Yesterday afternoon I was at my local pond where I photographed not one but two Pied-billed Grebes in flight. This is rarely seen and rarely photographed.
I spent forty-one minutes observing and photographing this Peregrine Falcon yesterday while it rested, preened and stretched right next to the Great Salt Lake.
My best bird of the day was a juvenile Rough-legged Hawk standing on a jackrabbit in the snow that I spotted next to the road.
This Brewer's Blackbird male was with several other males on some weathered wooden pallets next to the road when he shook and fluffed up his feathers.
I'm dreaming of seeing Greater Sage-Grouse, Sandhill Cranes and White-tailed Prairie Dogs as spring warms up the sagebrush steppe.
Because they are very common in most North America Canada Geese are often overlooked as subjects by some bird photographers.
I have mentioned before how one good bird can make a day and yesterday that bird was a male American Kestrel resting and preening at Farmington Bay WMA.
Mallards form pairs in the fall and courtship can seen during the winter and seeing them mating in February isn't all that unusual.
The surprise birds of the day were Gray Partridges in an area where I hadn't seen them before and they were feeding close to the edge of the road.
When I photographed this Rough-legged Hawk on a snow and lichen covered rock the light was decent and brought out the colors of the hawk and the orange lichen covering the rocky outcropping it was perched on.
American Coots are quarrelsome birds and they are quick to give chase whether it is over food or territory and they will fight, sometimes even to death, for both.
When I saw this Pied-billed Grebe bathing at Farmington Bay I couldn't resist photographing it as it splashed water all over itself.
I spent time photographing a few Rough-legged Hawks but my personal choice for birds of the day were the Common Mergansers I observed and photographed.
Early in January I photographed an American Coot being chased by two Mallards for the food it carried in its bill.
I'm glad I took these portraits of Ring-billed Gulls in a snow storm, they will remind me of a gray, cold, stormy January day when I was just crazy enough to sit and photograph birds as snowflakes fell from the sky.
This photo of a male Mountain Bluebird in Wayne County, Utah made me smile when I thought about the location where it was created because it is so wild and beautiful up there.
My best find of the day was a Peregrine Falcon in the snow perched on a colorful boulder with a snowy background.
Several of the Gadwalls were tipping their heads under the water to feed when this drake started to flap his wings before settling back down on the water.
The American Kestrel was perched on an arching wild rose branch with prey in his bill when I photographed him with snow covered ice and the Wasatch Mountains in the background
Without science you would not see this Short-eared Owl chick photo. You are here viewing it through a device using an internet connection to connect to a page housed on a server.
Further down the road I spotted a dark lump on the shoulder and my heart sank because I immediately realized that the lump was a deceased Golden Eagle.
Many of the birds here in the Salt Lake Valley find a place to roost in the evening and overnight frost begins to accumulate on their feathers like it did on this Rough-legged Hawk on a parking sign.
I spent about 40 minutes photographing the gulls, ducks and geese in the snow storm here in northern Utah yesterday and had a lot of fun doing it.
The question regarding this proposal is... Willet happen?
In 2017 one of the proposals submitted to the AOS is to rename Ring-necked Ducks to Ring-billed Ducks and I personally am all for the name change!
That morning the Canada Geese were the most lively of the subjects I photographed, bathing, mating and exhibiting threat displays.
I've made it clear on my post about Galileo and in this post about Goose that they are education birds and in my photo galleries I have included this symbol (C) to indicate they are captive birds.
I start seeing some Ring-billed Gulls in breeding/Definitive Alternate Plumage in February but I sure didn't expect to see this one on the third day of January, I was quite surprised by it.
The male American Kestrel caught my eye immediately because he has such a pale chest that the spots on his chest stood out like tiny black jewels set in a field of snow white.
On January 3rd I photographed two unusual Ring-billed Gulls at my local pond in Salt Lake County, today I am sharing one of those gulls, the runty, second winter Ring-billed Gull.