Bulletin 383 - Colorado

 I went to the Denver area on July 4th weekend to pick up some birds, I had not yet photographed. I contacted guide Carl Bendorf in Longmont and with my list, we did one day in the Pawnee Grasslands and a second day in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The bird of the trip was definitely a male White-tailed Ptarmigan (Lagopus leucurus). This 12.5" grouse lives on the tundra above the visitors center. He was a lifer for me.

White-tailed Ptarmigan - male

And a close-up shows the red wattle above the eye.

White-tailed Ptarmigan - male

The second new bird to photograph was the 12" Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana). This member of the jay family is usually easy to see up close - but they all stayed away. It is gray with black wings.

Clark's Nutcracker

The next bird was a lifer, the 6" Thick-billed Longspur (Rhyncophanes mccownii). The breeding male looks like a sparrow with black and white patterned face and a red shoulder patch.

Thick-billed Longspur - male

The other longspur in the area was the beautiful 6" male Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarius ornatus). He is all black underneath with the beautiful collar.

Chestnut-collared Longspur - breeding male

The 7" male Lark Bunting (Calamospiza melanocorys) is a large black sparrow with a white wing patch. It was my first time to photograph him in breeding plumage. It is the state bird of Colorado.

Lark Bunting - breeding male

We also saw the 9.5" Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia). This owl often nests in abandoned prairie dog holes.

Burrowing Owl

I also photographed several mammal species. The first was the Elk. Here is a group of 3 males on the tundra.

Elk - male

Another member of the deer family was this mother and baby Moose.

Moose

The beautiful Pronghorn resembles a deer with the horns, but is more closely related to the giraffe. The male has the pronghorn, but the female just has a small straight horn and unlike deer with antlers that are shed every year, the pronghorn does not lose his horn. Also different is the Pronghorn does not jump over fences, but crawls under them. Consequently, many farmers leave the bottom strand of barbed wire off the fences to enable these animals to cross more easily.

Pronghorn - male

The cute  8" American Pika is a relative of rabbits. They live at or above the tree line in rock piles. They harvest grass during the summer to store in their burrow for the winter.

American Pika

I also photographed several rodents is the squirrel family. The largest is the Yellow-bellied Marmot.

Yellow-bellied Marmot

And the one is was most hoping to see was the Black-tailed Prairie Dog. Just the tip of his tail is black. This was my first time to see a prairie dog.

Black-tailed Prairie Dog

There were several more squirrel species and if you would like to see them, just click the link.

Least Chipmunk

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel

Wyoming Ground Squirrel

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2021 David McDonald

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Bulletin 248 - Best of 10 years #11 - others

This is my final episode in the series as I looked back at my first 10 years of bird and nature photography. Obviously birds are my passion, but I will also shoot other subjects that interest me. Each photo brings back a pleasant memory as I can recall exactly where I was when I took the photo and usually at least the year, if not the month I took it.

Most of these will be mammals, but they are few and far between to see while out in the daytime looking for birds. Squirrels and deer are about the only subjects that one can reliably find.

First is a newborn Northern Raccoon. Normally, raccoons live in hollow trees and a mother will have her babies there. Well this mother had her babies on a pile of reeds at Anahuac NWR. Fortunately for us observers, it was right below a boardwalk. This was on 4/1/2006 in my first 4 months of photography and I had gone to Anahuac for spring migration. I was hoping that I would watch the babies grow over the next few weeks, but of course by next weekend she had moved them to a hidden location. This is one of the 2 most memorable photos of that first year. 

Northern Raccoon - newborn

And here is mother holding one of the babies close to her. The tenderness of the maternal instinct of all animals is innate and a joy to behold.

Northern Raccoon - mother and baby

Striped Skunks are very common, but nocturnal. I have only seen one in the 10 years. It was Jan 2, 2010 as I was leaving Anahuac NWR in the late afternoon. I saw this skunk walking along the shoulder of the road. I turned around and drove past him in the direction he was walking. I wanted a memorable photo so I sat on the grass to get to his eye level. When I looked at the photos, I realized that he didn't have any white stripes down his back, just the white crown on his head. I posted 2 of the photos with the caption 'Striped Skunk without stripes!'. The first had his nose sniffing the ground, but in this one, I think he caught my scent and was looking around. This photo has had 4250 'hits' , the most of any of the 4000 photos on my pbase web site. It was also honored by being selected for the 50th anniversary of Anahuac NWR book in 2104.

Striped Skunk - without stripes

A trip to Alaska with the Texas Ornithology Society in the summer of 2010 produced several notable large mammal photos. The first is a Humpback Whale, while we were on a pelagic trip. We got close enough that when he breached, I was able to clearly see the barnacles on his lower jaw.

Humpback Whale

Also on that pelagic trip we encountered a Black Bear on a cliff who was looking for eggs in seabird nests among a field of flowers. I had seen this species a few times before, but this is the only one I have photographed.

Black Bear

This is the only Grizzly Bear I have ever seen and he came walking right past the van we were in. This picture was taken from inside the vehicle, when he was about 100 feet away.

Grizzly Bear

The members of the dog family are seldom seen, except for coyotes which I have photographed a couple of times. I have never seen any wolf. I have seen a Red Fox 3 times and photographed twice. This one on the Alaska trip is my best 'dog' photo.

Red Fox

Pronghorns are related to deer and antelope, but are in a separate family of their own. I have only seen them 3 times. On a trip to Big Bend National Park in April 2009, we had a pair quite close to the road. They have very colorful rufous and white markings and the pink flowers add a bit of art to the picture.

Pronghorn

My trips to the tropics have produced a couple of favorite photos. In Panama in Feb 2014, we had a troop of Mantled Howler Monkeys stop right above the car. We watched and photographed them for about 20 minutes. I call this one 'Chilling Out'.

Mantled Howler Monkey
Chilling Out

Well if dogs are hard to find, seeing cats in the wild (outside of Africa) is almost a lost cause. I have only seen 2 species. I saw a bobcat 3 times in my life and got a distant photo once. So this Puma (aka Cougar, Mountain Lion) on my Costa Rica trip at Easter 2015 was the most amazing wildlife experience ever. To have this big cat just lying in the woods 60 feet away was unreal. We watched him for 20 minutes along with many other lucky people who happened to be at La Selva that day.

Puma
La Selva, Costa Rica

Monarch Butterflies are known for their incredible migration. Pacific Grove outside Monterey, California hosts a colony of hibernating monarchs from west of the Rockies. All the ones east of the mountains go to Mexico for the winter. I took several photos of the skeins of monarchs in February 2008. Some of these butterflies have tags on them to measure their travels. This is my second most viewed photo, after the skunk above, with 1800 hits.

Monarch Butterfly hibernation
Pacific Grove, CA

I am not good with flowers as I don't photograph them often. However, beginners luck on the same day as the raccoon newborn produced my favorite flower photo and the other favorite from the first year. Imagine, the 2 best photos from a whole year were just several hours apart. What are the odds of that? This is apparently a False Indigo, as best as I can tell. It was also selected for the Anahuac book in a full page spread.

False Indigo

The last is the only non-nature photo that I consider a favorite. Carmel, CA is a favorite vacation spot and there is a small wetland at the Carmel River mouth and beach where I would frequently go birding. One morning in 2007, there was not much happening bird wise, so I looked up towards the sun rising over the trees and saw this cross on a hill. I thought it would be neat to have the yellow sun with bright blue sky behind the cross. I had to position the tripod several times and of course, looking straight at the sun wasn't a great idea. So I would move the camera slightly and quickly take a glance. I snapped several photos. When I got back to the hotel and looked at the photos, it was extremely overexposed, but, the error is amazing and several friends have asked for copies to hang in their homes.

Carmel Cross

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2016 David McDonald

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David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas
June 2, 2009


Bulletin #80 – West Texas – Big Bend Nat’l Park #2

I had my first trip to west Texas. I went with Ed Arenson from Denver and we used Darrell Vollert as our guide. His web site is here.

We spent 2 days in Big Bend National Park and the adjacent Christmas Mountains.


There were several flycatchers that I photographed. Most interesting were the many Vermilion Flycatchers (Pyrocephalus rubinus). In fact Kutac in his book of birding locations in Texas said that Rio Grande Village in Big Bend NP had the most of this species he had ever seen. I had good photos of the beautiful male already, so was interested in other plumages.

Here is an adult female with a large caterpillar in her mouth. She has a pink wash on her belly. These are small birds at 6” in length.

Here is a first year female Vermilion Flycatcher. She has a yellow wash on her belly.

And here is a juvenile being fed by its mother. The second photo is by itself. It really has no distinguishing features and we might not have known what it was until the mother returned to feed it.

Here is another flycatcher that resembles the female Vermilion above. This is the Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis saya). It is larger at 7.5”, but has the tan wash on the belly.

We heard this Great Crested Flycatcher (Myiarchus crinitus) call in the trees and located him. This is one of the few bird songs I know, as we had pairs of these birds nest in a bird house over many years when I was growing up in Canada. His back is to us in this photo, but the typical coloration of a myiarchus genus bird, with brown back, rufous on the wings and yellow
belly is obvious. The bushy crest is also nicely seen.

Lastly is a Tropical Kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus). This bird can only be IDed by voice as several other species are so similar. There were several birds flying around in the tops of the cottonwood trees along the Rio Grande, but I was only able to get a back view once again.

Also in Big Bend NP is the Mexican Jay (Aphelocoma ultramarina). Sibley suggests that the populations in Big Bend and Arizona might ultimately be different species, so I wanted to get photos of these birds as I already had the AZ birds. He states that the Texas birds have ‘richer blue’ heads than the AZ birds. Here is the AZ subspecies for comparison. It is much paler

The next bird is an American Pipit (Anthus rubescens). I have several photos of this bird in basic (non-breeding) plumage as they winter in the Houston TX area. However in alternate (breeding) plumage, they develop a rufous wash on the breast. So here is an alternate plumaged bird.

On the drive to the park from Alpine Texas, we found some Eastern Meadowlarks (Sturnella magna) on fence posts, a typical perch. These western range birds are quite different and are another likely split as Lillian’s Meadowlark. The guide said that the song was different from that of the eastern birds.

We also found several Pronghorn Antelopes in fields along the road. This was only my second time to see these beautiful animals and never so close to the road. It was especially a treat to find them in a field of verbena wildflowers in the middle of the desert.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

email: davidkmcd@comcast.net

photos copyright 2009 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask for subscribe.