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OK lets try this one...

Eagleville TN. Seriously, a real town!

Belted Kingfisher I was at the right place at just the right time!

Adult and a juvenile.

Been real busy,great pics everyone

And a non-breeding adult.

Sorry, I think this one's also in the "dinner time" thread. Video at https://flic.kr/p/YuRPUj

I only ever saw the one Great Grey Owl...

I have hundreds of American Goldfinch pictures. They are one of my favorite Winter subjects 💛 Here a few favs...

Some of my best photo's are of a pie-billed grebe

A friend of mine let me borrow his $8,000 Canon 600mm lens and paired with my 6D Mk II, it was a super powerful set-up!! Not much other than feeder birds to photograph that day, though! Click the pic to see all the detail on the feathers.

I don't see them often around home, but I got a couple of shots in CA and one in Rwanda...

Hope you don't mind another, Grebes are one of my favorite subjects and I have a lot of images of them! This is one of my favorites because of the early morning light.

And a very old photo of mine...

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/364737631

Missed out on last weeks..

Here's my bluebird study painted in acrylics (and pen for the birdhouse and lettering).

I wonder how many others can relate, but it seems like I am either hunting for a needle in a haystack or trying to select the best blade of grass in that haystack. 😄 I'm either trying to find one of very few photos of a species in a collection of thousands and thousands of photos, or as is the case this week, I am trying to select one photo out of thousands I can easily find. Here's two photos that while not great photos, combining them together helped make my choice a little bit easier.

I don’t know if anyone remembers, but In some topic many moons ago I shared a photo of my pond and said one day I’d make a waterfall that connected into it for the birds to bathe in (and as a staging area for photos). Well, this summer it actually happened! So if anyone’s interested, I thought I’d share some photos and some parts of the building process as I’m pretty proud of it. We initially installed this pond in 2014 (I think). It’s just a simple preformed liner pond that I think is either 75 or 125 gallons. It has attracted many species over the years, but there was never really a good area for the birds to land in it. I added some boulders and rocks into the water to create a shallow area that the birds could use to bathe and drink. You can kinda see it in the top left in front of the juncus. However, usually only one bird would occupy it, or birds who were interested could never find it. Thus, I always thought adding a nice shallow waterfall would provide the space they needed to actually enjoy the water. Though I never actually thought it would come to fruition, especially since its been 7 years. But one day we just decided to give it a go! Prior to construction, we watched several YouTube videos and read some books. We bought a waterfall spill way, tubing, some large flat rocks as we wanted a multi-tiered waterfall, and a pond liner. With that we headed out to my cabin to try and build it. First, we had to build up the waterfall base. This involved many wheelbarrow trips full of dirt until we got a decent sized mound. Based on the rocks we had, we sorta just played around with them and molded the dirt until we got something that we liked. Getting us to this point: Turned it on to see how it was flowing, and what needed to be adjusted This led to the first bird visitor: a young nuthatch! With the skeleton complete, we stopped here. We needed waterfall foam to stop the water from flowing underneath and around the stones, which we did not have. We didn’t make it back until about a month later, but everything was still intact. Unfortunately, the heat dome was occurring during this time so it was HOT! We foamed the flat stones down in place (on the bottom and the sides), which made a huge difference. The next step was getting rocks, so we went rock hunting down a forestry road. My hands got burnt several times from picking up rocks, but we managed a pretty good haul. From there, we unloaded our collection and sorta just started putting rocks in places. It was a bit difficult at first deciding what should go where, but then it suddenly just all went together like a puzzle. At this point, we were about 70% through the rocks we had collected. Once all those rocks were in, we foamed them in place. To hide the foam, we stuck sand and small pebbles into it as it was drying. Once those were all secured, we then filled in the gaps with gravel, smaller stones, and dirt. I added some plants around it, and then we added bark mulch, getting us to our finished product: Surprisingly, we used every rock we picked up and didn’t need to go out and get more. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and can’t get over how easy it was, especially since it was my dads and I first time building one. In total it probably took us about 5-6 working days. Hopefully though it lasts the winter 😂. We got to enjoy it for about a week, and it actually was the best place to sit in the yard as the running water made the surrounding air much cooler. The extreme heat kept most birds away, but it did attract many robins, chickadees, siskins, nuthatches, YRWA, pacific slope flycatchers, and even a rufous hummingbird was splashing around in it. Yet, I never managed a single photo. Unfortunately, once we left we never made it back there for almost 2 months due to the wildfires, smoke, COVID, and life. So I never really got to enjoy it, or let the birds enjoy it (had to be unplugged). I managed to get there for a few days in late August, so I was hoping I could get a picture of a bird in it, but no luck. It was a really weird few days there, almost zero bird activity in my yard. I didn’t take many photos at all that trip as there wasn’t anything around to photograph! This is what it looked like then, some of the plants grew in a bit more, others died. Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out, and I’m sure it will look better as the plants grow in around it. It makes such a nice noise, and the pictures don’t really do it justice. I’m pretty excited to see what birds will use it next year! I know the white-crowned sparrows are gonna be ecstatic when they migrate through in May.

Oddly, this is the number 1 photo of an Olive-sided Flycatcher, in Texas.

Note to self: if meghann suggests a birding trip, politely decline.

One Florida 3 Colorado

Not the best photo, but the bird makes up for it. Philadelphia Vireo!

I do not want to start thinking about autumn and winter, but if I look at the colour of these leaves it is coming soon 😐 https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/366126031

Looks like lots of people have gotten great shots of the grebes 😃 Here are a couple of my faves...

In the Lockwood Folly area, SE coastal NC. I heard Blue Jays and assorted other songbirds scream about something. After a few minutes of searching, I spotted this about 150 feet away and about 40 up. Based on a size estimate of 24 to 30 inches, I'm thinking female.

Hard to pick the one I like best.

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/372576601

Finally saw my first owl of the year!

A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird who was too busy keeping an eye out on another hummer to care about me much. https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/371662871

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/371513481

House Wren https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/367233921

Finally got some decent photos to share with y’all. A pair of Bay-breasted Warblers in my yard. https://ebird.org/checklist/S94007221

Yesterday morning I got some pretty decent shots including this (young?) common yellowthroat. Love the colors of the moss/lichen matching the bird https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/364278871 https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/364042771