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Borrego Springs, CA

Thursday, January 6, 2011

The Birds and the Bugs

Today was bird survey day, and fellow volunteer, Marilyn, was supposed to go along with me to learn the ropes.  She will be taking over the survey when I leave.  However, she forgot about it, so I headed out on my own.  It seems the birds had decided to use other areas to visit today, so it was a pretty dismal count.  You just never know what you’re going to find on these surveys.

 

After lunch, I headed out to try to find and photograph the remaining species on my list for Stephanie.  She had added a mourning dove to the list; a common species.  But try as I might, I couldn’t find one mourning dove to photograph today.

53 Anahuac NWR 20104I did find a ruby-crowned kinglet, however.  Those of you that are birders know that this little mighty mite never sits still for more than a second!  It’s a challenge to photograph because as soon as you get it in your sites, it flits off somewhere else.  It was pretty warm today, so it was busy catching bugs on the wing. (you can probably guess the most abundant bug:))

53 Anahuac NWR 20105No otters; no bobcats; and no mourning doves were to be seen, but plenty of white-fronted geese, great blue herons, killdeer, white-tailed kites, neo-tropical cormorants, greater yellowlegs, and snowy egrets were found. 

_MG_8283 IMG_8285

There were even herds of illiterate cows around.  :)  Guess they just ignored the sign…

mail[2]Remember when I posted this picture of an unknown insect a couple of days ago that was sent to me by my friend, Jack?  Well, he took the advice of one of my commenters, CYNDI, and sent the pic to WHATS THAT BUG.  Turns out it is a type of walking stick that can accurately shoot a sort of venom out of it’s legs and right into your eye!  Mind you, Jack took this photo while laying prone on the ground!  Not sure he would have done it if he had known about that venom stuff, but he is a kind of wild and crazy guy.  :)  Anyway, after submitting the photo, it has been named the Bug of the Month!  Ha Ha!  Who would have guessed??  Jack will now be known as Bug Man Jack to me from this day forward!

 

I’m thinking I may submit a picture I took last May to WHATS THAT BUG to give Jack a little competition.  After all, who wouldn’t want Bug of the Month on their resume?

_MG_8318                                                                     THE END!

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

11 comments:

  1. I am beginning to think you are getting more interested in cows than birds. Perhaps they are not illiterate, but rather defiant. That might make them even more interesting???

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  2. Well, afterall, there is a Cowbird, right:))

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  3. nice bird shots once again..don't those little guys know that they are going to be 'blog famous'..you would think they would sit still at least for one or two photos!!

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  4. I really liked your "end" picture today. Bug of the month would not be anything I would want to read or see. Can you tell those bugs rank really low on my scale of appreciated things.

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  5. Congratulations to Jack! What an honor! And to think he owes it all to you! Surely there's a reward coming your way!

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  6. Really great collages Judy. As for the walking stick guy/girl, we just had one on the side of our camper, by our door. Had I known it was a tough customer, I would have been much more careful removing it. How about the one on its back? We had assumed that it might have been offspring, but not sure.

    John
    relaxedrush.blogspot.com

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  7. Thank you. A little side note. The neighbor had seen me out "playing" but didn't see me get the camera. He next sees me on the ground. He started over to check on me dialing 9-1, then he saw me move.

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  8. A walking stick that spits venom...sounds like something I would try to photograph and end up in the ER...My theory on the bird identification is..why would you be looking for a Mourning Dove when you can see all of those other wonderful birds?..and, just for the record, I never knew anyone who could identify sooo many birds!!!!

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  9. All the pictures are great today, and thanks for the e-mail. It is very funny.. :)

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