On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
It’s bird week! We start with Albatrossity Monday, of course, and then we have 3 days of birds from Ex-lurker. Raptors, to be specific! Then we hop over to Paris for a day; no birds, but Paris (!!!!) Unless one of you clever peeps with perfect eyesight spot a bird in one of the pictures. (Where’s Waldo?)
We have made it through our backlog of OTR posts, so this is a great time to send your submissions in.
Albatrossity
I’m going to take a brief hiatus from posting pics from my 2018 Tanzania trip because it’s spring here, and spring is a time to celebrate and marvel at the beauty of the flora and fauna that returns with the advancing daylight and warmth. We’ll get back to Africa in a couple of weeks, but first we’ll take a peek at some of the amazing birds that have been in front of my camera in the past few weeks.

Amazing is barely adequate for this bird, not for its look, but for its rarity. It’s a Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla), a Eurasian Finch that sporadically wanders to North America. Those vagrations usually end up on the coasts, particularly the Pacific Northwest. Even there, the appearance of this bird attracts hordes of birders; it is a mega-rarity, in the lingo of the birding community. There is ONE previous record, from 2002, in the arbitrary geopolitical unit known as Kansas. This bird, a male transitioning from winter plumage to breeding plumage, showed up in a yard in Abilene in mid-March, and the homeowners posted a couple of pretty good pictures of the bird on a Facebook page devoted to Kansas birding. I rubbed my eyes, gasped, and immediately identified it from those pics. Then I notified the folks who were hosting this bird that they might expect to have a lot of visitors if the bird stuck around for a while. I was invited to come see it, and a couple of days later I got some decent pictures of it. It has been a very long time since I picked up a lifer in my home state! Click here for larger image.

Spring break came a week earlier than usual for KSU this year, for some reason, and since Elizabeth is still toiling in the trenches there, we made plans to get out of town for part of that week. With some friends, we rented a cabin above the Buffalo River in Arkansas for a few days, and got an early taste of the spring that would hit our part of Flyover Country in a few weeks. Here’s a nice vernal pool behind the cabin; I checked it for salamanders but only found some frogs. Click here for larger image.

Some early spring flowers in Arkansas included Wild Plums (Prunus americana), which were just starting to come into bloom. Click here for larger image.

Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) were barely starting their spring show, and this one was enhanced by the appearance of a spiffy Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis). Click here for larger image.

Sadly, I could not coax this Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) to pose in a flowering tree. Actually, it did perch in a redbud briefly, but if you are familiar with these birds, you know that they hardly ever sit still for more than a few microseconds. This one followed that rule book, but at least it showed me that flashy golden crown! Click here for larger image.

Meanwhile, back in Kansas, Merlins (Falco columbarius) were persisting, harassing flocks of juncos and other sparrows before those birds headed back north too. This is an adult female of the pale prairie subspecies (F. c. richardsonii), aka cute death parrot. Click here for larger image.

Marked safe from the Merlin, these American Tree Sparrows (Spizelloides arborea) were looking good and thinking about their summers in Alaska. Click here for larger image.

Another migrant that is often reported here, but which rarely finds its way in front of my camera, this Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) was unusual in at least one other way. Typically in their winter range they come in large flocks, moving through wet prairies or streamsides as a group. This guy was, as far as I can tell, unflocked. He was in a marshy area above a small lake, and singing as if he was in the boreal forest of Canada. Sadly, this is a species in serious decline, and currently there are no good hypotheses to help us understand and perhaps reverse that. Click here for larger image.

Common Loons (Gavia immer) may be common elsewhere, but are always a fun find here in Flyover Country. This one was in full breeding plumage, and I was thrilled to see it stay on the surface and swim, not away from me (which would be typical behavior), but toward me as I was standing on the shore of a small lake. It stuck around for a few days, and I was even able to get some decent video on another day. Click here for larger image.

One of the earliest insectivores to get back to Flyover Country (and points north), Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) are small, fast, and gorgeous. The genus name, in fact, is derived from the Greek word for “moves quickly”! For some reason this frontal view reminds me of another fast predator, the Orca. Click here for larger image.
eclare
Congratulations on the Brambling!
Don
Stunning, as always, but that last picture is incredible. Such beauty. Thank you, again, for sharing.
HarryBee
I’m so happy for you! What a beauty! The more miserable the news, the more I need to see these birds. I pay multiple visits daily to the nest live-cams of Olive, the Allen’s Hummingbird, and Jackie and Shadow, the Big Bear Valley bald eagles. Then I never miss your wonderful photos. Thank you!
J R in WV
So even the birds teach us that trans is a natural and good thing!!! ;~) Thanks for the support for our trans brothers and sisters !!!
More seriously, these are a great group of photos. We have many frog eggs in the tiny ponds by the front door; as time passes different species have their spring orgies and lay the next generation of eggs. And a different egg mass, a white amorphous blob some 4 or 6 cm across which I assume is a salamander egg mass, we have some large forest floor salamanders, tiger salamanders IIRC, with spots. V hard to get a glimpse of those bad boys. Love spring as the near death of late winter fades away.
OzarkHillbilly
Did you get to float the upper Buffalo (Ponca to Pruitt) while there? One of the most stunningly beautiful stretches of river in the Ozarks. Lots of opportunities to get out of the boat and stretch one’s legs while seeing some unbelievable things. Spring is the only time there is enough water to float that stretch. Well worth the effort.
Spanky
Awesome pics, but a note for the authorities: embiggening the death parrot opens up the kinglet pic.
Albatrossity
@OzarkHillbilly:I have floated on that river, but not on this trip. It appeared that the canoe and raft rental companies were mostly still closed for the season, with signs that they would be open the next week. The river was not very high, but clear and blue and very scenic. Signs of very recent high water (brush lodged high in a streamside tree, downed trees, etc.) were seen, so they must have had some spring rains in the recent past!
Kristine
Thanks for the great pics. Love the Brambling and the Kinglet (which looks a bit cross).
Yutsano
Maybe it’s my Canadian genetics, but I love the serenity of the loon. Not to mention every time I see one of our Cooper’s hawks I shall title it cute death parrot. Thank you again for your wonderful pictures! Also congrats on the brambling!
SteveinPHX
I spent several years in NW Arkansas on an engineering project back in the 80s. Some beautiful country. Thanks again for the photos.
mvr
Congratulations on the Brambling and thank you for showing us!
StringOnAStick
Thanks for all the photos, birds and nonbird. The sparkles of sunlight in the vernal pool are lovely.
Albatrossity
@Yutsano: Ah, but your Cooper’s Hawk is not closely related to parrots, as are the falcons. One of the surprises of DNA phylogenetic data was that falcons are not closely related to the other raptors, but are most closely related to parrots.
So that’s why I call the Merlin the Cute Death Parrot, and my nym for the Peregrine is Dire Parrot!
Juror #7
BRAMBLING! Aaaaaaaaagh!
Amazing–congrats, and thank you for sharing.