Monday, June 1, 2015

Fledgeling, part 2

More photos of the little bluebird from my previous post-- now with more blue:



Monday, May 25, 2015

Fledgeling

Today was bluebird-box monitoring day at my local park, with Bob of the Southern California Bluebird Club. One of our birdboxes has been hit hard by predators; of six eggs, two didn't hatch, two hatchlings vanished, and the penultimate one turned up dead on the ground. The last survivor, though, has been chirping loudly and eating lots of assorted invertebrates brought by its parents. I saw it peeking out of the box yesterday, and Bob decided to check on it:

Awwwwww

We then put the box back in its tree, and were watching the parent bluebirds flutter nearby when suddenly, out came the fledgeling!


It flew from branch to branch and then to other trees, followed by both parents.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Waterfowl portraits

Vaguely unnerving.

Chinese Swan Goose
Muscovy Duck

Snow Goose

Coot
Graylag Goose
Canada Goose

Friday, May 22, 2015

Lings

Of the duck- and gos- kind:

Big family of Mallards


Adolescent Egyptian Geese

Mother Wood Duck and her babies (one is behind her head)

More Mallards

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

The growth of a fuzzy duck

Some sort of domestic/wild Mallard hybrid, apparently the youngest of several like it in the park, photographed on weekly birdbox-inspecting trips:

April 7th


April 14th:



April 21:

April 28:

May 5:


May 19th (didn't see it the previous week):


Note the development of green iridescence on the bird's head in later images.