Wednesday, July 15

Monday's Bird Mania, Part 1

Mon. I took a drive on county roads E of the Hills, ending up a bit lost out in farmland, w/ a keen eye on the gas gauge, but I love it out there and I found many, many birds. I'll share more tomorrow. I came across a few ponds, incl. a real large one that looked like a wetlands spot. I'll definitely be going back out there more. This is a brown-headed cowbird.



Aha! I didn't think I'd be able to ID this bird, but I found it; it's a dickcissel. (I have a field guide on its way; meantime, I have to click on links for photos of random birds, by their name)...Never heard of it, and it's a very common bird. I thought I'd posted this one before, but apparently not.


Oh yum, this lark bunting has a fat green catepillar...







The ruddy duck is hard to miss...or at least the beak is! It's as bright blue as it appears in this photo. This guy was doing a lot of displaying, at the large pond I came across.


This was the 2nd yellow-headed blackbird I saw Mon., in the marsh grass out in the large pond. Looks like a twig in its beak, if not a large bug. I posted the photo of the 1st one I saw, in the sidebar.

5 comments:

  1. You had quite a day!
    For really good photo id help, Terry Sohl, photog extrordinaire, has a site you might like to look at.
    He lives in Brandon (near Sioux Falls) and keeps
    www.sdakotabirds.com. You'll love his photographs and if you click on the species bar right at the top of the site, there are lots of really helpful field ids. He also has free to print out calendar you might like.

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  2. A Dickcissel!!
    I wonder who named that! I would have called it a chestnut winged bunting. Lovely looking bird all the same though. Look forward to part 2.

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  3. Hi J'Ellen,
    The purple flower on my blog over the past couple of posts is a Buddleia

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  4. Nice bird paradise...just down the road!! :)

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  5. I needed to play catch up with your posts..some days I feel like the white rabbit..I'm late, I'm late...getting to my computer to read blogs!! ahhh. the troubles of a retired person...sorry...of subject here, I just love your posts. Your photos are always stunning with such a variety of shots,,from action to really nice stills! I love the woodpecker in flight, oh the ruddy duck and a dickcissel..i will never see one of them..how cool is he?? Nice captures.. on to part two and three!!

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