Small delights

It's fun watching the cold weather regulars, small, easy to miss.

Heard the Carolina wren singing before spotting the bug eater up a tree.

Fox sparrow. Gorgeous.

Ginko fruit before they turn stinky

Nice decor for the wasps' nest

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Being thankful

Introspective:   I'm thankful to be able to meet such beautiful birds, to have such wonderful friends, to have good health, to have cameras I enjoy,  to have a caring family..... life is good.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from me and the barn owl.

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And in the park...

Junco finding seeds

                                                                    Flicker dining on berries

                                                                        Flock of cedar waxwings

Surprise male towhee

Not a surprise, hermit thrush

But sometimes horror happens... slow bird on ground, taken by raptor, probably a hawk. Feathers plucked, but hawk probably scared away before dining.  RIP Hermie.

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And screech in Central Park

Should have thought to incorporate these into previous blog. Screech owls in Central Park, 2005 and 2004.
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The screech owl

A Horvath Rescue, now educational, about 11" of adorable owl and when it wants food it SCREECHES.

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Nature HMO

On Saturday the Horvaths did a nature session up at Ft. Tryon Park.  Leslie Day, author of book-to-come, and I  went over to see what was going on. We walked by the great cliffs to get to the playground.  There are garnets in the rocks, honest-to-God garnets.

I will be posting images for several days. This is the rescued Eurasian eagle owl. It called before I saw it. It has a mellow, baritone-quality hoot. It was severely hurt and would  not have survived in the wild. This is now educational bird.  If only humans could be treated with such respect, so gently.  If humans need care badly they get ignored.  There were at least 25 little children at this gathering, none over 8 years old, most in the three-to-six range.  They were enthralled.  They'll never forget what they saw, sometimes felt (gently), looked at one-to-one.  The smile hasn't left my face.  The meeting room was not well lit. The beauty of the birds took my breath away. These were shot at ISO 1600.

Best group image I've taken in a while.  Owl is bigger than infant.

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Red, Blue and Orange