Bird Thread

[pestalnmore]

Emu, I think, Carla

[Vich]

Vich,
Like he egret and the Herrons also. Where are you shooting, I mean photographing these birds? Carla

Hi Carla: It's in Orange County, CA. The reserve is actually about 300 feet from our front door (to the top of the cliffs overlooking the sanctuary). The sanctuary is the "Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve", a large body of brackish water (part Sea water, part fresh from the city's water management runoff). Orange County (as with most of LA) used to be a floodland until they government built elaborate drainage. The drainages converge in to a relatively few places. This one doesn't dump directly to the ocean, however the mouths of the other drainages are typically several hundred feet wide and have some water for a mile or so in.

Nothing like the Ozarks, but its all the brakish water birds have for this stretch of the coastline.

Here's a few photos of it:

Photo 1: From the top of the bluffs. A one way road winds around it (old photo). The rest of them are about 1 mile along this road, we usually walk there along the ridge and down a dirt road that converges:


Photo 2: A shot from a little dirt path, looking across the road. Half of my shots were taken from a position near the center left of this photo.
Photo 3: From that postion, looking over the water way:


Photo 4: A little bridge along a dirt path. Photo 2 was from here, but from the other side. This body of water extends over a small pond (maybe 600 feet long) that gets much bigger during big rains.
Photo 5: The view from this bridge, over the pond:

[pestalnmore]

Vich,
My last two bird pics were from California, took a trip up Hwy 1 from Los Angelos. The reason I asked about the other birds..they are the same kind of birds in southwest Louisiana, before hurricane Rita. I guess they still have birds? I lived in La. for many years and your birds reminded me of home. Thanks for the reply. I enjoyed seeing the bird sanctuary. Carla
ps Did you get the note about the Turkey Buzzard?

[Kushnirenko]

Mokre Rakitne. Ukraine. Nov, 06, 2005

[Vich]

Vich,
My last two bird pics were from California, took a trip up Hwy 1 from Los Angelos. The reason I asked about the other birds..they are the same kind of birds in southwest Louisiana, before hurricane Rita. I guess they still have birds? I lived in La. for many years and your birds reminded me of home. Thanks for the reply. I enjoyed seeing the bird sanctuary. Carla
ps Did you get the note about the Turkey Buzzard?

Oh yes, thank you for identifying the birds. With my memory, I'll probably be found saying "Now what did that person on the internet say that's called ... some kink of buzzard".

What's the difference between a buzzard and a vulture? "Buzzard" sounds so much more common. Like "varmant". It's a magnificant bird.

We sure got a ton of birds here about 2 weeks ago. There are usually a dozen or so bird watchers there, and sometimes one or 2 pro-looking shooters somewhere in the reserver (its about 4 miles long, and continues up a "river" for a few miles). They all say "yip, migration's started".

[coldrain]

Does the colour of the stork have anything to do with the colour of the delivered babies?

[snowrdr]

Used the trees to sneak up on this GBH today...
This is uncropped and shot at F5.0 and 1/500sec with the TC-DC58B on.

[val123]

Some really nice shots everyone......

Snowrdr....super heron shot, great detail and to get so close.....nice one

I cant think why I havn't posted a shot of this fellow before, he lives with me, makes a lot of noise so I cant really miss him......meet Bfor (thats 'B' for Bird..not very imaginative with names in our house!), he's grumpy, hates people, rips the wallpaper when he's out..... attacks the dog...he tried to eat the camera whilst I was taking this shot......(maybe thats why you havent met him before ) but honestly he's a great character and we love him...........

[Glenn Kennedy]

I always liked "Ceefor" cat and "Deefor" dog, etc, as pet names but don't know anyone who has had the courage / b@lls to give them such a name. Some friends called their last cat Smithwicks - a popular Irish beer (there is another one). when it went a-wandering, they walked the streets calling "Smithwicks" trying to find the beast (or get a beer???).

[val123]

This shot was taken this afternoon whilst walking the dog............ apologies for the quality or lack of ............. the bird was quite a long way off and was hunting for his supper, just managed to get a couple of shots off before he caught tea,,,,,,,,,,, hope you like............