Yes!! It’s weird. And it’s lovely. All the best people are weird, the non-weird are boring.
Also, I think it’s hilarious that Princess Prickepants’ patronus is a hedgehog.
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Lmao. Great patronus!!
It IS a yellow crowned night heron.
Here’s one of the babies the first day he was learning to fly last year. They are not kidding about that just knocking them out of the nest thing. I was concerned for the little fellow.
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I love YCNHs, those big eyes are so soulful.
We get young ones sometimes, they do punt them fast. Amazing how they can learn to fend for themselves to quickly.
But they somehow know how to grab crayfish/crabs quickly, and happily they do it pretty often. I hang out by the creek sometimes to get action shots and usually don’t have to wait too long:
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These pictures are fantastic! Wow!
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Thanks, I take a lot of pic of YCNHs, so over time you wind up with some better ones (though the grass in the foreground in two of those above really bugs me).
I did get one nice portrait from a more human-patient one once:
And I got one of a bird declawing a crayfish, which is interesting. They work for a while to declaw them before they swallow them - smart birds.
And I always liked this one of a YCNH on the hunt:
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We had SIX in our yard last night!!! They like to come out right at dusk. It was so great.
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Kitty was mad at me about something, but she got over it.
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I have been going though this thread again with the intention of hitting my like cap, while showing my appreciation of all the wonderful photos; never realizing that this post was precisely the impetus for this behavior! This discovery has derail my activity in this direction for now. So I will do the other thing I came here to do which is share pictures of the friends I made while gardening last week.
This is a giant silk moth (female I believe). For the second year one has just sort of hung out here for a few days before disappearing. These moths live only to reproduce and have no mouths or digestive tract.
This lizard of taxonomy unknown to me was cooling off in the dog’s dish one hot afternoon. I kicked it out shortly after taking this to decrease its likelihood of becoming a dog treat.
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Snoozing. This shirt might be more comfortable for her than the one with sleeves (I hope so), but it does give her bingo wings, like the old lady she is.
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Thank you for the phrase bingo wings.
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Nap time.
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Are those cows small, or far away?
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Yes.
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This reminds me: The Audubon Society claims Birdie is a finch.
http://audubon.org/news/is-house-finch-feeling-bern
There are sparrows in my backyard all the time, but I don’t know much about finches.
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I was torn between female house finch and sparrow when I first saw the video, but Audubon found hi-def video that clinches it. House finches are really common pretty much everywhere in the US except a sliver of the midwest, I see them all the time here now that I keep an eye out, though they aren’t as brave as sparrows, and are fairly similar unless you are checking, so you have to watch to spot them. They have a really distinct meandering warbly song that is the easiest way to know when they’re around. The males have red upper parts so they’re easier to spot:
Here’s one that was outside my office:
and one visiting the window feeder:
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