Birds and Nature

These photos and the video are of White-lined sphinx moths, a species that feeds at blossoms just like hummingbirds, even hovering as they suck out the sweet nectar--so they are often mistaken as hummingbirds. There are several species of these sphinx moths that are referred to as hummingbird moths but this is the only one I have seen. I took the photos of one of these cool moths feeding on my Sonoran Sunset cana Agastache plant, which for a cultivar has been most attracting to hummingbirds, butterflies and moths of several species. The bottom pic shows the proboscis on these sphinx moths that is so long it curls up out of the way when not extended inside a long blossom. I took the video at Brady's Nursery in Canon City. They sell these Sonoran Sunset cana Agastache plants at their Brady's Garden Center (their retail store) but have a fall sale at the nursery where more than 20 of these cool sphinx moths were sipping nectar from a couple of dozen these of beautiful ag...

After this juvenile Prairie Falcon was chased off the power line pole on which it perched, looking like it was crouched to hide behind a pole extending above the supports, by one of the resident Red-tailed Hawks it flew to the pole in the top pic not far from my friend's home. The bottom pic gives a nice view of the falcon as it flies away showing it's long wing span. I looked for this bird the last two days at my friend's place but it had moved on. SeEtta

I found this young Prairie Falcon near my friend's farm just east of Canon City, CO day before yesterday. Though this areas was once the western edge of the shortgrass prairie ecosystem in southeast Colorado, almost all the prairie was converted either long ago to farms or more recently to large acreage residences (I call them sprawlettes) so we don't usually see Prairie Falcons here. I suspect this young falcon may have just stopped over briefly as it was exploring for some place to establish it's territory. This photo gives a good view of the distinctive dark axillaries that are diagnostic when the bird is viewed from below. More photos in next post. SeEtta

This juvenile Long-tailed Jaeger was found 2 days ago at Lake Pueblo (Colorado) by Brandon Percival and others who were birding this large lake by boat. Today it made numerous short flights usually several hundred feet or more away; however, scopes provided nice views of the bird in flight and the neat steep and twisting dives it would take to land on top of the water. While floating on top of the water the jaeger engaged in spinning around in circles on a number of occasions. This did not appear to be a type of feeding behavior as it didn't appear to engage in any feeding. The spinning is shown in the digiscoped video clip below. SeEtta

This is the same male Red-bellied Woodpecker posted below that was picking 'olive' fruit from the Russian Olive tree. Here he is storing that fruit in a natural crevice under the small tree limb where the collar of the limb is separated from it. In the bottom pic you can see that the woodpecker is pushing the fruit far into the crevice. This is consistent with report in Birds of North America online that Red-bellied Woodpeckers store their food deep into crevices to keep them from being taken by other birds and animals. SeEtta

I had parked my car only about 20 feet from the edge of the 'Lamar Woods' and clearly close enough for this territorial male to perch on it in order to look for that foe he has to fight off (actually his reflection in the side mirror or car windows). I was told by local birder Jill White Smith that he has a habit of checking out car windows and mirrors for the interloper that he sees. In the second photo his image is clearly visible in my door window. In the last pic he has apparently decided that the foe isn't worth the trouble as he didn't attack it, just hopped on the mirror and left. SeEtta

This is another Lamar specialty species that is resident in this far eastern city in Colorado. Actually there are apparently two families of Northern Cardinals that frequent the 'Lamar Woods' area as local birder Jill White Smith keeps track of them. I most often saw this male either distant as in the middle pic or through dense vegetation where he skulked just barely in sight.  He sang frequently and there was often another Northern Cardinal in the area in which I saw him, sometimes an adult female and sometimes an immature bird that was presumably his offspring. SeEtta