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.
I can’t believe it’s nearly June, but we can console ourselves with a great week of OTR posts!
Albatrossity
The trickle of new migrants in March picks up speed in April, and the lengthening days allow more time to get out and about. So here are some shots from Flyover Country as March rolled over into April this year. Captions will be brief, since I had surgery to deal with a cyst on my right thumb yesterday, which necessitated removing the entire thumbnail and installing a bulky bandage that makes mousing and keyboarding a challenge for a while!
We’ll start with a local bird, the often overlooked female Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis). Spring skies and fluffy clouds, along with the soon-to-be-flowering wild plum (Prunus americana), complement what is already an attractive bird. Unfortunately, this cardinal missed the conclave, probably because females were not allowed. Click here for larger image.
Wild plum bushes are one of my favorite photographic backdrops in spring, because the flowers emerge before the leaves. Once they are leafed out, the birds like to hide amongst them. This Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) found a nice spot to pose. This species is a winter resident, and disappears from here in May. Click here for larger image.
Attitude is something that all falcons seem to have in abundance, but this female American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) is definitely in the 90th percentile in that category. Click here for larger image.
April is the month where Northern Shovelers (Spatula clypeata) are seemingly everywhere in Flyover Country. Females are often overlooked because the males are so outrageously colorful, but they are good-looking birds in their own way. Click here for larger image.
The annual spring burning of the pastures makes the Flint Hills dark and sooty for a few days, allowing the photographer to seek out images that use that background for emphasis. Fenceposts made of native limestone are much more common in the central part of the state (Post Rock Country, as it is known), but there are a few of them around here as well. These standing stones are not as impressive as those we saw in Scotland, but at 300-400 pounds each, they still represent a fair amount of labor for the quarrying, hauling, and erecting work. Click here for larger image.
An incongruous sight, this lone American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) was resting beside a pond in a recently burned pasture. Usually, one sees large flocks rather than solo birds, and they are usually swimming on the waters of the big reservoirs, not near small farm ponds. Click here for larger image.
Another plant whose flowers appear before the leaves is the Redbud (Cercis canadensis), which is an abundant and welcome sign of spring throughout this part of Flyover Country. The stark black and white plumage of a Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) looks pretty good there. Click here for larger image.
One of the flyover birds of April, Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) generally pass through here spring and fall, but historically have not nested in Kansas. That changed a few years ago when a pair built a nest, laid eggs, and eventually raised some youngsters on a reservoir in eastern KS. Hopefully that is a sign of things to come, and we will have summertime Osprey fishing shows on some of our local lakes in the future. Click here for larger image.
Double-crested Cormorants (Nannopterum auritum) only sport those eponymous crests for a brief period in the springtime, and that creates confusion for beginning birders, who want to know why they can’t see crests on these birds. But to me the most striking thing about cormorants is that turquoise iris. What a fabulous color! Click here for larger image.
Trees without leaves are a welcome sight for anyone hoping to photograph warblers; once the leaves appear these colorful birds disappear behind them. This male Northern Parula (Setophaga americana) obligingly posed on a bare twig in mid-April. The females arrived a day or two later, and there are probably young Parulas out there as you read this. Click here for larger image.
J.
Yikes re your thumb! That sounds painful. Hope you heal quickly. Love the photos, especially the ones of the female Northern Cardinal and the Northern Parula. Though gotta love the expression on that Osprey’s face.
Baud
I feel that pelican. Sometimes I just want to be left alone too.
stinger
Hello, Claudia! As kids, we called cardinals “redbirds”. Now I address them all as Claudia or Claudio, as the case may be.
Another great set of images. Hope your thumb heals quickly, and thank you for the song reference in the post title!
zhena gogolia
Lovely. I like to think they’re posing for you
WaterGirl
OUCH!!!
And lovely birds. But, ouch!
Miki
My mental iPod is playing cardinal and chickadee tunes and also, necessarily, April Come She Will.
Best wishes for swift healing of that thumb.
SteveinPHX
Wishing you a speedy recovery with that thumb. They are important digits for us humans! Limestone fence posts! New to me. Just never crossed paths with one. Thank you!
pieceofpeace
Birds, birds, always birds who daily play a vital role for us with their songs and swoops. Love that cardinal’s beak!
pluky
A fringe benefit of feeders was the year I counted four nesting pairs of cardinals around our yard.
Miss Bianca
Ospreys! Cormorants! Pelicans! Anyone would think you were on the coast instead of in Flyover Country!/
Your photos, stunning as always. Thank you so much, hope your recovery from surgery is quick and (relatively) painless.
mvr
Probably the most frustrating finger to have in a bandage. Best wishes for recovering quickly and painlessly.
And these are all nice. Like the cardinal shot, but then I like them all.
Thanks!
frosty
I followed your fence post link and learned something today – makes me want to detour off of I-70 next time. I’ve already stopped in the Flint Hills on one trip and made it to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
What a huge amount of work to build a fence with limestone rock! I would’ve been reconsidering a life in Kansas and built a wagon to head for California.
JeanneT
You help me see the world better! Thank you.
Chat Noir
I love the girl Northern Cardinal!
Trivia Man
@frosty: Good article. Describing the method of transport warms my supply chain heart. Bonus fact: 25 cents per post, delivered.
Anyway
Great pics and descriptions — as always, thanks A! =)
Looking forward to the Procession of the Species posts – have seen them on YT and they are wonderful!
MCat
So sorry to hear about your thumb surgery. OUCH! Thank you for the great photos.
StringOnAStick
Ouch, that thumb surgery sounds….difficult. As the thumbnail grows back you’ll have plenty of opportunities to answer the age old question “what are fingernails for anyway?”. I hope you can still enjoy some birding as you heal!
Here in basalt covered central Oregon, fence “posts” were often made of stacked up cube-shaped piles of juniper wood, and filled with large chunks of basalt to provide the stability. No way to dig far enough into the very close to the surface basalt bedrock to set a normal fence post, and plenty of juniper wood around, not very tall trees at all and the wood is very prone to twisting. This area didn’t even have any paved main roads until the early 1950’s, except for one (now) highway section that was paved to serve as civilian flight training 1942-44.
Dmkingto
Great photos as usual! I had a similar surgery in March (right thumb cyst), but without the nail removal. Still a huge bandage, and very stiff thumb after the bandage was off (the surgeon removed a v-shaped section of skin and then had to stretch a flap of skin over to cover the excision). Very frustrating since I had just gotten a fancy new lens for my camera – and several critical camera controls are best operated with the right thumb. I’m almost back to full thumb mobility now.
Hey! I could do an OTR post of gross thumb cyst/surgery aftermath photos!
Albatrossity
@Dmkingto: I will spare you the pictures of my thumb, and you can thank me later!