Saturday, January 29, 2011

Some work birding in the snow

Some of my latest bird sightings:


We've been getting huge flocks of American crows here for the last couple of winters; these crows were photographed right across the street from my work. I wish I'd captured the flock of probably 200+ swarming in the air, along with a Red-tailed who swooped through the flock and disappeared; I wasn't fast enough with the camera. Still, I got some good pictures despite the overcast sky. I like that bird on the right in the second photo; it looks like he's strutting.

Another day, I saw this bird, which I'm fairly sure is a Common Raven. I was flying down the highway when I passed him and he looked so huge I was sure it was a raven and not a crow:
He was absolutely HUGE, and I'm pretty sure I captured the "Roman nose" here. I didn't get to see him fly so I could check out the tail to make sure. Note the snow in the photos. Could someone confirm crow or raven?

I also saw another Rough-legged Hawk:The other photos I took were terrible; he was a dark-morph, so about all you can see is his little beak. Rough-legs are everywhere around here this year! Today, a local listserver posted seeing seven!

6 comments:

Dr. Monkey said...

I've been seeing a few hawks in this area, as well as a metric ton of robins.

dguzman said...

I haven't seen as many robins this winter as in past ones, perhaps because it's so much colder this year. But that's just a guess.

RG said...

Here's the secret. If it says "Goood EveNing" it's a Crow. A Raven will quoth - "Never more".

(heee heee - North woods cabin fever humor)

dguzman said...

Rabbits' Guy--lol!

Earl Cootie said...

I vote Raven.

dguzman said...

Earl--cool! Lifer photograph #205!