Birds

Baby House Finches

We have a breezeway between the house and garage. In this breezeway we have hanging baskets of various plants to give a little color to the large void between the two structures. In this particular hanging basket is a Geranium and under this Geranium, in the basket, is a House Finch nest. This is the second batch of young ones this year from the same two parent birds. Unfortunately, the first batch of babies were attacked by a Blue Jay and I could only save two of them. I don’t know the behavioural patterns of Blue Jays but I understand this is what they do during nesting season.

This batch of babies is six strong with only four showing in the image. The other two are buried under the pile of baby birds. So far, no Blue Jays around to disrupt the family. Boy, they sure look hungry don’t they…

As of today, June 23rd, the six babies are doing quite well and should be fledgling within the new week.

Update: July 3rd, all six babies have finally fledged. We now have a new nest, in another hanging basket, with three eggs in it.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

Canon EOS 1D Mark III

Canon EF 100mm f2.8 Macro

ISO 1600, 1/60 sec at f/32

Canon 580EX flash with diffuser

admin :: Jul.04.2012 :: Birds, Wildlife :: No Comments »

Sandhill Cranes Seeking The Mornings Warmth

This image shows a group of Sandhill Cranes walking towards the new days sun to warm themselves in the Cosumnes River Preserve in the central valley of California. The first two have already walked into the sun’s rays while the second is just about there, as his coloration is about to change from the coolness of dawn to the warm tones of sunrise. You can see the frost on the foreground vegetation letting you know that it is cold. The temperature was about 34F (1.11C) and, as you can see, didn’t affect the ducks feeding around the cranes. When all the cranes got into the warmth of the sun, they milled around for about 15 minutes before flying off to feed.

These Sandhill Cranes were right across the road from the visitors center, which made things extremely easy lugging our equipment across the road in the early morning cold temperatures. The cranes fly off to flooded field corn fields, rice fields, and plowed fields to feed during the day then fly back and, basically, sleep standing in water for protection from predators during the night.

Some of these birds have come down from Homer, Alaska to California’s central valley wintering grounds, where this preserve is. They will return to Alaska mid to late February. To see these great birds, December and January are the best times before they head back north.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

Canon 1D Mark III

Canon EF 70-300mm f4.5-5.6L at 300mm

ISO 800, 1/400 sec at f/11

admin :: Dec.10.2011 :: Birds, Wildlife :: No Comments »

Western Sandpiper Preening and Dunking

While photographing out in the Palo Alto baylands at sunrise, I came across these little Sandpipers getting ready for the days activities. They were preening their feathers after a nights rest with one taking a quick bath. The little birds will be leaving soon to continue their migration south. Nice to have an opportunity to see and photograph these little Western Sandpipers.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

Canon EOS 1d Mark III

Canon EF 70-300mm f4-5.6L at 300mm

ISO 400, 1/500 sec at f/11

admin :: Oct.15.2011 :: Birds, Wildlife :: No Comments »

Black-necked Stilt and Baby

The little chick shown with a parent on watch duty, is one of four that hatched in May. Three of the four chicks survived, so it has been a good year for both Black-necked Stilts and Avocets rearing their young in the Baylands Wildlife Refuge (California). All babies are now almost as big as the parents, on their own, and waiting for their turn to fly south for the winter, which might be earlier this year.

Here is a description from Wikipedia: Adults have long pink legs and a long thin black bill. They are white below and have black wings and backs. The tail is white with some grey banding. A continuous area of black extends from the back along the hind neck to the head. There, it forms a cap covering the entire head from the top to just below eye-level, with the exception of the areas surrounding the bill and a small white spot above the eye. Males have a greenish gloss to the back and wings, particularly in the breeding season. This is less pronounced or absent in females, which have a brown tinge to these areas instead. Otherwise, the sexes look alike.

Downy young are light olive brown with lengthwise rows of black speckles (larger on the back) on the upper parts – essentially where adults are black – and dull white elsewhere, with some dark barring on the flanks.

Where their ranges meet in central Brazil, the Black-necked and White-backed stilts integrate. Such individuals often have some white or grey on top of the head and a white or grey collar separating the black of the hind neck from that of the upper back.

The Black-necked Stilt is distinguished from non-breeding vagrants of the Old World Black-winged Stilt by the white spot above the eye. Vagrants of the northern American form in turn is hard to tell apart from the resident Hawaiian Stilt, in which only the eye-spot is markedly smaller. But though many stilt populations are long-distance migrants and during their movements can be found hundreds of miles offshore, actual trans-oceanic vagrants are nonetheless a rare occurrence.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

Canon EOS 1D Mark III

Fotodiox Pro mamiya 645 to Canon lens adapter

Len: Mamiya-Sekor C 500mm f/5.6

M45 Rokunar 2x Tele-converter

ISO 200, 1/60 sec at f/11

admin :: Aug.15.2011 :: Birds, Wildlife :: No Comments »

Can You See Me – American Avocet Chick

The American Avocet and Black-Neck Stilt chicks are starting to show up around the tidal ponds of the south San Francisco bay area. Hatching about the size of a chicken chick they instantly blend into the surrounding area. There seems to be two chicks to a pair of American Avocets. I also saw another nest with two eggs, so, I am not sure if these birds have more than two chicks per brood. Since the chicks feed on their own the female American Avocet tucks the newly hatch chicks under her wing and carries them to a shallow part of the pond so the chicks can feed. The chicks instinctively know what to do. They also know what to do when there is an alarm sounded by the parents. I noticed that whenever a Seagull, Raven, or bird of prey flies over, all the American Avocets and Black-Neck Stilts sound the alarm and take off after the intruding predator while the chicks go scurrying off hiding in the pickleweed. After the parents return the chicks come out from there hiding place and begin feeding again. As you can see the chicks blend in quite well with the surrounding area.

For you technical folks: This image was taken with my Canon 1D Mark III mated to my Mamiya-Sekor 500mm lens with a 2x tele-extender for a total of 1000mm (1300mm Canon 1D crop factor). No image cropping done, just a slight enhancement in post in Lightroom 3.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy

Canon EOS 1D Mark III

Fotodiox Pro mamiya 645 to Canon lens adapter

Len: Mamiya-Sekor C 500mm f/5.6

M45 Rokunar 2x Tele-converter

ISO 800, 1/250 sec at f/11