Some Early Evening Photos from my Yard

[Uberhoust]

About a month ago I took my wife's camera out with the telephoto and just sat in a chair and took pictures for 20 minutes. Just finished cleaning some of them up.

Northern Flicker Female on Feeder.

Northern Flicker Male, this is a hybrid between the Yellow Shafted and Red Shafted varieties. See the red moustache and the bit of a red mark on the nape, as well as the more orange colored feather shafts.

Round Leaf Sundews, with trapped mosquito. They have been floating in my pond for a few years now.

Osteopermum from the pond garden.

Pine Siskin, one of my favorite birds because they are so tough. The sometimes jump on the flicker's heads to try and get them to move away from the feeder.

Gray Squirrel Female, lactating. They are an invasive species but the habitat for the native red squirrels has been decimated in this area so I leave them alone.

Juvenile Chickadee, another of my favorite birds.

California Quail, another invasive (introduced bird).

Purple Finch with unusual coloring. He is casually landing on one of the arms for the feeder, wings closed for the final approach.

 

[anewbie]

Is that one of the canon super long tele ?

 

[fishorama]

Nice pics! We have red shafted flickers now on the west coast. They're just a color variant of yellow shafteds, same species that we had in the east. But your "hybrids" are interesting, I'm surprised to see them so far west, I thought the Rocky Mountains were their barrier. But I haven't been much more than a backyard birder since before we moved here.

It's been an education with similar but different species, east vs west. We now have "plain" titmice, brown "California" towhees, different chickadees & juncos, scrub & Stellar's jays rather than just blue. My favorite locals are black shouldered kites, a kind of hawk. We've seen them mating in the neighbor's tall redwoods.

Oh, & osteospermum are pretty much perennial, I love them! They need winter rains to flower best... & maybe cooler temps?

 

[Uberhoust]

Is that one of the canon super long tele ?

No. I used a Nikon z7 with a 400mm prime lens. The 400 is a nice focal length for handheld telephotos, short and light. Also, since it was in my back yard most of the critters are pretty willing to approach me, particularly the siskins and chickadees. Typically, the camera sits on the kitchen table so we can take quick id pictures through the window.

Nice pics! We have red shafted flickers now on the west coast. They're just a color variant of yellow shafteds, same species that we had in the east. But your "hybrids" are interesting, I'm surprised to see them so far west, I thought the Rocky Mountains were their barrier. But I haven't been much more than a backyard birder since before we moved here.

All our guidebooks show the yellow shafted flickers to the north and west of us, but we have a full range of intergrades between the two subspecies and occasionally full/pure? yellow shafted ones. About five to seven years ago we only had red shafted flickers but then I started seeing a yellow shafted flicker at the feeder. Now most of ours seem to be the intergrades or hybrids. Supposedly, we occasionally get blue jays here, but I have never seen one.