Birds and Nature

I found this Black Phoebe last week on the property of the Fremont County Sewer District near their sewer plant where I have seen Black Phoebes for several years. As I watched the bird tossed it's head downward and I caught it in the act of casting a pellet, something more often associated with owls. However Black Phoebes and other birds that eat insects or other live prey whole do this to get rid of the digestible parts. Though a real sharp photo below, it does show the pellet and it's size relative to the bird. Casting of pellets by Black Phoebes is noted in Birds of North America (p. 6). I have only seen a Black Phoebe cast a pellet on one previous occasion. I have previously blogged a sequence of photos of a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (and sharper than this one) as it cast a pellet. SeEtta

Interestingly the Harlan's Hawk I posted about just below apparently jumped on the same thermal as the Sandhill Crane family as I watched them all rising higher and higher sometimes in the same view as in this photos. SeEtta

This is a late post as I actually spotted this Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk when I was watching the Sandhill Crane family in Canon City right before they took off to continue their migration This hawk was perched quite a distance away, about 400 feet away, so the perched photos have been severely cropped to see the field marks--black with a little white on breast and around forehead plus undertail. This hawk took off and apparently got on a thermal to rise high in the sky showing off a classic Harlan's underside pattern. SeEtta