Red-Bellied and Downy Woodpeckers....

I never tire of the woodpeckers, no matter how many times I see them. The sun was shining and the Red-Bellied Woodpecker was posing nicely. I think the Red-Bellied is one of the prettiest woodpeckers out there, and that red head and beautiful B&W patterned back make it a real eye catcher.
Side or back...it still looks pretty :-)

"Anything here for me?"

You can see a bit of the red on the belly that gives it the name. Hardly its most noticable feature, but I guess you can't call them all "red headed".

He goes to the trouble to select the sunflower seeds from the suet instead of just eating sunflower seeds at one of the other feeders! Maybe the suet coating is sort of like "gravy" for him.

He finally noticed the little ant guard cups that I use for seeds and is being selective about which seed might be just the right one.

"Ah, ha....this is the one!"

For such a large woodpecker, he can be very dainty in his actions.

The Downy was really wanting to get to the suet, too and tried to share. The Red-Bellied doesn't really like sharing and usually pokes anyone who tries it. He had already chased the Blue Jay away, but I guess the Downy is a "small cousin", so they had a sort of truce.

The female Downy decided that the crumbs that got dropped on the ground were just as good.
Downys don't stand out so well on the ground!

The Downy male sneaking in when the Red-Bellied was gone.

Then of course there always the House Sparrows who will bully their way in, no matter who is there first! They are hard to chase away, even by the woodpeckers!

SkyWatch Friday.....

It's SkyWatch Friday! This was my sky at dusk yesterday. A touch of pink and blue
Looks much better then the rain from the day before!
For more great skies from all over the world, click on the SkyWatch icon on my sidebar.
Thank you team for your work in keeping this site going and thanks to all who post their skies for us to enjoy!

When it rains, it pours......

It rained all day yesterday..... .....the driveway is full of puddles.
The feeders were very busy with very wet birds. Mike took this cute Downy shot while I was doing my computer work. It's always nice to find a surprise photo that I don't remember taking when I download the photos :-) He said the Downy was really working on these pine cones that I had dipped in a fat/peanutbutter/seed mix.

Mike took this one of the Heron by the lake, too. He is tall enough to shoot over the bush and I'm not! It seems to be watching the rain fall on the lake and hoping for some food to swim by.

I don't know how this little Goldfinch manages to look so dry when every other bird was soaked!

The male House Sparrow on the front walk hoping I'll throw out some food that he might want.

A very wet Red-Bellied Woodpecker. He looked pretty miserable and hungry.

He really has to lean at this feeder, but I didn't want to go out in the rain and fill the others.

One of the Titmice found the bag of peanuts I hung on the feeder. I also found out that I have a Titmouse that seems to be missing an eye. I thought I noticed it one other day and today saw it again. It seems healthy otherwise. Maybe it was attacked by another bird?

Does he look wet enough? I don't think he likes the rain any better than I do.

Everytime I snapped a photo of the Carolina Wren it either shook its head or jumped half way out of the photo....sigh. this was one of the better ones. The light conditions were as miserable as the weather and the camera focuses slowly.

Maybe the sun will shine tomorrow....maybe not. It's the time of year when we get a lot of days like this.

Flying Geese......

Well, the last time we went to Henderson there were no geese in the air, but quite a few on the ground. This time was the opposite! A huge swarm was "flowing" overhead..........literally filling the sky at times, and this is just the number that fits in one shot.
They kept flying closer and eventually I could pick out the white color of the Snow Geese.

Right over my head at this time! I took lots of shots but they all look pretty much the same.

They don't seem to have a "leader" when they are in these huge numbers and just flow all over the place with little formation. I guess they know what they are doing.

The white Snow Geese stand out so well and I can tell that some are the dark version by their white heads. I'm sure there are White-Fronted Geese mixed in there, too, but at this distance, I can't tell for sure.

When the spread out more, it is like watching sky writing and patterns being drawn in the sky :-)

....a loop here, a swirl there....

Occasionally a more normal looking V shape appeared or a lot of straight lines.
A friend who lives in Henderson said they saw about 6000 geese there over the weekend! I don't think we saw that many, but I have a video at the end that gives a better look at the huge number we did see. Mike thinks that next time we need to go later in the day. Of course that means the light won't be as good for photos.

We spotted this Kestrel up on the wire, but just as I snapped, he took off. He kept moving along the wire and we kept creeping up trying to go by.....frustrating him, I'm sure. We were actually trying to see this group of birds below....

This group of water birds frustrated me! I took a dozen photos, but none are any better focused than this. I have no idea what they are other then something in the Sandpiper family....I think! Grey backs, white bellies, longish bills that you can see if you zoom in a bit more. Sort of a dark stripe through the eye area.

A couple Killdeer were in the same area, but their stripes make them easy to ID.

In a distant tree we could see a large bird. When I zoom in on this I think I can see the white head of an eagle. My friend said they saw an eagle with the geese on the weekend, so I'm sure this must be it.
This was my best video of them huge swarm.

Misc. from home and Howell wetlands....

Not too many shots in my files to use today. A few from the home birds and a few left-overs from the last wetland's visit. This Mockingbird was perched up in the pear tree when I went out to put seed on the railings. Catching the early morning sun :-)
The Downys are always at the suet.

The Blue Jay stopped by and sat for a bit.

Noticed the nice full moon early in the afternoon.

At Howell, I had this one turtle shot. Not too many turtles out with the weather getting colder but this was a nice day to sun on the log.

All the Geese were busy doing the "bottoms up".

Nothing here....I just liked the misc. stuff in the water.

I enjoy shooting "stars" on the water, even if the ducks wouldn't swim through them for me :-)

That's it....not a lot, but maybe I'll get further afield tomorrow.