Bird Stalking

Shhhhhh, I'm stalking birdies today. 


I had to slowly creep up on this bird today, slowly, one step at a time. Taking shots along the way with my zoom range as I knew it would eventually fly off before I could really get close enough to get really good shots of it! 

Darn. 

I would have loved to have gotten closer shots of it. Then my friend starts walking behind me, loudly talking, have you gotten it yet!? I have to shhhhhh her as I'm still stalking. 

Got so close, then off it went! Waaaahhhh, my pretty birdie flew away! 

Oh wait, it landed on the ground....more stalking. 

I wonder if I've impressed the cat? 

Maybe he thinks I've taken note of how to stalk?

Would he have been proud of me?

I don't know....maybe not, I didn't really catch it & eat it like he would have. 

Yuck. 

So, here is what I caught today...shot today....via camera that is! 

Of course, I had to google as soon as I uploaded the photos. 

It's a Scissortailed Flycatcher. Oklahoma state bird. Well welcome pretty bird! 

When it flies, it spreds his tail feathers apart. That's what originally caught my attention a few days ago when I saw them driving down the road. He finally came to visit here! Yay! 

Pretty bird! 

I wish I could have gotten closer for a better image though, but on the other hand, I'm glad I was able to get anything at all! 

Here is a google image borrowed from google images of one in flight:

Here are more of my images:

OK, onto the next bird...

I was mowing the acreage the other day. 

Riding mower of course.

And this guy came along. He was a little annoyed that I had this machine out, but he wasn't scared of us. 

Actually, he had less fear of the lawn mower than he did of me on foot today. 

He's a Cattle Egret. Right now, he has tan coloring on his feathering as it's mating season. 

(I looked that up too)

He was stalking the peacocks. Actually, they seemed curious over each other. He was outside their pen, looking in at them, they were looking out at him. Then he left because he didn't want any more pics taken. 

So then I shot the peacocks. 

There are two peacocks here. My friends thought they had a female, so they got another peacock to keep it company. They brought home a male. Welllll....as it turned out, the other was a male too! So no babies to be had here in the future! But they do keep each other company. They are about a year old, so they don't have all the beautiful colorful plumage yet. It'll come. 

They do like to flag their tail feathers up though & prance about! 

One of them is a bit braver than the other one is. They don't come up to us, but one will come close to eat. The other runs scared because he thinks he's poultry I guess. Oh well, it makes it easier to tell them apart that way! 

A little finch got in the house yesterday too. Last year, a Purple Martin got in. My friend was desperately trying to get it out of the house & not hurt it. She was trying to take the screen out of the kitchen window, which isn't easy as it's a difficult reach on that window. I showed her how to capture them with a towel to take them outside for releasing. So she did that yesterday & it worked. 

So ok, now my little bird brain is properly pecked. 

Later, have a great day everyone! 

~As always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor~