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.
Happy Monday! We have another great week ahead.
(click on the image below for a bigger, non-blurry OTR schedule for the week)
Albatrossity
Thanks for all the good wishes last week. I can report that I escaped the hospital a half-day early, after convincing the cardiologist that it might be stressful to release me at the same time that KSU football game traffic was peaking (the stadium is just across the street from the hospital). The new medication seems to be working fine, and it is very good to be home with Elizabeth!
I’m gonna pick up where I left off prior to last week, with some birds and bugs photographed in mid- and late summer. Lots of variety here, and no real theme.
ETA: Helping with the healing process, Harley has returned for the 11th winter in a row.
If you don’t remember who Harley is, here’s the backstory.
It was a good season for Indigo Buntings (Passerina cyanea) in this part of Flyover Country, and they are always a treat to see. This image even gives you a bit more local color, as the bird is perched on a burnt tree stump, which is a common sight in our local prairie/woods margins. Trees (other than cottonwoods) were absent from these prairies prior to the arrival of white Europeans, and in many places fire is still used to control their encroachment, just as it was in the old days when bison herds thundered across these hills. Click here for larger image.
Nevertheless, the addition of trees to the towns and farmsteads has been a boon for some birds, like this adult Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula) feasting on a mulberry. Click here for larger image.
This hatch-year Baltimore Oriole also has been eating fruit, although in this case the fruit is the native pokeberry. Although the berries (and much of the plant) are loaded with compounds that are bitter or toxic for humans, birds relish them. A pokeberry patch is a great place for birds, and birdwatchers. Click here for larger image.
Another frugivore that was hanging around a pokeberry patch was this hatch-year Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum), who, like many adolescents, displayed a skeptical attitude while watching the other birds foraging on the berries. Click here for larger image.
Pokeberry patches are good places to find insects as well, and/or to practice photographing them in flight. This Green Darner (Anax junius) is a good target, since it is large and abundant! One of the largest dragonflies, it is also a migratory insect. As is the case with Monarch butterflies, the first generation of the summer moves north from Texas and Mexico, and the final generation migrates back south from Canada and the northern US. Click here for larger image.
Large as they are, dragonflies still need to worry about predators like this Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor), perched and day-napping on another half-burnt tree branch. Ground-nesting birds like the nighthawk were probably much more abundant prior to the arrival of farmers, trees, and settlements. Click here for larger image.
Eastern Wood-pewees (Contopus virens) also like to snack on dragonflies and other flying insects. These can be hard to distinguish from the very similar Western Wood-pewee, which is found in the western counties of Kansas. As is the case with many flycatchers, the best ID clues are the vocalizations. Click here for larger image.
Late in the summer we had a Carolina Wren (Thyrothorus ludovicianus) attempting to nest in the gutter above our front entrance, and we tried to help it by inserting a water-impervious barrier between the nest and the gutter. She incubated four eggs for a while, but one day they disappeared. The nest was intact, so it may have been predated by the rat snake that occasionally suns itself on that front deck. Later in the summer, however, there were fledgling Carolina Wrens splashing in the bird bath, so maybe she found another less exposed nesting site and was successful in that round. Click here for larger image.
It was a droughty summer in this part of Flyover Country, but this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) found a fishy snack in a dwindling creek. I’ve always wondered about that specific epithet Herodias. Is it a reference to the Biblical Herod? Or Herodias, the mother of Salome? Or?? I’ve never been able to track it down. Click here for larger image.
The final bird in this batch is also the first migrant warbler I saw in the late summer. Magnolia Warblers (Setophaga magnolia) nest in the boreal forests of the north and in the higher reaches of the Appalachians in the US. It is a common spring migrant here, but not so much in the fall. So I was thrilled to see this guy in my very own back yard! Click here for larger image.
JPL
Lovely!
Rob
Yes, lovely!
SteveinPHX
I started to guess Yellow Rumped Warbler, but I was looking at too much yellow. A Magnolia would be a new one for me.
Thanks again!
And for all the education.
J.
That Baltimore Oriole shot is fantastic! Love your photographs. Thanks for sharing.
LiminalOwl
Albatrossity, thanks as always for your lovely photos. And for the link to Harley’s backstory, which I had not previously seen—I think that was just before I started lurking here. What a wonderful essay!
Around that time, a bird which knowledgeable friends identified as a red-tailed hawk was in our Boston back yard for a few days. I was able to take one photo, but it was distant and slightly blurry.
eclare
So glad your friend Harley is back!
raven
Awesome
OzarkHillbilly
OK, got my weekly dose of Albatrossity. I can relax now, knowing my week is off to a proper start. Now I’m off to pick up the youngster.
stinger
I love Mondays! Welcome back, Harley!
I clear away pokeberries when they pop up (constantly) along path edges, because the berries stain if crushed. But I have lots of non-pathed land, and prefer pokeberries in general to Japanese honeysuckle and multiflora rose — two invasive species whose intentional planting was once encouraged by the government. In fact, nearly forty years ago, I planted 100 honeysuckle purchased from my state forest nursery. Now I work every year to get rid of some portion of their multitudinous offspring.
HinTN
Harley’s backstory was such an eloquent commentary on the onset of COVID. Thanks the second time!
Also, that Indigo Bunting is an amazing shot, but routine for our master photographer!
Maxim
Thank you for the beautiful photos — always a delight — and for linking to your essay about Harley.
Re the Great Blue Heron, the Illinois Audubon Society says this:
Betty
Peewees are adorable little birds.
martha
As usual, I LOVE these photos! Thanks so much for sharing them.
Albatrossity
@Maxim:Thanks!
Albatrossity
@Maxim:Thanks!
Yutsano
So much warbling! As always, I greatly enjoy your pictures. But more importantly, I wish you continued good health. May your ticker keep on ticking well!
MelissaM
I’m glad you were successfully sprung from the hospital and are back to viewing through your own windows. That magnolia warbler in the cedar is a nice shot.
I was thinking of you, as I got a picture of a hawk yesterday but have no clue to it’s ID. (Ok, just relooked and it’s likely a red tail.) It’s belly seemed so white (but there is a belt of freckles) and the back so dark, and it seemed huge! This was on a nice walk we took with the doggo yesterday to the local prairie area.
stinger
@Maxim:
Ah, maybe they misheard and thought people were saying “Greek Blue Heron”. 😊
mvr
@HinTN: Yeah, that was an interesting commentary to read, coming about a week or so after covid showed up here in Lincoln a couple of hours North of Manhattan where Albatrossity and Harlan are located.
mvr
These are all great photos. I miss our Carolina Wrens this year, though I did see some at our feeders one day this summer. So I like seeing the photo of the one in your gutter and reading the story about them.
Origuy
In other bird news, the New Zealand Bird of the Year voting is ongoing. In John Oliver’s B story last night, he talked about this competition, which is hugely popular in New Zealand, and put himself forward as the campaign manager for the Pūteketeke, or Australasian crested grebe. It’s one of many New Zealand’s endemic and endangered birds. Anyone can vote, all you need is a valid email address, as you’ll get a return email to verify your vote. Vote for the Australasian crested grebe ‹ Bird of the Year ‹ Forest & Bird here.
ETA Here’s Oliver’s page, you’ll want to see the drawing of him as a Pūteketeke.
Albatrossity
@Origuy: Too late! I voted for Pohowera aka Banded dotterel
Albatrossity
@Origuy: Too late! I voted for Pohowera aka Banded dotterel