January 2013 - Egg Suck Blog

I saw that eagle again, yesterday, and once more this morning, but I’ve yet to get a decent picture of it. Great spoilsport keeps flying over at a ridiculous height, simply ridiculous, out of range of any reasonable lens. Rubbing salt in my wounds, a friend of mine, not even a birder, rang up yesterday morning to tell me about ALL the eagles he’s getting round his farm — he’s got eagles like I’ve got gulls, if his account’s to be believed. Some people have all the luck.

Contrast a bounty of eagles with this motley crowd:

A northern flicker came and sat on a railing across the courtyard. Flickers are among my favourite local birds, but this one elected to stay out of crisp-photography range.

I hoped to catch a nice shot of the flicker in flight, at least, but it went the wrong way, straight into a massive patch of glare.

For some reason, the starlings almost never come my way. You’d think they’d be all over my feeder, like the crows, but they’re not. Someone’s got a feeder high in the trees across the way, and they favour that one. (Not sure what those other birds are, off to the left — too many branches in front of them, and the shot’s not terribly clear, to begin with.)

Gulls circled, waiting for me to go away, so they could raid the feeder.

Whee!

Wrong kind of bird!

Sigh.

My birding year began in delightful fashion, with a big ol’ American crow boaking up a big ol’ American crow pellet onto my balcony railing. And thanks for that, Mr. (or Mrs.) Crow.

Not the same crow as befouled my balcony. But I’m sure it’ll be back later, to do that.

That’s right, crow. I see you.

I was complaining to Mother, a couple of weeks ago, about the proliferation of trash birds on my balcony, and she suggested I put up a “No Gulls” sign. Someone on Facebook made the same suggestion. I suspect these people simply feel they’d be entertained by pictures of “No Gulls” signs with gulls standing on them — which, let’s face it, would be the most likely outcome.

Speaking of gulls, say hello to my second visitor of the year —

Western/glaucous-winged hybrid? I’m really not sure. Whatever it is, it’s been trying to sneak into my feeder all morning.

This shot has not been cropped. The gull was really THAT close. (Bear in mind that this was shot with a 300mm prime lens, so “that close” is probably around 3.5-4 ft. It wasn’t about to peck the glass, or anything.)

— I had a few choice words for it, myself.

On another note, I was up bright and early again, this morning. A fog was down, and it was too murky for bird photography, so I snapped a few shots of the view from my balcony: