In the wild: Animals edition

[seawolf]

Vultures are fascinating creatures!

[Nocturama]

Spent a few days in the Derbyshire Dales last week…

[ROman]

On my back door tonight.

[SFMCfranky]

[Oaktavia]

@ROman so cool haha!

[Oaktavia]

@SFMCfranky phenomenal shot of the humming bird. Does it have an orange breast or is that a trick of the lighting? We only get one species of humming birds here in WV, the Ruby Throated.

[SFMCfranky]

@Oaktavia

Thanks!
It really is that color. It’s a male Rufous Hummingbird. I tried to post a short video of him. But it was too dense to post here. They show up NorCal in the spring and fall as they migrate North and South. We do have a year round resident: Anna’s Hummingbirds. I’ll try and post some pictures of them. The Rufous are smaller, but very feisty.

[seawolf]

@SFMCfranky The one's I've been posting are Anna's, but I've seeing Ruby-throated hummingbirds in San Diego in past years.

[Cskarev]

Several shots of different animals from a walk in the park today…

[Oaktavia]

That's so awesome I am envious of that! My Merlin bird app is showing me Scarlet Tanagers are calling nearby. Another one of my favorite birds. They are so brilliantly red but I have not seen one yet this year.

[motojobobo]

Excellent pics @Cskarev . Super sharp too. Handheld?

[Cskarev]

@motojobobo thank you! And yes, handheld

[mclaincausey]

The finches had a predator or some other culprit result in a broken egg on the porch a while ago, but they’re back at it. They’ve now feathered their nest.

Keeping patrols.

Some groundhogs near Hattie’s ballet.

[ZackB]

@mclaincausey we had a sparrow nest here above our garage. Had 4 eggs in it, checked it yesterday and they’re all gone now.

[mclaincausey]

@ZackB nature is harsh! House sparrows are all over the damn place so despite my attachments to our house guests in the macro I suppose this needs to happen from time to time.

I have a suspicion that this guy is an enemy. Not sure if he’s trying to coopt the nest or what but they don’t seem to like each other. As you can see he is carrying construction materiel. He may be nesting in one of our trees though. I did see some building occurring there.

[twin]

Wood turtle.

[SFMCfranky]

Hooded Oriole outside my dining room window:

[Oaktavia]

@SFMCfranky holy crap

[seawolf]

Our new hummingbird baby. The nest isn't holding up very well. It's hard to see from the photo, but it came loose and rotated forward almost 90 degrees, and the baby has been perched on top of it for the last two weeks. It's getting so big so fast, but there were a few nights when it got really cold and we didn't think it would survive. This photo is from yesterday, and the baby is getting really big! I'm guessing it'll fledge in a few days.

[SFMCfranky]

@Oaktavia

Yeah, the males are pretty flashy.