Birds and Nature

SnowyEget doing' foot shaking' fishing technique from SeEtta Moss on Vimeo In this brief video clip this Snowy Egret engages in a fish catching technique in which it shakes it foot in the water to stir up fish to catch. It starts just at 11 seconds into the clip and it shakes first one then the other foot several times apparently producing a catch for it which it quickly consumes. It is interesting what techniques various bird species have learned to improve their foraging catch.  SeEtta SnowyEget doing' foot shaking' fishing technique from SeEtta Moss on Vimeo .

When I spotted this little Ruby-crowned Kinglet this morning it was clear something was amiss--these little birds are always on the move and this one was pretty slow and then perched on a branch where it rested for over 5 minutes. If you enlarge top and middle pics you can see that some of it's ruby spot are visible which is also unusual as they usually raise those red feathers when in a battle. It has it's nictitating membrane over it's eye as it rests in the bottom two pics. Resting in the day is just normal for birds and puts them at risk for predation. In the bottom pic some of the feathers are out of place, maybe it ran into something. SeEtta

I have been following both the Black and Eastern Phoebe population in the Canon City area for more than a decade. In the past 3-4 weeks a number of both Black and Eastern Phoebes returned to the area and were in traditional nesting locations. I found this typical appearing Eastern Phoebe on the nest today as I inadvertently flushed her when I walked nearby. I had seen another phoebe nest just 30 feet from this one and had been watching it for a few days but was unaware of this well concealed nest until she flew. I took the pic below of the nest that is zoomed and cropped to show the fine grasses lining the nest cup which has a lot of moss on it then left to allow her to return to her nest. I waited a distance away in my car then drove in as this in my experience is usually less likely to flush the bird. I took the photo of her on her nest from my car, very quietly and left in less than 2 minute--she remained on the nest which was my goal. Now that I know where she is nesting I