A little distant, but to my mind the light and angle was just right to see the lovely plumage of this (definitely not dead) Red Kite.

River Thames, near Tilehurst.

Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800

This little guy found something tasty in our wood stack.

Great Lakes region, USA. Sept 2026.

An early morning grey catbird.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51796665

hmmm

Far from the sharpest photo, but to me they look like they are in a formal dance.

Prospect Park, Reading, UK Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800

It was, I think, being informed by a magpie to choose another tree, but I didn't manage to capture that.

Prospect Park, Reading, UK Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800

I did manage to catch it after taking off, in a manner suggesting I was a contributing factor to the unease!

This is possibly the best 360° shot I ever managed to get. This normally very shy grey heron came close to the camera and stood perfectly still long enough to get this perfectly crisp image - and so did the two mallard on the right. The camera was taking a photo every 30 seconds, with a shutter time of 20 seconds. In other words, all three birds didn't move a muscle for 20 seconds just at the right moment!

Not to mention, those grey herons are rather rare around here. They're more common along the coast. But we're 15 miles inland and they seldom stop by here. I only managed to capture one on camera once before:

I've been keeping the camera outside in my custom-made waterproof enclosure for five days now, hoping to capture ducks up close if they got used to seeing the camera on the beach long enough. Either that or grab timelapse videos of northern lights.

But in five days, the ducks never came anywhere close to the camera, and the weather has been lousy most of the time.

I started the camera yesterday night in the vague hope that the sky would clear during the night. It didn't, and I stopped the camera this morning before going to work. When I came back to check what was on the SD card, I found this guy and its friends in a frame only minutes before I turned off the camera!

When you're lucky you're lucky.

"During periods of seasonal bird migration, “live” migration maps show where nocturnal bird migration is occurring in near real-time, as detected by the U.S. weather surveillance radar network between local sunset to sunrise. The maps show how many birds are present and in what direction they are moving.

Radars in mountainous areas (e.g. the Rockies) may be located on high mountaintops that restrict radar coverage, providing the appearance of no migration where migration may be occurring.

Please note that all graphics are relative to the Eastern time zone. Data are presented for the contiguous U.S. only."

#birds #birding #migration

Great Lakes region, USA. September 7, 2026.

Hopefully our toad friend didn't suffer long, but nature is nature.

Lol, I can't help but think of a toad poop go-gurt here.

Great Lakes region, USA. September 05, 2026.

Some friends and I went kayaking yesterday and I stumbled upon this green heron. This is a lifer for me and so cool to find in the wild. Ardeidae is one of my favorite families of birds.

Well, Merlin Photo ID thinks its a Meadow Pipit anyway, which if it is, it's the first time I've knowingly photoed one.

Prospect Park, Reading, UK

Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800mm lens

A pigeon with blue-gray plumage and dark wingbars perches on a thin branch beside a tree trunk with a large knot hole, set against a blurred green woodland background.

Few birds around to photo in Prospect Park today, but this struck me as good enough to post here (especially given the current low post count).

Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800

The Joy of Song

Boat tailed grackle (Quiscalus major)
Olympus OM-1, Panasonic 100-300 II
228mm, f/7.1, 1/400s, ISO 800

#bird #birds #BirdPhotography #UrbanWildlife #photo #photography #darktable @birding

https://zaktakespictures.com/the-joy-of-song/

Here she is mantelling over her catch

Taken on my XH2S with my Fuji 50-140mm

Alternatively: I hate it when I load a map and everywhere you look actors are still spawning in.

Here's a Carolina wren. As usual the little blighter wouldn't hold still, I was also taking pictures through a fence. We got what we got.

And the whole thing here:

Great Lakes region, USA. August 2026.

I spent a bit of time watching these eastern kingbirds do their thing. The insatiable hunger of the fledglings keeps mom busy.

Another from the short stack of physical photographs I recently reclaimed, which I've finally gotten around to scanning.

This is (was) one of my brother's birds, which appears to be a peregrine falcon. I took this snap in his rickety barn that he'd converted to a kind of rookery, with a wind-up disposable camera back when I was just a wee fledgling myself and as you can see also in rather poor light. He had several birds throughout his falconry career and as far as I know he did not keep them all at his place at the same time. I was not paying close attention at the time. I'm not an ornithologist now, and I certainly wasn't then. And alas, he's no longer around so I can't ask him for details.

I do know he also personally owned a gyrfalcon/Barbary falcon hybrid although I don't think I ever saw that bird in person and if I did I certainly didn't take a picture of her.

Just because it amuses me, so some of you might also like it.

Prospect Park, Reading, UK

Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800