Well, the two grosbeaks came back today, to munch away and give me some through-the-kitchen-window photo ops, so I figured I should update the pix.  Here is a grab bag of grosbeak images:

That’s it!  Hope you like ‘em and that some grosbeaks come your way soon!

Lan

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Sometimes the falcons  exert what seems from my vantage point like a lot of energy acquiring a meal, like chasing down a Sanderling, maneuvering one out over open water and cutting off its climb for height or an escape back to the  flock.  Recently I have been noticing, instead, some almost casual chases.  The falcon will gain considerable height and then soar headed into the wind, waiting for a tired landbird to approach the coast from off the sea.  The capture of these hapless migrants is usually accomplished with a minimum of effort, sometimes in only a couple of passes at the prey.  It’s not casual at all for the victim, I am sure, but the odds against evasion are high.  After the stoop for capture, it’s a ho-hum glide down to the beach or an easy row against the breeze to settle on a suitable perch right on the sand.  In the photos that follow, the falcon’s meal was a Song Sparrow, definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time!

The stoop:

The look:

The getaway:

Tidying up:

Headed for the next course:

Speeding Bullet birds are very cool!  Lan

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to that list (which is totally non-commercial) without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list .  Also, please subscribe to this blog using the Feedburner sign up field above – it’s really easy -  in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

These images and Lanny McDowell Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

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Thousands, higher numbers than I comprehend, of tree swallows were staging today near Crackatuxet Cove, an area at the southeast corner of Edgartown Great Pond accessible from the “right fork” at Katama.   A bunch of the Vineyard’s regular birders tried Aquinnah and Red Beach looking for storm birds this morning.  Two Black Terns and two Spotted Sandpipers are the only finds worth mentioning.  We then traversed the Island to the Farm Institute, which was way less than spectacular.  Disappointed, some of us drove the Atlantic leg of the Katama triangle and saw, far off, a swarm of swallows.  From the car and outside on foot we got the intimate and unusual view of standing within a giant flock of swallows.  Their movements reminded me of fans doing the “wave” in a stadium.  Just before leaving the area we swung the cars into a puddled parking lot where Warren, Pete and I had repeatedly seen Snow Buntings last winter, because there was another small horde of swallows on the ground.  Right in the middle was this pale angel which Pete called almost immediately from the Jeep.

The white bird seemed to take a fair amount of heat from the dark swallows,  occasionally while on the ground and frequently while in the air.  I do not know if it was curiosity or harassment.

The bill had some light color, increasing toward the base; the feet appeared pinkish; the eye looked dark to me, although more of a brown than the others’ beady black; and the underwing linings and some other plumage were a brownish pinky buff.  If you are interested in the definitions of albino and leucistic, you can apply them here as desired.  Either way, this is a sweet little avian anomaly, a glowing apparition that we could distinguish far off into the distance when it moved on with its fellows.

Can I say for sure it’s a Tree Swallow? Well, no, not really, although I would take the bet.  There were no other swallow species seen among the thousands that surrounded us.

One in a million?  Who knows?

Get off my case!

Up, up & away!

And white birds are very cool!  Lan

These images and Lanny McDowell Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to that list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list .  Also, please subscribe to this blog using the Feedburner sign up field above – it’s really easy -  in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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Scanning the plowed fields at the Farm Institute in Katama has been de rigeur for the past couple of weeks, anyway, for the regulars, and also for the more sought-after Upland Sandpiper and Buff-breasteds.  Neither of each until yesterday, when Rob Culbert, pro ecologist and local birding guide, emailed some of the local birders that on his Saturday morning field trip rounds he had espied up to five buffies bobbing and poking their way around the field.

I forwarded the email and made a couple of heads-up calls.  Warren went out mid-afternoon and saw three, fairly close to the road and typically working the field edges.  Pete was going to some annual road association meeting, so he had to reign in.  No feedback from others.  I waited as long as I could stand, figuring cooler air and later light would favor the photo op.  I found the three with little delay.  I parked and meandered out to get up-light of the target sandpipers.  Since buffies can be rather active and sometimes skittish when approached, the best bet is to assess their general direction trend and place myself in the way.  A couple times they seemed to fly when their proximity discomfort level ( PDL, a new less-than-technical term of mine) was reached; although, the last time they flew, their trajectory was within feet of my legs and about eighteen inches off the ground, so I guess it really wasn’t about me after all.

These images and Lanny McDowell Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

And birds are still cool!  Lan

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