Awww, I love the ibis! I miss Florida 
(Not alachua though, fucking fascists.)
Someday, I will travel again…
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alas, alachua…
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Down in Australia they’re called “Bin birds” because they are seen digging through trash all the time.
Nice pic!
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you mean these arseholes?
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The wife looked up in the tree this morning and said look on the squirrel’s balcony because, that’s right, I built a couple squirrel houses and they have to live in the manner they’ve grown accustomed to so balconies and two stories. One house is about 10 feet and the other about 3 feet right out side our bedroom balcony.
Sure enough a baby has emerged. Normally when we see mom or dad gathering a bunch of leaves, twigs and tearing up my lawn to stuff the house it means babies are on the way but we thought this close to winter they just must be preparing for winter, nope baby one, usually there are three or more but so far this is the only one to show it’s cute little face.
We lost track but this is at least the third batch over 4 or 5 years. It won’t venture far from the house for a few weeks but I’m sure once it realizes where the nuts are it will come knocking just like it’s parents.
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Yay, a sibling poke it’s head out, one is black the other is grey. I also just noticed the little buggers chewed a new door into the other side of the house. It’s 3/4 pine, the next house will have two doors.
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Not sure where you are, but that looks like a Great Blue Heron to me. I didn’t know egrets came in blue.
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My goof. That’s what I meant. I corrected my post.
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Cool! I love them so much.
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This is why selfie-sticks were invented! I knew there had to be a reason.
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We live in Michigan very near, as in backdoor, of a marsh/wetland. These guys started hanging out in my backyard to fish on our canal.
We call them pterodactyls because that’s what they look like, to me, when they fly by. Reminds me of the old arcade game Joust.
I was taking pictures of this guy in our yard several weeks ago when he took off. They are very quiet when landing or taking of, sometimes they just show up and you don’t even realize it.
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Wow, great pics!
And you’re right that they’re quiet. A few weeks ago I was sitting out front reading and one just came strolling by not 15 feet away from me. I hadn’t even heard it land.
(We’re near a river, so they aren’t exactly rare around here, but I’d never seen one in our yard before.)
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I am in NJ, right along the Hudson River. I lately am seeing all manner of aquatic birds there that I never knew about.
My wife spotted the one I took pictures of. She said “it looks like a dinosaur”. It was about 10:00 PM and the bird was a good 40’ away. I was straining at the zoom and nighttime mode of my phone to get a decent picture
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Woah! No pic, but in my ongoing bluejay adventure, I’ve seen one pack up to 10 kernels of hard corn in its gullet before flying off.
But…I just saw one put 2 entire peanuts (in the shell) in its gullet before grabbing a third in its beak and flying away.
One of these days I want to figure out where they’re stashing all this stuff.
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Excellent photos!
Great Blue Herons are fabulous, but they’re not pterodactyls…that honor belongs to Sandhill Cranes:
The oldest unequivocal sandhill crane fossil is 2.5 million years old, older by half than the earliest remains of most living species of birds, primarily found from after the Pliocene/Pleistocene boundary some 1.8 million years ago.
If you ever hear them call, you’d know what I mean: it’s absolutely prehistoric, due to the unusual way their trachea coil around in their sternum.
I have the great honor of hosting a sandhill couple who met and mated on my property! They’ll probably fly off in a month or two for the winter, but I’m hoping this becomes home base for them every year.
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We have a few bluejays that steal the almonds my wife puts out for the squirrels, it’s amazing watching them swallow those things whole. The same bluejay has been visiting our yard for the third year, we know it’s the same one because it’s missing a foot. That guy can balance on one leg and put away the nuts like nobody’s business.
This is not the one footed guy but it is one of the ones that steals almonds. I made a bunch of those picnic tables, makes for cute photos sometimes.
Even the woodpecker likes nuts.
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