Bird Migration and Misc Birding Thread
- Thread starter Kinch
- Start date
2nd set of Bluebird eggs. Five first hatch. She's a fertile Mertile. Even the first born hang around house defending territory. Pretty cool. 
It's been a big owl year for me. My owl folder under "Birds 2024" has 4000 photos in it!
Golfing with @Kinch at the Preserve last week. We both got to see the rare eagle playing best ball.
Was out in the yard working on the lawn mower yesterday afternoon while wife and daughter were on the deck. I commented to them that the bird on the feeder was the darkest red house finch I had ever seen. I think this is what I saw. Do they get as far north as the Twin Cities?
We have at least two in our neighborhood. We can hear one at times but once in a great while you can go out and hear them calling back a forth about a block away from each other. Don't get to see them much but see their pellets under our evergreens pretty regularly. A few weeks ago I heard one in the evening just before dusk and noticed that it was sitting about 60' feet up at the very top of one of our lindens.
Not a great picture but we saw a Green Heron in West Des Moines yesterday.
They do, but male house finches are pretty deep red this time of year, too.
I have had a small group of Purple Finches here in my Saint Paul backyard, but haven't seen them since early spring.
Daughter saw one at a friend's house last week but couldn't get a pic (they live on a large pond/small lake). She told her friend it was a green heron. Friend said they have one or two of them there quite regularly but they didn't know what they were. She sent daughter a pic yesterday, but I don't have the pic.
Daughter has become quite the birder so she is really enjoying the opportunity she is getting for birding all day while she works at one of the parks all summer.
Yesterday this owl spent the entire day in my front yard, watching chipmunks and sleeping some. Moved around from crabapple to maple to redbud to neighbors roof to crabapple and finally flew off to neighbors oak up high near dusk. Another owl was in my maple a bit later and after some hooting between them they flew off together. Figured these were adults (see picture). And tonight there were two in my crabapple around 830 and have been hanging since than but these seem like immatures, they are whining and not hooting and have been moving from my yard to neighbors and back. Did just hear hooting from the crabapple so maybe an adult showed up? Any owl experts on CF want to weigh in?
Attended a wedding in Moose Pass, Alaska and saw some wonderful birds. The closeup Puffin was a rescue in a Sanctuary.. The Trumpeter Swans are immature…I think. Weather was pretty brutal when I was out on the ocean, all my other marine bird pics are a bit foggy…because of fog…
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Not my pic but attached is a picture of a Barred Owl which, I would guess, is what species your owl is. I’ve seen a few over the years…quite an experience.
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Yes, both the Pacific Puffin and the Horned Puffin are rescues…I was told they get caught and injured in nets among other mishaps. I’ll include a couple of my wild Puffin pics of which we saw many. The lighting was bad…it was raining and heavy seas so the quality is poor. Still a thrill to see the Puffins in the wild.
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As long as we’re back in Alaska, I was also fortunate to see a Humpback Whale. Same bad conditions as the Puffins tho I was fortunate to get several pretty good images…including a picture of the fluke as the whale was heading down.
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On the same six hour boat trip out of Seward…just down the road from Moose Pass I was fortunate to,see a Hump Backed Whale..same bad heavy sea/rain/fog as with the Puffins but I was able to get several good images.
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Yes, it is a Barred Owl. My question is whether it was adult or an adult looking juvenile. Based on the whining/hiss calls I heard last night I am going with adult looking juvenile. And it back in my crabapple again today. Set up tripod to get some video. Also think an adult might have nabbed one of the chipmunks scurrying about and not just watched with.
I do know the look of the younger juveniles, took a few thousand pictures of a nesting pair and their three owlets in a nearby park this winter/spring but in all of those images the juveniles still lacked the full feathered face look of an adult.
For what it’s worth this is the towards the end of breeding season for the Barred Owl. I tent camped a week ago and the Barred owls made some strange noises a couple of times.
