Red-necked phalarope (female in breeding plumage), gull-billed tern, American barn owl, and brown thrasher from a recent visit to the salt marsh.
Birding!
- Thread starter jjohnwm
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I think I spotted a turkey vulture earlier today....driving along the highway there was this large bird standing on a grassy hill on the other side of the shoulder...it had a black or dark brown body and a red head with a long beak and it appeared to be eating something that it was standing over.
Betcha did! They’re pretty common in the sky, but ya don’t often get to see them on the ground. Vultures are lovely ghouls - even in the bad old days when raptors were wholesale poisoned, shot, trapped, and otherwise eliminated and destroyed in huge numbers, turkey and black vultures enjoyed a bit of legal protection in some of the southern states because their role as vital sanitation workers was understood and recognized.
Birdwatching today, 43 total species at a local nature reserve. I saw the common yet secretive Green Heron twice, once flying to some reeds from the other side of a cove, and second perched on a dead tree overlooking a lake, which is unusual since they are relatively secret, the times I have seen them I've seen them hidden in reeds or accidentally because of a spook. Interesting bird!
On the topic of turkey vultures, I found this guy snacking on watermelon (left out to feed the deer) in the backyard:
I never would have figured fruits were in their diet, unless it just thought it was a dead animal.
There’s no shortage of vultures (black and turkey) by me. Always fascinating to find a new behavior.
I never would have figured fruits were in their diet, unless it just thought it was a dead animal.
There’s no shortage of vultures (black and turkey) by me. Always fascinating to find a new behavior.
It was cool at first, having a wild bird friend at work every day. But after i encountered the crow eating my sandwich yesterday and auditing my paperwork today i am getting some disrespectful vibes.
This fondly reminds me of a jolly boys outing to the British seaside resort of Torquay in the mid 1980's in my late teens.
Gulls are an absolute pest in these seaside places, they'll harass you for food and persistently dive bomb you.
A close friend of mine, he's dead now god rest his soul, was robbed of his chips in quick order. Twenty minutes later another one dive bombed him whilst he was eating his ice cream, only for the ice cream to fall out of the cone and plop on the floor.
If all that wasn't bad enough shortly after that another one shat on his head!!
Whether it was the very same gull on all three occasions we do not know, lol.
Gulls are an absolute pest in these seaside places, they'll harass you for food and persistently dive bomb you.
A close friend of mine, he's dead now god rest his soul, was robbed of his chips in quick order. Twenty minutes later another one dive bombed him whilst he was eating his ice cream, only for the ice cream to fall out of the cone and plop on the floor.
If all that wasn't bad enough shortly after that another one shat on his head!!
Whether it was the very same gull on all three occasions we do not know, lol.
I think this is a trick that gulls have learned, especially in high tourist volume settings. At Disney World, my daughter was a victim. We had purchased our meal and settled in at an outside table when the gulls came swooping in. They would unload on the diners, then when the people jumped up and scattered with shrieks and screams, the gulls would do a quick aerial U-turn and dive in amidst the confusion to grab your food. Made me mad as can be, given the high price of food at amusement parks, but I had to admire their ingenuity and boldness.
