Cowbirds, GHO owlets, Loggerhead Shrike (20140517) The drive home from the lake.

Well although it was a pretty quiet early morning we were still optimisitc regarding the rest of the of the morning as we were going to check out how the GHO owlets have been making out. But first a female Redwinged Blackbird.

Our first nest showed a pair of owlets but there was already someone there taking photos's so we just passed by. The next nest showed only a single youngster.

Our next nest is quite a distance from the road but it appears that there are two owlets in there amongst the sticks. You can just see the top of the second's head.

Can you tell that we were dealing with poor light again? The sun was coming and going. The next nest had three chicks that had left the nest, but were not too far away.

When Kerri and I had passed this nest several weeks ago we thought that there were ony 2 owlets left, one must have been hiding:)

Our next find was a total unexpected surprise, more thn twenty Black bellied Plovers at one of my favourite ponds. Too bad it was so windy and they were so far off.

We were then able to grab some images of some Brownheaded Cowbirds, here is a shot of a female.

Now for a couple of shots of a male, one from the back showing all the textures and colours.

Now here is the front, I love the "pose" they strike trying to attact the female.

Our last nest netted us another pair of owlets. If you look through the sticks you will also see Mom standing guard.

We finished up the road and our entire morning with a new bird for both of us. I have been meaning to get out and shoot these birds the last couple of summers. I guess they really wanted to get on the blog because they found me this year.

I was really glad to get confirmation that this bird is a Loggerhead Shrike. It was a very flighty bird that we couldn't get very close to at all. At this point I will chalk that up to the wind.

Now the task will be to get even better images of this vicious little bird :)  I'll end this post here. I am hoping there is still more great stuff to come this weekend.
Turbo