Black Vultures, Purtiss Creek, Texas

Two Black Vultures sitting in a tree.

Close up.

Gliding overhead.

Leaving the roost.

Immature Bald Eagle, Alaska

Immature Bald Eagle

My good friend Jim Camp sent me these pictures of an immature Bald Eagle with something it was eating.

Downy Woodpecker, Dallas Texas

Downy Woodpecker, building a nest.

Building a nest, pulling out chips of wood.

Looking at me.

Wood Ducks, White Rock Creek Dallas Texas

Female and Male Wood Duck. One of the most beautiful ducks and bird on the planet.

Trying to determine if I am a threat.

Four Wood Ducks and a Mallard Drake.

I am a fan of election. Luke I want you to notice that lot of people use reflectons in their pictures to tell a story. or to enhance it, and some use them like I do, because they like it. It makes a lot of pictures.

Northern Bobwhite Quail, Northwest Arkansas

David Reece sent me this picture of a Norther Bobwhite Quail that he took while hunting in NW Arkansas.

Two Bald Eagles, Kenai, Alaska

Haven't been able to go out to take pictures because of the rain. My good friend Jim Camp gave me these two pictures to post. He gave me some others of a bald eagle feeding on a dead animal that I will post later. I hope my Luke enjoys the big birds as much as I do.

Eurasian Collared Dove, Arkansas

Eruasian Collared Dove. It has been raining for days in Dallas and I have not been able to get out and take pictures. I have taken pictures of all the different types of birds that have shown up in my yard, so I reached out to a few friends and asked if they had some bird pictures I could put up for Luke. David Reece sent this picture. He sent some other good pictures that I will post later.

Dark-eyed Junco. Dallas Texas

Dark-eyed Junco. Winter visitors to the North Texas area.

Back end of the Dark-eyed Junco. Bright white feathers on the tail.

Throw bird seed out and these birds are regular visitors.

Carolina Wren, Dallas Texas

Carolina Wren. Nice sparrow size bird. It had been raining and a squirrel knocked my bird feeder down. So I threw some seeds around and my yard filled with birds after the rain. Had about 12 different breeds show up today. This guy was very animated today.

Red-bellied Woodpecker, Dallas Texas.

Red-bellied Woodpecker.

This little guy never turned around so I could get a picture of him from the front. He was high up in a tree. He comes by every day, hopefully one day I can get him closer. Buying some grub worms for him, bait him closer.

Blue Jays, Dallas Texas

A few Blue Jays have been sitting in the trees in and around my yard, I could never get them to get close or away from the branches to take a picture. SO I decided to bait them into my fence and yard. 

I put some seed and peanuts down for them to come into my yard and within a day it worked. Took these this morning. I love to see these birds but they are very aggressive and will drop out of the air and hit animals, including people, on their heads. One network news channel showed a Blue Jay that would attack all the people walking on a side walk in downtown heading to work.

Although they are aggressive I like this beautiful bird. I once saw a Blue Jay attack a cat I once had, it was a big cat, and about the third attack on this cat, the cat rolled over and caught the bird. End of bird. I thought that he must have been attacking my cat for a lot longer than I saw since my cat had worked out a plan. Very vocal loud birds, but very pretty.

Bird Tattoo Plano Texas

Lady at Apple Genius table.  Bird tattoos. 

Cardinals, Dallas Texas

Cardinal at the Dallas Arboretum.  Beautiful birds, one of my favorite song birds. Love these.

Cardinal that sings outside my house every morning. He sits up high in the tree.

I finally bought a bird feeder and put it up yesterday. Within a day they had found it. this picture is not good because there is a screen in the window and I had to try to enhance the colors because the screen blocked so much of it. I might remove screen for a bit to try to get a good picture. My windows are dark, so he did not see me standing there. But it could have been the screen blocking me.

He found a peanut.

Female Cardinal. Love the trope of the head.

Try to find the female Cardinal.

Good hiding. She was on her way to the ground where a male had flown. 

Chinese Geese, White Rock Lake, Dallas Texas

Chinese Geese. A domesticated goose, descended from the Swan Goose.

The basal knob at the top of the beak is more prominent on males than females. It can be used for determining gender at 6-8 weeks. 

Barn Swallow, Cat Springs, Texas

Barn Swallows are fun birds to watch as they dart about in the sky. They are very fast and hardly ever stop on a tree or on the ground. They are constant movement and I enjoy seeing them, but this means it is hard to get a good picture of them. They are the only swallow with the deeply forked tail. 

Owls, Flacon, Eagle, and Black Vulture at the Irish Festival, Dallas, Texas

Barn Owl. These next few pictures were taken at the Irish Festival in Dallas. Although these bird pictures were not taken in the wild, I am posting them because it shows how beautiful these birds are and offer a rare up close picture of them.

Great Horned Owl, second largest owl in America. They are excellent hunters and I have seen them attack and take mice while hunting I am hunting deer. Beautiful animals. I love to hear them when I am camping. One time I was driving through a very wooded area, doing a little above the speed limit. All of a sudden in front of me I thought I saw this huge ghost coming at me in my headlights. As the "GHOST" flew by my window I realized it was a Great Horned Owl, gave me quite a scare for a moment.

This is actually a Falcon, but it is called by two names, American Kestrel Hawk, or a Sparrow Hawk. Beautiful small hawks that I see on the side of country roads.

Golden Eagle. Awesome birds, especially when you see them flying in the sky.

Black Vulture. Smaller than the Turkey Vulture it is a sight to see flying over head in bunches while waiting for the carrion to decompose further. 

Pintail Ducks. Plano Texas.

This is a Pintail that I noticed yesterday when I was on a hill. I tried to zoom in on him but he was so far. These used to be plentiful but the population was greatly reduced due to avian diseases and habitat destruction. 

Male chasing the female, things don't change between species of animals.

THIS IS NOT MY PICTURE, I TOOK IT FROM WIKIPEDIA. This bird is too pretty to not see the real markings. I have tried to get close to pintails and have never been successful. I have held them after I shot them while duck hunting. I will not post pictures of the ducks, pheasants, other birds I shoot while hunting.

Great Blue Heron, various locations Texas.

The Great Blue Heron. A very cool bird, he sits and just looks around like he owns the place. He will not let you get to close before flying off. Very pretty bird, common in the US. 

Great Blue Heron can conceal themselves easily and sometimes are not noticed. If you get too close they will just fly away. They fly like a stork but their necks are pulled in, and not straight out like a Stork. 

At least three Great Blue's hiding in the woods. They like to eat fish and frogs. So they stay close to streams, ponds, lakes, and rivers.

This big boy was caught in a pond/marsh of a cattle Ranch in East Texas. 

I did not notice the Blue Heron in the back ground until I put the picture on my computer. I noticed it standing in the back. They will stand very still and sometimes they are just not noticed.