Bird Watching!

In case you have never heard a Cuckoo, and not the clock on the wall. They are starting to show up this year already. One can be up in a tree for hours giving their call non-stop. It can get to you. The females lay their egg in another species nest, and after it hatches it will kick out any other eggs or baby birds. I think it's parasitic called, or something. Funny to see adult birds feeding a young one twice their size or more.

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Here's some shots from yesterday..a couple are of my neighbor's crimson king maple just leafing out as it flowers. My other neighbor has a common norway. This tree and another common norway grew as seeds from the older tree, I think. Odd that the smallest one is the nice colored tree. The rest are from the Lake Wa Ship Canal locks, specifically Commodore Park, which I've been visiting regularly for a few years now. For being right in town, the numbers and variety of wildlife to view and photograph is outstanding. There's also viewing windows for when the salmon run. Spotted a harbor seal yesterday...only the head..looked rather large, but I don't think it was a sea lion. Those guys hang out at the entrance to the canal by Shilshole and all the way to the locks, and eat way too many salmon! As do the cormorants.

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I had a pheasant at the mill a couple of years ago. I had no idea what was making the racket until I stalked him in the log piles.:lol: I got about ten feet from him a couple of times. They are a lot bigger than I thought they were.

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We use to have pheasants here in abundance. Beautiful to see and good hunting/eating. Very few around now. We do have turkeys now.

We had a pair of flickers around last weekend. They seem to just stop on their way through. The barn swallows are back. I love to see them return and really hate to see they are gone at the end of August.

I was thinking I have seen a rose breasted grosbeak and a hawk owl only once. Barn owl a few times. Piliated wood peckers are quite common now. We had a mountain bluebird around 2 summers. They have been spotted very few times in NY state.

I used to love seeing baltimore orioles. They are pretty to look at but their songs become tiring to me.
 
Brood parasite btw is the term for what cuckoos do. Clever buggers. Hadn't realised how many sorts there were till I did some googling.
 
Steve, koels are pretty common in Hong Kong. I've got at least one that hangs out around my window. Those birds don't seem to keep regular hours at all.

Great pictures Roger, keep em coming.
 
...live on Mt top , have some screen issues (and housekeeping) leaving doors wide open during the day with a Humminbird and seed feeder I have had to catch and release several species. Robins a few Times Chickadees too, Blue Jay was the biggest pain in the Ass. The most compelling are The Hummingbirds they often fly right through the house which is pretty cool... about a dozen times they head up into the ceiling and get hopelessly caught sometimes in cobwebs up there. I get the ladder and have a liitle system to take them down. Actually handling birds is cool...
 
red breasted sapsucker
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Red breasted nuthatch
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Chestnut backed chickadee
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Geez, I am 2000 miles away, watching an eagle in a nest high up a tree, feeding two chicks. Just WOW.
 
Pretty amazing Cory, sounds like there's still a lot of mystery in it all. How do birds navigate across the Gulf of Mexico? There are no landmarks out there except boats that won't be there next year, not a lot of scent either. I for one hope they never figure it out completely, I like a little mystique in the world. Other animals and insects make great migrations as well, I see butterflies many miles offshore, headed for Mexico. How about that for stamina? Not any place to land and keep your feet dry out there.
 
Yes indeed, real life is extremely amazing.
 
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