Beaver Photos

 

 

 

 

We know it's supposed to be a bird blog, but when out looking at the migrating blue winged teals this morning, a beaver came by, so we had to take some beaver pictures. Later this evening, a pair came by. Chris read that they like apples and we tried feeding apples in the evening, but they prefer bark.

Blue-Winged Teals on Lake Nelson

 

 

 

We first saw blue-winged teals while on vacation in Palm Island in the St Vincent & The Grenadines. Now we realize there is no reason to go to the Caribbean at all, since a group of 5-6 teals stopped at Lake Nelson during their migration.

White-throated Sparrow

 

A few white-throated sparrows have been feeding in our yard. We've also been serenaded by a series of long high-pitched notes, almost like the spaceships on "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Mike eventually saw one of the sparrows making this call.

Hairy Woodpecker in Action

 

We haven't seen the hairy woodpeckers much this winter. One arrived this evening while we were in the yard enjoying the nicer weather. Click on the picture to enlarge and you can see his third eyelid protecting him as the wood chips fly.

Eastern Bluebirds

The sun was out today, so we went birding a bit. Here are two photos of Eastern Bluebirds. The top is a close-up of a male. The bottom one shows both the male and the female.

Ovenbird

Mike saw a bird walking by the path and Chris got the binoculars and said it was an ovenbird. Mike was impressed since he'd never heard of them. We watched as it tried to eat a caterpillar (the fuzzy-wuzzy type). You can see the reddish caterpillar on the ground below the beak in the top photo. As we got closer, it took the caterpillar into some shrubs, not wanting to share.

Northern Flicker and Red Tailed Hawk: Photos by Dave

The top photo is a northern flicker from my back yard. The bottom, I believe, is a red-tailed hawk, also in my back yard (the same tree). The flicker photo was taken 4-9-09, hawk photo was taken 2-4-09.