Both male and female crowned woodnymphs were around this afternoon. I like this photo of the male but would like to get an image from straight on showing the bright green bib. Gorgeous birds. The female is strikingly different looking. This is called sexual dimorphism and is really common with birds.
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This is a super pretty hummingbird and can be seen every day by the feeders at the Program House. But the "white-necked" part is not always obvious. Don McFarlane asked me yesterday what kind of hummingbird is that, and I told him. His comment was that the bird appears to have white in many places but the neck is decidedly not one of them. But once you get a couple looks at it the white is visible on the nape of the neck.
So this is not a lesson on how to take photos of hummingbirds, but a shout out to anyone who can take great photos of these birds. It's tough! I am learning but still not getting the photo quality I need.
Here is an image I took today, which is barely passable at best. I'll figure it out but am running out of days left to get the couple species that come in to the feeders here. I think this is a crowned woodnymph but I was twiddling with the camera and not paying attention to the bird species. This ringed kingfisher was seen along the Rio Cacao. It is the largest of the kingfishers here and not super common. There was also one of the small green kingfishers with it but it bugged off into the forest before I could get much of a look at it.
These very attractive large birds come by when the trees are fruiting at the FCRE, and right now we've been seeing them every day.
The ovenbird is a warbler that looks a whole lot like a thrush. You have to keep a sharp eye out to see them, but they have a loud unmistakable call of "teacher teacher teacher".
This is a fairly average photo of an American robin, but when I looked at it pretty much every field mark on the bird was visible (except for the bits at the outer tips of the tail) so it makes a nice ID photo. Not that there are hordes of folks that can't ID a robin, but...
Nice little birds that can't eat enough of the omnipresent gnats in northern Virginia.
Canada geese breed very early in the year and the little fluffball goslings are already out and about. So cute.
I took a Canon 80D camera out for a first run today at Lake Fairfax. Really wasn't out early enough for the warblers and suchlike, but I saw some good birds and on the way out stopped at the lake itself to see what was happening. Well, right by the boardwalk I spotted this green heron that was working on swallowing a pretty darn big green sunfish. Don't worry, it got it down just fine.
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Keith Christenson Wildlife Biologist Archives
September 2021
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