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 Albatrossity Monday! The weeks are flying by, aren’t they? This week we have the final 3 posts of the PaulB series. Paul, thanks so much for these!
Albatrossity
Hot summer days usually mean slow summer birding, but there are other critters to see and photograph if you look around.
Black-necked Stilts (Himantopus mexicanus) can be quite vocal, and usually when they fly, they are complaining about something. Or maybe they just don’t like me! Click here for larger image.
Snowy Egrets (Egretta thula) don’t nest at Quivira, but there are some nesting colonies in the region, and Quivira is often a destination for birds after the breeding season is completed. The technical name for this phenomenon, “post-breeding dispersal”, sounds like a terrible name for a rock band. Click here for larger image.
Dragonflies and damselflies (order Odonata, aka “odes”)) are abundant and challenging photographic subjects in the summertime. I know some folks who have excellent pictures of these critters in flight, but I am not one of those. Nevertheless, I thought I should include some shots of (perched) dragonflies, as I am starting to amass a decent collection of those. This damselfly is the Desert Forktail (Ischnura barberi), an uncommon species in Kansas; the salt marshes at Quivira are one of the very few places it is found in this state. But on this day I found many of them, hovering and jousting, but only occasionally perching. Click here for larger image.
This is the most common dragonfly I have seen here over the years, the Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa). Skimmers are large conspicuous dragonflies, and this is one of the largest, a member of the group known as the “king skimmers”. I presume that they were named for their funereal colors, but they are quite striking, nonetheless. Click here for larger image.
Another large skimmer, the Twelve-spotted Skimmer (Libellula pulchella) is not nearly as common as the Widow Skimmer here, but it is equally striking. Click here for larger image.
The final ode for the day is this Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis), which is smaller than the skimmers, but a bit more colorful. This is one of the most common dragonflies in North America; even if you didn’t know it at the time, you have probably seen one. Click here for larger image.
The spring and fall are the best times for wildflowers in this patch of Flyover Country, but there are some summer treats as well. The local name for this is Prairie Petunia, aka Fringe-leafed Ruellia (Ruellia humilis). Drought-tolerant and sun-loving, it can sometimes be found in lawns and gardens here. Click here for larger image.
Okay, let’s get back to the birds. This big fella, a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), is abundant and conspicuous across North America, I regularly get calls from folks who are excited about seeing this bird, which they have confused with a much less common summertime bird here, the Sandhill Crane. It’s hard to get all of this bird in focus in a single frame, but sometimes you get lucky. Click here for larger image.
A hatch-year Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) who was truly unconcerned about my presence. Bald Eagles have become almost ho-hum in these parts in recent years; people forget how we almost lost this species to DDT poisoning. But the pesky gubmint bureaucrats in the EPA, armed with that equally pesky Endangered Species Act, brought them back from the brink of extinction so that they can be avatars on the Facebook pages of faux patriots who hate the gubmint. Irony is abundant these days. Click here for larger image.
One of the few birds who continue to sing during the hot months, this male Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) clearly had been using this particular sunflower perch for a while. Click here for larger image.
Don
Since Peter King retired, I count on Albatrossity to mark Mondays. Beautiful pictures, as always.
OzarkHillbilly
Love that Sandhill Cra… I mean Great Blue Heron shot.
Wanderer
Beautiful photos as always. Thanks for sharing them.
Geo Wilcox
@OzarkHillbilly: We get them at our front yard pond all the time. I have a nifty photo sequence of one spearing a fish out of the pond and devouring it whole. Pretty cool to watch and catch.
Trivia Man
@Geo Wilcox: we had one visit our bird feeder a few times. Stately walk a couple hundred feet from the river then a couple minutes eating something from the ground under the feeder. Seeds? Bugs? 🤷🏽♀️
Albatrossity
@Trivia Man: They eat rodents. I’ve seen them pick off pocket gophers in a pasture, waiting patiently by a burrow and then WHAM!, snatching the unsuspecting rodent right from the burrow entrance. So maybe you had some mice or voles cleaning up the spilled seed from the feeder.
Trivia Man
@Albatrossity: could be- always a welcome guest
Betty
The great blue heron shot is gorgeous.
Rob
The dragonfly shots are very nice!
mvr
That is a good shot of the Heron. (But then Albatrossity always takes nice photos.)
Thanks for these!
SteveinPHX
Late to the party this morning. But thank you a bunch for the photographs!
Yutsano
I don’t know why I forgot it’s Albatrossity Monday! Shame on me there!
Blue herons flying are always majestic looking to me. Plus dragonflies! Your photos as always are striking and beautiful good sir.
Dmkingto
I’ve been becoming more & more birder-curious (thanks in part to Albatrossity’s glorious photos), and a couple of weeks ago I took another step in that direction. Back on July 30th I was strolling through the park behind the house & encountered large numbers of people with binoculars & cameras with huge lenses. There was a rare bird sighted in the park.
The next morning I decided to check it out for myself and wandered down to the little lake. Found the huddle (flock?) of birders on one of the trails and started peering into the thick brush with my binoculars. After about 20 minutes of seeing nothing, I was getting bored & frustrated but stuck with it. Then at the 35 minute mark I finally got a good 15-second view of the Scarlet-throated Redstart (a warbler). Now I have an eBird account & a couple of birding apps on my phone. I was always warned this is the way it starts!
Mostly seen in Central & South America with some minor incursions into New Mexico and Texas. Found out later that it’s the first time it’s ever been seen in California! Here’s the eBird link for some info and photos of the local guy:
https://ebird.org/species/sltred/US-CA-075
jame
Prairie petunias are known as Mexican petunias in southwest Louisiana.
Albatrossity
Warblers are the gateway drug for birding. Gulls are the point of no return…
Mark von Wisco
Both Sandhill cranes and Great Blue herons are quite common here in Central Wisconsin. The simplest way to distinguish the two species in flight is that Sandhill crane fly with outstretched necks, Great Blue Herons fly with their necks tucked into the body.
StringOnAStick
One of my husband’s oldest friends made a low key living doing bird tours, but his fancy has moved on to dragonflies and damselflies; it must be the standard progression though he did a stop in butterfly-ville first. We’ll know Albatrossity is leaving the bird world when we start getting more butterfly shots than birds!