Nature Photos

[David1701]

I went for a walk earlier today. We passed an old farmhouse, where a sheep and a donkey often stay (they've been friends for years). I'll make three posts with a picture of the sheep, the donkey and the farmhouse, in grainy monochrome, which seem to fit because all three are old.

The Sheep

 

[David1701]

The Donkey

 

[David1701]

The Old Farmhouse

 

[David1701]

A redshank searching for food in the harbour.

 

[David1701]

Low Winter sun and snow on the island.

 

[David1701]

From a walk earlier today (it was very cold!): the robin has spotted me.

 

[Arial]

From a walk earlier today (it was very cold!): the robin has spotted me.

View attachment 704

Scottish robins do not look like US robins. Super photo.

 

[David1701]

Scottish robins do not look like US robins. Super photo.

Yes, ours look shorter (and rounder, especially in Winter), and with different colouration.

Thanks. It was one of the few shots of the robin without motion blur. It was at extreme zoom, in the wind and I found it hard to keep still enough.

Most of the birds I see are quite commonplace (sparrows, starlings, seagulls, crows and blackbirds), so I prayed this morning to see something more interesting, e.g. a chaffinch. What came to sit on the tree outside my window, this afternoon? A chaffinch! (God answers even unimportant prayers like that.) Here it is (the white streaks are snow falling).

 

[David1701]

The Lord did it again! I asked to be able to photograph a redwing (I've not managed to get a picture of one before) yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon, when out for a walk, I saw one and took many photos, most of which I've deleted.

 

[Arial]

The Lord did it again! I asked to be able to photograph a redwing (I've not managed to get a picture of one before) yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon, when out for a walk, I saw one and took many photos, most of which I've deleted.

View attachment 709

The only birds we have in the city in Kansas are robins, cardinals, blue jays, crows, grackles, doves, sparrows, wrens----that I see or hear anyway---occasionally a goldfinch. Now when I lived in the country the varieties greatly increased, including the ones I most miss hearing call into the summer heat. Meadowlarks, killdees, quail, or chorus mimicry from the top of the silo, the mockingbird, red wing blackbirds amont the cattails. I did have an owl swoop in and perch at the top of my giant hackberry early one morning. With your equipment you could have zoomed it an captured a magnificent photo. Boaz, my dog, did not like his intrusion!

 

[David1701]

The only birds we have in the city in Kansas are robins, cardinals, blue jays, crows, grackles, doves, sparrows, wrens----that I see or hear anyway---occasionally a goldfinch. Now when I lived in the country the varieties greatly increased, including the ones I most miss hearing call into the summer heat. Meadowlarks, killdees, quail, or chorus mimicry from the top of the silo, the mockingbird, red wing blackbirds amont the cattails. I did have an owl swoop in and perch at the top of my giant hackberry early one morning. With your equipment you could have zoomed it an captured a magnificent photo. Boaz, my dog, did not like his intrusion!

Were you on a farm? Your description makes it sound very appealing. Summer here gets to the giddy heights of pleasantly warm, if it isn't raining.

I haven't even heard of a few of the birds you mention (grackles, killdees and red wing blackbirds)! I'm afraid that the only quails we have here are in the meat dept. (I've never eaten one though).

Yes, I would love to get a shot of an owl.

The redwing was really quite close to the path. It was very cold and it was grubbing about in the earth, probably looking for insects. It would almost certainly have flown off, if it had not been desperate to find food.

 

[Arial]

Were you on a farm? Your description makes it sound very appealing. Summer here gets to the giddy heights of pleasantly warm, if it isn't raining.

I haven't even heard of a few of the birds you mention (grackles, killdees and red wing blackbirds)! I'm afraid that the only quails we have here are in the meat dept. (I've never eaten one though).

Yes, I would love to get a shot of an owl.

The redwing was really quite close to the path. It was very cold and it was grubbing about in the earth, probably looking for insects. It would almost certainly have flown off, if it had not been desperate to find food.

I was on a farm a great deal of my life. Grew up on one, ages 8-15 and my maternal grandfather had a farm in western Kansas we visited often. Spent 13 years in the California desert as an adult then returned to Kansas and was on farms, stints on farms in Minnesota and Iowa, then returned again but circumstances and age made the city the necessary and wise choice.

Killdees hang out around ponds, scurry along the ground like road runners, and lay their nests on the ground, though they can fly, and I cannot begin to describe what they sound like but it is like calling and says summer. Or any of the other birds I mentioned, They are pasture and meadow and country birds. Summers here are hot, often dry, but interspersed with glorious booming thunderstorms, and right now I long for those days. (The low temperature last night was 4 degrees F, high today 20. After that we will warm into the 40's.) I have eaten quail, though not often. Their common name is bob-white because that is what they say. "Bob white, bob white, bob white."

 

[David1701]

I was on a farm a great deal of my life. Grew up on one, ages 8-15 and my maternal grandfather had a farm in western Kansas we visited often. Spent 13 years in the California desert as an adult then returned to Kansas and was on farms, stints on farms in Minnesota and Iowa, then returned again but circumstances and age made the city the necessary and wise choice.

Killdees hang out around ponds, scurry along the ground like road runners, and lay their nests on the ground, though they can fly, and I cannot begin to describe what they sound like but it is like calling and says summer. Or any of the other birds I mentioned, They are pasture and meadow and country birds. Summers here are hot, often dry, but interspersed with glorious booming thunderstorms, and right now I long for those days. (The low temperature last night was 4 degrees F, high today 20. After that we will warm into the 40's.) I have eaten quail, though not often. Their common name is bob-white because that is what they say. "Bob white, bob white, bob white."

Thanks for the info..

I'm wishing for Summer as well.

We had a high of about about 37F today, but it's a wet, windy cold, which makes it feel worse.

 

[David1701]

Swans flying in formation.

 

[Carbon]

Swans flying in formation.

View attachment 740

Wow

 

[David1701]

I have my eye on you! (from a walk, yesterday)

 

[Ladodgers6]

Swans flying in formation.

View attachment 740

Nice picture David!

 

[David1701]

A flying fulmar - from a walk by the sea, on Thurs..

 

[Arch Stanton]

The Old FarmhouseView attachment 692

Reminds me of Led Zeppelin's Bron-Yr-Aur cottage!

 

[David1701]

Reminds me of Led Zeppelin's Bron-Yr-Aur cottage!

I've always avoided Led Zeppelin like the plague.