lonestranger

Friday night moon Saturday night moon.

Spread your wings all you want, it's not considered flying until you let go and get airborne .

I can't help with sexing your bird but that is a great photo. Not just the dragonfly, but the bird is pretty cool too. 😉

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 agree with @Seanbirds, there's no reason to think that you wouldn't see a Golden Eagle over a body of water. They might not fly over HUGE bodies of water but they're not likely to avoid flying over a body of water just because that body of water is in it's flight path. Taking into account that they do hunt fish as part of their diet, and also hunt Seals and birds like Swans and Cranes, it's reasonable to say that they do fly over water. A quote from All About Birds with the last sentence confirming that they catch fish... Food Golden Eagles prey mainly on small to medium-sized mammals, including hares, rabbits, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, and marmots. Black-tailed jackrabbits are a key prey species throughout much of their range. These eagles are also capable of taking larger bird and mammal prey, including cranes, swans, deer, and domestic livestock. They have even been observed killing seals, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, coyotes, badgers, and bobcats. In addition to live prey, Golden Eagles often feed on carrion, following crows and other scavengers to a meal. They also catch fish, rob nests, and steal food from other birds.

I can't say that I've noticed it in Northern Flickers, but I have noticed young Downy Woodpeckers getting red on their forehead before it comes in on the back of the crown so maybe it's a woodpecker thing.

It sure looks like a sparrow, but is it? I am starting to have doubts. I think @Liam has found another tricky one, or is he tricking us with a simple, but often confusing, song sparrow? White edged tail feathers don't really fit song sparrow though. *thinks out loud*

Well I was wrong about being familiar with the bird in quiz #2, and I know nothing about which birds eat which bugs, or which trees support which bugs, so I couldn't take advantage of the specific diet hint. I ended up guessing Yellow-rumped Warbler which seemed to match up when I looked at photos of fledglings, and they can be quite colourful too which seemed to match the part of Liam's of hint that I focused on. Good challenging photo @Liam 👍

That would definitely explain why you might see more than one male in the web. 😉

Okay, I made up my mind and I'm ready to direct message @Liam with my guess. I won't reveal my choice but I will say that my decision was based on my original feeling of being familiar with this species, and the hints dropped by Liam, and the discussion of others. If I was to offer a hint without revealing my guess, I would suggest looking at the bill and not the gape. Don't forget that the deadline has been pushed forward to today, so get your guesses, or revised guesses DM'd to @Liam before time runs out.

I saw this Belted Kingfisher fly down the river a bit and disappear behind some trees yesterday. As I got closer I found a small opening in the branches where I could zoom in from the cover of the trees.

This is one of the largest orb weavers that I have ever seen. It's body was about the size of a nickel with the legs covering an area about the size of loonie, the Canadian dollar coin. I would have preferred a better angle of view, but I wasn't going to get on the other side of the web to do it, there were too many other webs around for that.

Streaky males in their wintering grounds would be immature birds, wouldn't they?

Here in Ontario the males show up in the spring with some of them showing their obvious adult male plumage and others look like they are mostly adult plumaged with remnants of juvenile plumage still lingering. I'm not sure how long it takes them to achieve all their adult feathers, but I don't think they ever look like juveniles after getting all of their adult feathers.

Or days.

Bringing the bird of discussion back into view. I'm speculating that this has to be a fairly short tailed bird since we can't see the tail protruding beyond the branches. For that reason alone I have taken mockingbird off my list of possibilities. I still don't know what my final GUESS will be tomorrow but I have one less option on my list.

Risk is a strategy board game where you try to acquire territory. https://shop.hasbro.com/en-us/product/risk-game:2C7C6F52-5056-9047-F5DD-EB8AC273BA4C

I am far from an expert but I agree with @meghann, the red breast and wing pits indicate male and would be yellow tinged on a young female. I am pretty sure that the streaking on the chest would be within the range of variation, if this amount of streaking isn't actually typical for a bird of this age.

Blah blah blah.

Just putting the quiz bird on the current page for easier viewing.

I should have added the one setting that I consider a total game changer for me, an adjustment that once I tried it, I never looked back. This adjustment can be done on most DSLRs but I don't think the option is available on P&S cameras. I am referring to Back Button Focus. Basically you assign a button on the back of your camera to be your focus button and use the shutter button strictly for activating the shutter. The biggest advantage to this method is you never have to worry about the camera hunting for something you previously focused on. You focus with the back button and once you have the desired focus, you can press and re-press the shutter button without the focus changing or the lens hunting for your subject. I can't explain it as well as other's can, but I can endorse this method as being a real game changer for those willing to give it a fair try. Yeah, it will take a few days of practice to get used to back button focus, but I don't think you'll switch back after you get the hang of it. A few links and a short video to explain things better than I could. https://photographylife.com/back-button-focus https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-techniques/benefits-of-using-the-af-on-button-for-autofocus.html https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/learn/education/topics/article/2019/february/back-button-autofocus-explained/back-button-autofocus-explained

Sunrise from this morning with the mist hanging over the river.

Sunset from Friday evening. Sunrise from Saturday morning.