lonestranger

BRDL 30 ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? I waited until my last guess before checking the list. Kind of sad I couldn't think of any more possibilities on my own, especially after seeing the answer. Oh well, I still enjoy the game, even when it makes me feel stupid. ?

The news story I posted in the Birding News forum speculates that the birds were trying to avoid a predator from above. Theory is that the upper birds in the flock tried to evade a predator and ultimately drove the lower birds into the ground.

When I see those kind of numbers I can't help but think that there's some pretty wealthy birders out there. Let's face it, if you want to keep adding birds to a life list, you have to travel more and more to get new birds. To get that many birds, you need to travel to an awful lot of different places, and probably need to hit some of those locations more than once. I suppose there could be some of those birders traveling on their company's expense and getting in some birding on their business trips, or some birders getting funding for research purposes, but I suspect that you have to have some pretty deep pockets to be able to afford that many birds on your life list.

It probably was a foot or less of snow over two or three days. You would think it was a lot less than that by looking at fields behind the house this morning. It was the next few days of high winds that blew the snow out of the fields and dropped it all at my back door.

BRDL 29 ???? ???? ???? No list today, just luck.

Nope, I haven't been part of the workforce for about 5 years now. I just wanted to get the snow cleared before it had a chance to partially melt and turn into a block of ice with the temps going above and below the freezing mark. Luckily, most of the snow drifted behind the vehicles and not so much in front of the vehicles. Also lucky that the drifts behind the house don't need to be cleared.

Snow can be a lot of fun to play in, @Clip, unfortunately today wasn't a play day. A view from behind the vehicles. Cell phone photos before and during the snowblowing.

This is a shot from my back steps looking towards the driveway side of the house this morning. For a point of reference, the squirrel baffle under the bird feeder is approximately 4 feet off the ground, about the same height as the snow drift. I haven't been bold enough to go out and see how much snow the winds have piled up around the vehicles yet. I have to get out there soon though, the temps are suppose to get above freezing this afternoon and I want to do my snowblowing while it's light fluffy snow and not wet slushy snow. And yes, I will have to make a path to my tarped shelter by shovel if I want to get to the snowblower. Yikes.

Welcome to Whatbird, UAEbirds. Besides witnessing hawks and crows inverting in the air while they chase each other, I have also been lucky enough to grab some photos of Canada Geese as they flipped upside down while coming in for a water landing. I'm not sure any species is "expected" to fly upside down, but I suspect many of them can under the right circumstances. There's more photos on page 11 of my flickr photos. https://www.flickr.com/photos/27232701@N04/page11

I should clarify, that last lucky guess of mine was list inspired. I had a few options left to choose from for my last guess but I couldn't think of any more of them off the top of my head. Once I checked the list it was just a lucky guess of the remaining possibilities. The whole game comes down to one lucky last guess, it's just a matter of how early in the game we get that lucky last guess. ?

BRDL 28 ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? Right down to the last lucky guess.

I believe Odes are dragonflies and damselflies.

A deliberately wrong third guess didn't help any so I had to go back to a list again. BRDL 26 ???? ???? ???? ????

BRDL 26 ???? ???? ???? ????

I didn't need a list today, or the last few days. Today's was one of those puzzles where I had to figure out the bird AFTER I guessed the code though. BRDL 25 ???? ???? ???? ???? ????

Here's some more info/speculation on what happened with this flock of birds. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/14/why-did-birds-fall-from-sky-in-mexico-probably-a-predator-experts-say-aoe

BRDL 24 ???? ???? ???? ????

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/02/14/birds-fall-from-sky-mexico-orig-jc.cnn

Hey, quit pulling my tail back there.

BRDL 23 ???? ???? ???? ????

I wonder if maybe some third party flash units don't register with the camera's exif file. It sure looks like flash was used to this amateur.

leash /lēSH/ Learn to pronounce noun a strap or cord for restraining and guiding a dog or other animal. ?

Eastern Phoebe

I used the 400mm f/5.6 for many years before buying the 100-400 mark ii. If you're looking for a prime lens that isn't too heavy to carry around, I'd recommend the 400 F/5.6 if you can find a used one. I can honestly say that I was always pleased with the lens, except for the fact that it wasn't a zoom lens, it's not very practical when a deer is less than 10 meters away from the car window unless you want to decide between capturing the antlers or the face, or half and half. For birding it's a great lens, the fact that there's no IS built into the lens wasn't a big deal for me, it just means it's a lot lighter to carry. Now having said that, if it was me spending your children's inheritance, I'd definitely buy all three. Maybe put a clause in the will so the kids inherit the camera gear, it'd still be part of the inheritance for the kids and you'd get new camera gear, sounds like a win-win to me. ?

BRDL 22 ???? ???? ???? I dropped one of my feather letters from my first guess and reused one of my goose egg letters for my second guess and got the third letter. That gave me lots of possibilities to choose from without even referring to a list, so I guessed ???? and got lucky.