Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Category Archives: Mourning Dove Houston, we have a problem. The problem is Squirrels! I download the videos and pictures from the Wingscapes Birdcam and out of 217 images and videos (combined), 99% had Squirrels in them. Apparently the Squirrels are gorging themselves so much they can’t even move. Look at this Squirrel! It’s actually laying down in the bird…  I thought I would offer up a mini-review of my new Wingscapes Birdcam. I’ve only spent a day and a half with it, and it does take some thought process on where to place the Birdcam for the optimum pictures and video. I’ll also say this. The bigger SD card you can get, the better. … I apologize for not providing any pictures or updates as of late. I’ll try and take and post new pictures tomorrow. Despite the lack of pictures, I can give everyone a verbal update. The Purple Martin babies (the original 5) all seemed to have fledged now. There are probably 20 Martins flying around every night. …  I saw some new looking Mourning Dove today. As I approached closer, I could tell something with not right with this bird. Look at all the growths around the beak and the feet. This bird doesn’t appear to be in good shape at all. Leecy sent an email to the Wildlife Rescue place to find…  Didn’t get too much time to shoot this afternoon, but did get a couple of decent shots of 2 different type Doves we have feeding in our backyard. The first is the Eurasian Collared Dove. I’ve also heard people call this the Ring Neck Dove. These birds are not native to the US, they were…  Warning. These next two pictures are gross. I noticed this weird looking Dove from a distance today and I was hoping to get a picture of it. Unfortunately, I did get some pictures, but they are not that good, and what they do show is gross. I think this Dove is infected with Trichomoniasis. After… Another new image of something I’ve never been able to get a picture of. It’s a Eurasian Collared Dove. It’s somewhat of a rare Dove for Houston, and it’s non-native. Here’s the Eurasian Collared Dove. It’s quite a bit larger than the Mourning Dove and it also has that ring around its neck. Here’s a… Part of the advantage of waking up early for taking pictures is that the light is much better than it is in the evening. I haven’t paid that close of attention before, but after these photos I must say that Doves really do have a beautiful flight (does that make sense?). I kinda messed up. … The Mourning Doves are generally peaceful birds. The Woodpecker never is. He always tries to scare the other birds off when he is feeding. In the end, nobody won, as all of their flapping (Doves) and squawking (Woodpecker) scared everyone off the feeder. Here’s the Woodpecker squawking just a little louder. I’m getting better at this Birds in Flight thing, but not quite there just yet. However, even though some of these pictures have some weaknesses in the sharpness, eyes being covered, mystery orbs appearing etc, I still find them kinda fascinating to look at. Leecy thought this first photo looked like the Dove’s wings were… Now this is how it should be. Everyone getting along, males, females, birds of a different feather, etc. However, shortly after this shot, they started picking on each other for the best food. Still, it was a nice thought while it lasted:-). Meet “Lovey Dovey.” We’re not sure what was wrong with this little girl. The dogs found her. They didn’t hurt her, it was just obvious she couldn’t fly. We picked her up and examined her. Her wings looked fine. She did have some poop stuck to her butt, so of course I was nominated to… More experimentation with “critters” in flight. The Doves we have in our backyard are here all year round. They also seem to like being on a schedule. They will come and feed in the early morning, then about 5 in the afternoon. Here’s another shot As if there aren’t enough critters in the backyard, these two guys came over to have dinner tonight. It’s kinda funny, every day around 5:00pm, like clockwork, the doves (and an occasional woodpecker) start sitting on the fence looking for dinner from the bird feeders. Sorry, I kinda messed up on the crop of this… |
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