Creatures

Bald Eagles On Their Nest

Cathy and I went for a walk late this morning (and into the early afternoon) and really enjoyed the warmer weather. It was quite pleasant out, although very humid. The ground was pretty muddy and I admit I wore the wrong shoes for a walk in the woods. Early on we saw a small herd of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and I got a few pictures of them.

A little later Cathy said she had heard that there was an eagle nest nearby so we walked to the lake and found it. At first we could see the nest but not any birds. After a while, however, they stood up and we could see both adult bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).

Bald Eagle in Flight

at about 150 yards, even with my 70-300mm zoom lens all the way out, I had to crop these to help you see the birds. In consequence, the pictures are fairly grainy (or more precisely noisy). But they are plenty clear enough to be able to identify the eagles. Naturally we were fairly excited. When one of the two birds took off, I was able to get a few pictures of it flying, although I had to pan across some intervening trees, which made it a bit harder. The bird is moving along the opposite shore, which angled toward us slightly, so he was not quite so far away now.

Bald Eagle

By the time the eagle landed it was just over 100 yards away. That’s still a long way for a 300mm lens, but the third picture here, of the adult bald eagle on a branch, is pretty nice, I think. I suppose we could have hoped for more, like a brilliant blue sky in the background, but we actually liked seeing the mist on the water, caused by the humid air condensing over the still frozen lake. It was quite beautiful. So, I was especially blessed today, to see both a red fox in our yard and two nesting bald eagles.

Note: This post was originally posted with the date set to February 22. These photos were taken on Sunday the 21st.

Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)

I mentioned a few days ago that we saw the fox in our yard again. Well, she was back this morning and I was able to get a few pictures of her before she wandered off. The pictures were taken through two panes of glass (regular window and storm window) so it’s a bit fuzzy but it isn’t terrible. Cathy saw a mangy fox in our yard a few years ago but this fox looks quite healthy, which is encouraging. Except for the big snow and a few cool days, it has been a reasonably mild winter so far, which I suppose makes life a little easier on the foxes and other woodland creatures.

Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus)

Cathy and I were at her mom’s house today, doing various things around the house and in the yard. One thing was to cut up a largish branch that had come down in the minor snow storm we had on Monday. While I was out in the yard, I heard a hawk cry as it circled overhead.

When it landed in a tree in the back yard, I hurried to the car, put my 70-300mm zoom lens on my camera and managed to get five images before it took off again. The full frame images were horizontally oriented and this image is cropped from that, so it’s considerably less than the full frame, which accounts for softness of the image.

Brother George confirmed my identification of this as a sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus) and went on to say that it was a first-year juvenile. For those of you who make comments to me about my labeling of plants and animals, I want you to know that in general I get expert advice before labeling any bird picture (with a few easy exceptions). In the past that often meant dad and Albert. Now that all falls to George.

Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)

We continue to have a wide variety of birds (and small mammals) at our birdbath. They are also being drawn by the seed that we put out. Early this afternoon I photographed a white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis), an American robin (Turdus migratorius), a few house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus), an eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus), mourning doves (Zenaida macroura), and two northern flickers (Colaptes auratus). Present in the yard but not photographed were at least three blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata), a lot of dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis), and the ubiquitous house sparrow (Passer domesticus). I decided to post this picture of a flicker, because they are the species I see at the bird bath the least often.

Female Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

Last week I posted a picture of a junco in this same spot. Before that I posted a picture of a song sparrow on the bird bath, which is just out of this picture to the left. As I mentioned when I posted the junco picture, I put some leftover seed out on the patio and that’s been attracting the birds and squirrels. This morning, in addition to the juncos and sparrows (both song and house), there were cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, and in the tree just into the yard, a downy woodpecker. Quite a little circus. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the more brightly colored male cardinal, but this is a pretty little thing, too.

Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)

We had some extra bird seed for Solomon that was starting to go bad. I ordered another bag and when it arrived, I put the old seed out back for whatever birds and squirrels wanted to eat it. Mostly the squirrels came but this morning there were a few dark-eyed juncos on the patio. They are cute little birds and quite common here this time of year. The large power cord behind the bird in this picture is the power to the bird bath de-icer.

D’Argo

We had one of our family birthday evenings today and it was very good to see everyone, have dinner, and then just hang out together. There were two dogs there, D’Argo and Bean. Luna didn’t come because she’d have had the other two for dinner, but these two get along well enough. I took a few pictures of everyone, as I usually do, but I thought I’d post this one of D’Argo, Steve and Maya’s corgi.

He’s been featured here before, back on September 01, 2013. This one was taken with the camera held down at my side while sitting on a chair, but it turned out reasonably well.

Wasp Nest

I walked over to the next building early this afternoon for a meeting that turned out to have been cancelled. That’s life. It did give me a chance to be outside, though, and that’s usually not a bad thing. It was quite chilly today with a fairly strong wind coming out of the northwest. As I walked back to my building, though, I noticed this wasp nest up in a tree. It’s coming apart, as you can see, but still quite interesting.

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

I had occasion to walk over to the other building about midday today. On the way back to my office I noticed a heron down in the stream below the path. I had my camera bag with me so I was able to get some pictures. I set my bag down, switched to my longer lens and headed into the woods below the path. As I was taking them I heard an exasperated voice from the path, which said, “where in the world is your jacket?” It was a bit cool out today and if I had known I’d be stopping to take pictures I would have preferred to have a sweater on, or at least gloves, but I survived. I think this picture was worth it.

Green and Gold Cory Cat (Corydoras melanotaenia)

Last week I posted a picture of one of the new fish I got for a tank that’s in our breakfast room. That was a red dwarf gourami (Trichogaster lalius). Today’s picture is another fish, bought at the same time and for the same tank. This is one of three green and gold corydoras catfish (Corydoras melanotaenia) that I bought. The cory cats, as they are called, are in the Corydoradinae subfamily, the armored catfish, and are native to South America. They quickly ate the algae that had accumulated in the tank as I was getting it ready for the fish. Now I feed them algae wafers. They are peaceful little things and a bit shy, but a nice addition to the tank.

Red Dwarf Gourami (Trichogaster lalius)

I got a few new fish this week, including this red dwarf gourami (Trichogaster lalius). The dwarf gourami is native to Pakistan, India and Bangladesh but are quite common aquarium fish. I’m pretty sure I remember dad saying that he bred them, back in the day. In addition to this fish (actually, I got two of them), I have three green and gold cory cats (Corydoras melanotaenia), white fin rosy tetras (Hyphessobrycon rosaceus), brilliant rasboras (Rasbora einthovenii), and a Koi Angel (Pterophyllum scalare).

Aphids (Family Aphididae)

Today we get a photo of some of our less desirable creature friends. These things suck. I mean, literally, they suck the juice out of plant stems, sometimes causing serious damage to the plant. In this case, there are few enough of them and it’s late enough in the year that they are not going to cause serious problems for this rose. It’s a large and very robust rose that was nearly killed by the last two winters, which were very hard on roses generally. But it’s coming back and unless this winter is equally bad, should be in reasonable shape by the end of next year. It is growing on a trellis on the south end of the house and the rose can cover the entire thing (which is pretty substantial).

Phyciodes tharos (Pearl Crescent)

I went out into the back yard again after work today and at first was thinking I wouldn’t see anything interesting to photograph. Then I noticed this little pearl crescent butterfly sitting on the seed head of a black-eyed Susan under our dining room window. He allowed me to get quite close and I took a lot of pictures but only a few where his wings were open. He would open his wings but as soon as my camera got very close, they would close up again. This is one of only three that I got showing the tops of his wings.

Vulpes vulpes (Red Fox)

I happened to walk into the kitchen late this morning and look out the back door. Right in front of me, smack dab in the middle of the yard, was this young fox. I don’t know that it’s young, actually, but it was definitely smaller than the two we had in the yard February, March, and June of 2014. Mostly it was just sitting there scratching itself. Twice it stopped and looked right at me and both times I felt like it was saying, are you going to chase me off, or not? Both times it decided I was not and went back to scratching. Even in this picture, you can see its hind leg is slightly raised, about to start up again.

Aeshna umbrosa (Shadow Darner)

I had just returned from the grocery store and Cathy was in the front yard weeding. She called in to say that there was a largish dragonfly on the Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota) by the driveway. I grabbed my camera, slapped on the macro lens and was able to get a half dozen photographs before he flew away. This is a male shadow darner (Aeshna umbrosa), identified by my sister-in-law with that confirmed later by bugguide.net.

Grasshopper, Family Acrididae

I went out into the empty lot next to my building today. It’s getting fairly deeply overgrown and it’s harder to make my way through it. I did find a few pathways, probably made by deer, and that helped a bit. I came across this little grasshopper and was able to get close enough for a few photographs. I cannot say more than that I believe it is in family Acrididae. That narrows it down to about 620 species in North America (and 8,000 worldwide) and I’m not even 100% sure of that. So, we’ll just call it a grasshopper, shall we?

Bombus impatiens (Common Eastern Bumblebee)

I took pictures today of a bumble bee, a carpenter bee, and a spider. I’ve posted pictures of all three this summer, so whatever I post, it’s going to be a repeat. While some like my spider pictures, they tend to be a little less popular for some reason, so I decided to go with the bumble bee. One of the characteristics that allows you to distinguish the bumble bee from the carpenter bee is the presence or absence of hairs on the abdomen. You can see them fairly clearly in this picture. A bald or nearly bald abdomen (the rear-most section of an insect—head, thorax, and abdomen) mean carpenter bee. Harry means bumble bee. They are actually quite different in terms of their eyes, as well, and the male carpenter bee has a big white patch on his face.

Philoscia muscorum (Common Striped Woodlouse)

As a kid we knew anything that looked at all like one of these as roly-poly bugs or potato bugs. The more proper roly-poly, the pillbugs in family Armadillidiidae, are also known colloquially as armadillo bugs. They are mostly not native to North America but are fairly common, now. This is a common striped woodlouse, Philoscia muscorum, a genus and species also introduced from Europe. I was actually on the ground photographing a persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) that had fallen from a tree, when this little fellow started crawling up onto the fruit. Compared to other woodlice, this is a speedy little thing and I kept having to turn him around so he wouldn’t get away. I didn’t bother him for long, though, and he went on his merry way.