Birds and Nature

I found this family of Burrowing Owls and at least one more family east of Canon City, CO on some of the remaining short grass prairie in this area. In this clip of a Burrowing Owl family, one young owl and a parent stand near their burrow as a younger owl emerges. SeEtta

This is the continuation of the video I took of one of the Western Screech Owl juveniles hunting. It flew into this tree then showed it had been successful in it's hunting as it gobbles down something it had just hunted. This species, and especially young juveniles like this bird, often hunt insects but this looks like quite a beak-ful so maybe a baby mouse? After eating it wiggles it's body around as though in celebration of it's successful hunt. Then it wipes it's beak off on the tree branch. SeEtta

One of the Western Screech Owl juveniles in the family of owls I have been following practices it's hunting skills. It flies down to the ground less than 20 feet from where I standing, then pounces on some unseen object a few feet away, then flies off to a nearby tree. It was successful as in a subsequent video clip it is shown eating something it has in it's claws. SeEtta

I have continued watching the area near where the male Black Phoebe and probable female Eastern Phoebe nested as I did catch a few glimpses of at least one fledgling. I finally got a good view of the phoebe in these pics a few days ago but had hoped I would get some clearer photos to post so held off. These pics are digiscoped (hand held camera to scope) at distance of about 75 feet. Since I took these pics I have only seen glimpses of a possible offspring of this mixed phoebe pair. This bird demonstrates an intermediate plumage with features of both Black and Eastern Phoebe. The juvenile phoebe in these pics shows the white belly with inverted 'V' of white feathers extending up into breast while the rest of the breast, the wings, tail and back are blackish as is found on Black Phoebes (though in young birds the black coloration is usually very black not the more charcoal-like coloration on this bird). Then this phoebe shows a whitish throat as is found on Eastern Phoebe