Sora's, goshawk, swainson, bluebird, oriole.Sunday afternoon with Jamie (20130526)

After the morning walk I had made arrangements with Jamie to go after some Northern Shovelers. He agreed to drive so we stopped and grabbed a bite to eat and headed out to one of his secret spots. With all the recent rain we have been having all the ponds were overflowing and nothing was where he has found them before. We scored this Swainson, just after he scored a ground squirrel. This was his after meal stretch.

 We headed over to another of his sweetheart holes and we were able to spend a half hour with this little Sora.

I love their very large yellow feet. These birds are fairly small, about 8 inches.

A little later we were provided an opportunity with this pair of Horned Grebes, care for a bug?

As we left that spot we were able to find a Baltimore Oriole, a lifetime first for Jamie, so this was a highlight.

At our next stop we had additional luck with Sora's. Jamie actually manage to call three into the area, two of which mated while we were there. This was another terrific encounter, mission accomplished.

A little while later while discussing our great encounters we drove right by this juvenile Goshawk, so we turned around and were very pleased that it decided to hang around and give us a couple of shots.

The bluebirds were plentiful, and it is easy to see that the males are absolutely at the peak of their colour.

Here is a pair that we spent a little time with. For those of you who don't like to see barbed wire fences this is a much nicer environment.

Here is another brilliant male. I was interested to see that the females are not yet on eggs.

We had deer, another Baltimore Oriole (that we could hear but couldn't get eyes on), a number of Redtail hawks and wrapped up a rather successful day. I hope that everyone had a great wildlife weekend!

Turbo