Look who just decided to show up in our backyard, this afternoon!!!!
A very handsome, mature & inquisitive #BaldEagle. He was perched up in a tree, near our old, rusting swing set. Stayed there for about 10 minutes before taking off. He was pretty close! This is from my Samsung Galaxy 10 camera phone.
[🧵 1/2] "Is that black thing on the wall up there a bird, or just a black thing?" I asked my brother Rob. There had been a family of #Ravens near that spot earlier, so we slowly approached—and found that one of the youngsters had been left behind.
I first saw this kōtuku ngutupapa feeding here a couple of weeks ago. When I told a couple of my photography friends, they gave me a bit of a hard time for not getting down in the mud to get the shot. So today I did! Very smelly mud though. I’d advise against getting into my car in the next week or two…
I watched this Green Heron fly away from an area where a snapping turtle showed up. I think the heron learned about snapping turtles the hard way. Look at its right foot. The heron seemed to manage perfectly fine with walking on the stump of a foot.
This is a Tibbetts Brook Park Green Heron and is not a parent of the fuzzy heron I posted earlier. That heron is from Van Cortlandt Park.
This Saltmarsh Sparrow's nest was inundated by a spring tide. The Marine Nature Study Area director showed me a photo of the lone surviving chick, which was just old enough to scramble up a Phragmites stalk and keep its head above water and then make its way into a Phragmites patch near a footpath. For days afterward, the mother could be seen flying back and forth between foraging spots and the chick's refuge with insect larvae. This species is considered endangered precisely by the double-whammy of rising sea-level due to climate change and habitat loss.
MNSA, NY
6.7.24 #wildlife#wildlifephotography#nature#naturephotography#birds#birdphotography#mastondonnaturecommunity#songbird#birding#SaltMarshSparrow
A fledgling American Robin. It has been hanging out by my house the last few days, clearly not quite yet having its flight feathers. It's surprisingly indifferent to people and just kind of hung out while I stuck my phone within 20 cm of it to get this shot. #birds
This red-breasted sapsucker was not camera shy and it was also at eye level, which allowed me to get great shots. While it was being somewhat ''cooperative'', I didn't overstay because it needed to eat in peace and get the calories it needs to survive.
Before photographing the Hare and the Oystercatchers, my brother and I had walked around the headland named Trwyn Cemlyn. Amongst the #birds we saw there, we got particularly good views of one of my favourites—the #Stonechat. This male was very, erm, chatty. The Stonechat makes a call which sounds like two stones being banged together, hence the name. Between one or more of those calls, a short whistle may be added.