Birds and Nature

Good thing I got these additional photos of the Long-eared Owl yesterday as it flew off and disappeared again today. As can be seen the photos had to be taken between all the branches and leaves when the owl turned it's head so it's face could be seen.  This required during manual focusing and at a level below where I could get the pics standing so I went back to my car and got my campchair.  So while I was comfortable I spent about an hour watching the owl, something that was not possible during prior sightings of this species and I really enjoy getting to know species I don't often get to see. While I watched the owl did not seen to pay any attention to those walking by on the trail which was about 30 feet away from it's new roosting location. It did turn and look at me when I made noise (which I did very little of as I stayed seated and was intentionally as quiet as possible so as not to disturb it). As staff reported that the owl had been awake all d...

The Long-eared Owl that I posted about last week had left the location at Edinburg Wetlands where it had been roosting and had not found until today. So I went up to see if I could get some video of it. The best view is to click on 'V'at the bottom right corner of the screens below. Long-eared Owl from SeEtta Moss on Vimeo . It choose a spot that provided more of a challenge to get a clear view. If you are viewing this on a computer it will be best to view in fullscrean. Long-eared Owl from SeEtta Moss on Vimeo . The top video has the best owl views but owl enthusiasts will likely enjoy all three, each is less than a minute long. SeEtta

 This small member of the kingfisher family is found in the U.S. only in southwest and very Texas and a small piece of southeast Arizona.  However it's range extends through Mexico and Central America to South America.  The two pics at the top are of the male Green Kingfisher with bright rufous breast while the bottom two pics are of the female that has green chest bands instead.  Both have very lare bills relative to their small bodies (length is just under 9 inches0. I have usually found Green Kingfishers flush easily making it difficult to get good pics so I used my most sneaky skills to get these pics.  It helped that there was a lot of vegetation in the way which added a little more challenge to get sharp shots.  SeEtta

These pics while nicely showing features of this owl had a few glitches so I did tweak them post processing in addition to cropping to enlarge them. However these pics are still sharp enough to look very good if you click on them to enlarge further, especially to see it's eyes in the pic below. Although many photographers are happy to have a bird looking right at them, it concerns me with some species like owls as it usually indicates some disturbance and the bird focusing on the photographer rather than their daily activities (usually sleeping for these owls). Fortunately this owl quickly turned it's head forward and resumed it's roosting. SeEtta