The berry tree

I went strolling with another birder during the morning. We went to the stream. Nothing. we stopped in the field. Nothing. We walked around pine trees. Nothing. We checked the huge berry trees. Nothing. We both commented on all the nothing. Our last stop was at Turtle Pond. By the entrance to the little pier there is a small berry tree and that's where all the action was. Cedar waxwings, downy woodpecker, gorgeous yellow belly sapsucker, finch, cardinal. There had to have been something in those berries to make them special. Peak of ripeness? The waxwings eat the berries whole. The finch, cardinal and sapsucker eat the berries bit by bit. The sapsucker was the most fascinating, took berry, stashed same in a crevice in tree and ate daintily, bit by bit. And then the squirrel arrived. Nothing dainty there. Berries by-the-clump.

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Astonishing

This morning the owl was beautifully hidden in the ginko tree. Nothing will disturb this mighty beauty as it rests during the day. Fluff and wing seen through one tiny opening. Sometime in the late afternoon it awoke and flew to another tree in preparation for flyout and the night food hunt .

What isn't obvious in the open-tree images is that it's dark. I kicked the camera up to its highest ISO, then had to deal with grainy texture (digital noise), but a picture is better than no picture. My naked eyes couldn't see the details that the camera captured. I could probably have stood on the rocks, but ran the risk of falling down the ravine. I didn't realize that I got the owl in flight. It flew to another tree. To my eyes it was a dark bump in the dark, really not photograph-worthy, black in black. I could see its body making movement as if it was bringing up a pellet. But dark is dark. Time to go home. The sunset images are soft, but you get the idea. This was thrilling for everyone who saw the fly-out.

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Nothing going on?

There's always something going on even though yesterday was a dreary day, grey, drizzly and then rain. An ISO 2000 kind of day. The owl was a brown blob on a brown blob next to the brown bark. Cozy. It stirred awake when a military helicopter flew overhead. For children, there's nothing better than those leaves. The Parks Department has staff in the park raking leaves. Seems like a futile effort to me.

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Climb every mountain

This was a literal rock-climb endeavor for best view. You could get killed birding. Ah, the lure of the owl hidden up in the tree best seen from the rocks. One mis-step and it's a bone-breaking plunge. Would I do this again? Sure! (I think the yellow leaf was its sleep-mask.)

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Owl in the sun

There will be more images from Sunday, but yesterday's owl adventure gets the attention this morning. This was the first time I'd seen the owl in sun with real blue sky behind it. I even got confused. What's that blue stuff? Digital noise? No! Real sky for a change. It's still difficult to capture with the camera because of the way the owl is hidden.

I stayed until about 1pm, came back here to do some work, returned to the Rambles at 3pm and by that time the owl had relocated to an even harder shoot-spot. While searching for the owl I spotted the gorgeous fox sparrow, seed-eating, very elusive.

The last two images were shot when it was getting very dark at ISO 6400. We saw the owl bring up a pellet, but could not find the pellet, probably lost in amongst the leaves on the ground. The camera was seeing details that my eyes could not see. The sky was already growing dark. To my naked eyes all I saw was a black form. A small group of birders gathered and waited. "It's going to go soon". "Oh, look, it's moving". And then it was gone, 5pm, silent departure. And the birders departed too, equally silently.

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Stunning Sunday- Part 3

Here we go again, sweet bluebird. I'm enchanted. No doubt about it. I have no idea how long the bluebirds will remain in town. Maybe their visit is connected to available food. This time the bluebird sang, a simple couple of notes, melodic. We had quality time together.

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Stunning Sunday- Part 2

Hugely fascinating observations. Yes, more bluebirds. Sorry to be boring, but it's my blog. And I adore bluebirds. They're an instant smile.

The bluebirds rest on a limb and search the ground from this vantage point. They see food, swoop down, grab and return to a limb. It may be a 1/2 second stop or it may be a couple of seconds on the ground. I've seen them return with big worms and white grub worms. The swoop and grab can be as fast as what the phoebe does, fly out, fly back with food. Fast as a blink.

One of yesterday's observations was amazing. The bluebird flew down and pecked at an acorn. There was a grub worm in the acorn. How did it know this? What was the clue? Movement of the acorn? Certainly a bluebird doesn't have x-ray vision, but there it was, happening at my feet. Now the earlier frame of bluebird and acorn makes sense and maybe that's why they like this particular field, loads of acorns on the ground.

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