ran along the cement and into dense shrubbery in the neighboring yard. Later I noticed a parent enticing him across the backyard to where the other baby was perched. But a few hours later they had made their way elsewhere and I no longer heard their strange typewriter sounding chirps.