A long-time blog reader sent in a great shot for Halloween. Spooooky.
Ghostly ghouls roam the gardens on Halloween
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While I don't spend my days thinking about it, one of the photos I have always wanted to capture is a woodpecker in action. Not too easy to do, as the bird has to be at just the right angle and lighting right and all that. I am still looking to get this right at some point, but got close recently with a downy woodpecker.  Downy woodpecker hammering Close, but not really great, so I will keep looking for this shot. But here is a photo of a downy not moving at 20 pecks per second.  Downy woodpecker at Lake Accotink Park in northern Virginia The second photo makes it obvious why I don't like the first photo.
The bald eagle, symbol of America.  Adult bald eagle A couple of butterflies are named after design elements on their underwings that look like punctuation marks. The question mark, comma, and green comma, hoary comma and gray comma are the ones I know. Here is a Green Comma, alternately called the Faunus Anglewing.  Green comma (Polygonia faunus) showing off the green fringes along its body This photo is from a very elaborate theatrical production for the halftime show at George Marshall High School's homecoming football game (Marshall won big) but is quite the striking photo taken out of context.  Halftime show at George Marshall High School The rising bed scene was really cool.  Rising bed was a neat trick The performers were very, very good  The cheerleaders got some serious altitude.  Flying high And the photographer. Was there really a football game?  The lonely job of the photographer Okay, yes there was a football game, I just rarely shoot sport photos  No. 1 catches this one for a touchdown  A busted play bomb for a long touchdown And since this is a wildlife blog...  Fun socks  Eastern gray squirrel peering out of a hole in a tree W & OD rails to trails is full of edge-species birds  Northern cardinal, not that there is a southern cardinal, in the brush Okay, this really isn't fair because so few field marks are visible, but give it a try before reading below the photo.  A nice little bird So, I am guessing that figuring out that it is a flycatcher isn't too hard. But did you correctly guess willow flycatcher? Well, even the field guide suggests that you can not tell a willow from an alder flycatcher without habitat or a call, but did you see that it is sitting in a cherry tree, not a wetland species? The call is a distinctive fitz-bew, which was heard but not exactly available here.
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