bridgetspencer's Favorites

Incredible experience. Long-tailed weasel had her babies 3 or 4 days ago. Today she moved them from 1 hole to another about 100 feet away that was more secluded. She made 6 trips to carry 8 babies. Twice she carried 2 at a time. She was so gentle. Unbelievable that I got to witness this.

This bird landed behind me while I was snorkelling. It repeatedly came close up to me, within 1m, which was quite imposing as it was a large bird. This bird hung around for the remaining three days we were at the reef. I guess the bird was hoping to get a feed.

The recent storm probably stirred a bunch of them close to the surface near the shore where the gulls could grab them. The gulls have to puncture and drain them in order to be able to swallow them. Witnessed this at least 7 times on 11/21/2019.

This bird was discussed on the ABA blog (http://blog.aba.org/2014/09/open-mic-the-townsends-bunting-story.html), in Audubon magazine (https://www.audubon.org/news/the-ghost-john-james-audubons-past) and elsewhere.

Found right next to a goshawk feather, and many of the feathers had damage that showed the jay struggled a lot before it died (second image shows an example of that, it’s the damage feathers get when rubbed hardly across the dirt). Last image shows part of the kill site. Sadly many feathers were unretrievable, as the forest they were found at was on a steep incline, and any wrong move could end up with me down the hill. Only got what was safe to catch xd

Experts - What is going on here? This male American Kestrel sure did seem to have the hots for this female Merlin. He kept trying to get close to her and even brought her a few treats (insects?) from the grass beneath the fence. She accepted the treats but didn't seem thrilled with the attention. However, when he flew off, she followed him...

Rarely-seen true albino Risso's dolphin with its family. "Casper," as some call it, was first seen as a calf in Monterey Bay in 2014. No one has been able to determine if its male or female yet. I have been as obsessed as Ahab trying to see it, so today was a glorious day!

melanistic

interesting article from the Wilson Bulletin from 1965 about a melanistic Pileated Woodpecker at Okefenokee in 1917:
https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v077n04/p0404-p0405.pdf

Melanistic Song Sparrow. Singing male, ID'ed as Song Sparrow by song, and similar face pattern (visible in photo though muted due to melanism). The bird was also associating with a standard-issue SOSP, possibly a mate.

This was an extremely rare sighting for Squamish first spotted by Wally Fletcher during the Squamish Estuary Monthly Bird Census. This seal was first sighted in Puget Sound near Seattle Washington earlier in the year then later in Steveston British Columbia where it was tagged on its flipper ( B310 ). It was observed swimming and sunning itself on a wharf at the end of Cattermole Slough near downtown Squamish only for only one day then disappeared. Judging by its normal habitat it was a long way out of range which is the Bering Sea. I have good video of the seal ( You-Tube video https://youtu.be/QO8osHlLzh0 ) if that will help with identification.

Found on the ground on hiking trail. Looking a little beat up. We picked it up to get a better look and noticed some tail feathers missing on the one side. We held it a while as we continued our walk along the trail and gave it a little water. What we where not expecting was she was starting to lay an egg. The other pictures show it. The egg came out broken yoke first then the shell. Only minute after the ordeal she had enough strength and flew off. She was still bulging on the bottom and appeared to have more eggs to lay.

Melanistic juvenile (likely male based on size relative to the Great-tailed Grackle it was feeding upon). Verified by William Clark, and Lance and Jill Morrow. First observed by M. Silvas with me, and I shouted "melanistic Cooper's Hawk, OMG" as I identified the bird preliminarily, before submitting it to experts for review.
N31.070728 W-97.369269
JPK-2925