My friend Dave twice phoned to tell me of Sandhills visiting his place. This pair was seen Sunday afternoon. They were very calm and I was able to approach to within 10 m in the car. Click on the photos to see the details of these interesting birds.
That stern look always reminds me of John Diefenbaker!
They were stabbing their beaks about an inch in to the soil to extract grubs that were pushed up by recent rainfalls.
There were some puddles around for this bird to wade in.
Up close and personal as they walked along the mowed roadway to Dave and Irene’s house.
This quartet was seen early Tuesday (7:17) morning in front of the skeleton of Dave’s Barn….
Ring-bills seem to hang out with Sandhills. I don’t know why.
While the Sandhills were feasting on grubs, this Brewers Blackbird
caught a dragonfly resting on a blade of grass.
One of the Sandhills wandered over to a trickle of water flowing through the field to visit with a Mallard drake and a Killdeer.
The Killdeer gradually came closer to me but kept an eye on the duck and crane.
Then Drake and Killdeer started to go cross country….
Lynn came along and also managed to photograph this jump…
An hour later Dave came back into his driveway and the Sandhills played “follow the leader” in a stream take-off.
Lead is safely airborne as those in line astern leap into the air…
On the climb-out
Above the trees …
Up, up and away!
Later I visited Dave and Irene when this Ruby Throated Hummingbird posed for us. After being quite nondescript it flexed its throat feathers to demonstrate the basis of colour in this bird. This article on Structural Coloration is more detailed and does not make the common error of conflating refraction and diffraction.
If you scroll back up to the Brewers Blackbird you’ll see another example of structural coloration.
Audubon has an opinion of the effect of Keystone XL on Sandhills.
Ontario has some strange laws regarding the control of Sandhills in farmer’s fields.
I have been corresponding with a photographer who has some extraordinary words of wisdom here: http://035c417.netsolhost.com/WordPress/category/a-photography-art-blog/page/3/
He can relate to Making Pictures (which pops up when you click on it in the title block of this blog). Does it make sense to you?
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