Birding in Brussels

  • March 2, 2009 1:44 PM

We live in a very green part of town – little parks with lakes are short walks or tram rides.  Just a couple blocks away is a large park with a lake, bordering a big forest.  I never thought we would be able to go bird watching with daily walks from here, but it was been wonderful.  All of the birds and songs are new, but we’re learning.  We’re still looking for a birding group to join, but no luck finding one yet.  These are some shots from the nearby lakes.  We’ve seen a few fancy fowls, but are still working on getting good shots of them.

DSC_8324

Seagulls - all kinds everywhere

DSC_8222

Magpie - almost as annoying as crows but prettier

DSC_8305

Graffited hut in park

DSC_8384

Coot - these guys have huge feet

DSC_8479

Unknown duck - maybe Muscovey related

DSC_8467

Great Blue Heron

The rest are posted on Flickr:

Muskatatauk Wildlife Reserve

  • September 24, 2008 2:44 AM

We stopped by the Muskatatauk Wildlife Reserve in Seymour, Indiana for a quick birding break on our drive back to Atlanta last weekend.  It has a few trails you can walk, but we mostly bird by car at it. We had to keep our trip short because a storm was rolling in, but we got to see a few interesting birds before we left – Grebes, Wood Ducks, Mallards, Gold Finches, Swallows, Starlings, Martins, Geese, Great Blue Herons, possibly an Eagle, and we saw wild turkeys on the way there.

The full set is posted on Flickr:

Fun Monday: Bird Show and Tell

  • August 18, 2008 12:10 AM

I haven’t participated in Fun Monday in a while, but when I saw that Lisa asked for a Bird Show and Tell as one of her options, I had to participate. Thomas and I spotted a few new birds for our yearly bird list while we were in Belgium last month.  These were all shot in various parks around Brussels.

Here’s some of my favorites:

Coot

This is a Eurasian Coot. He was hard to photograph because he’s so dark, but he had a black body with a red eye. The white shield on his head looked more smooth, than like feathers. We also saw some baby coots (plain gray and fuzzy), and a nest (a pile of sticks in the middle of a lake).

Egyptian Goose

This is an Egyptian Goose. He had beautiful colors. You can’t see in this shot, but he had a bright green under his wings. We saw these, and some goslings, at the same lakes as we saw the Coots.

Eurasian Magpie

I wish I got a better shot of this guy because he was really beautiful. This is a Eurasian Magpie. They seemed as common as a Robin or Blue Jay is in the US, but a little bit bigger.

Moorhen

This is a Common Moorhen. We watched a male and female (not as colorful) eat algae in the water. Again, he was hard to photograph because he was so dark, but his feet are bright yellow, and his beak is red and yellow.  It kind of reminds me of candy corn.

Parrot

And finally, I was very excited to see this bird in the wild. There was a flock of them in a tree in a park. It’s a Rose-ringed Parakeet.  I have never seen a wild parrot before, but these were very pretty.

If you’d like to see the rest of the bird photos we took in Belgium, they’re posted on Flickr:

Killdeer at the Border

  • May 26, 2008 10:38 PM

We’re back from our weekend in Raleigh. I’ll post more about it later this week — once I’ve got photos processed, laundry done, and am caught up on sleep — but it was a great trip.

Killdeer

I just wanted to share these two photos that I took at the rest stop on the Georgia/South Carolina border. I noticed two Killdeers in a field so I grabbed my camera and birding lens. Thomas mentioned that Killdeer are not very shy, so I crept a little closer.

When I got too close, the two birds ran off, and then collapsed on the ground fluttering their wings as if they were broken. I could tell they were pulling some trick, since they seemed to be fine, then broken, and then fine again. Thomas explained that is how they lead predators away from their nests.

Sure enough, there were four eggs laying in the mulch where they had been standing – the eggs blended in very well. I snapped a quick photo and then headed back to the car.

Killdeer Nest

Balding Cardinal

  • May 20, 2008 10:04 PM

This little guy keeps coming back to one of our front feeders. I don’t know if he’s sick and that’s why he’s losing his head feathers, or if he’s just molting. He’s the only cardinal I’ve ever seen do this.