***Weekly Wildlife Thread: Oct 28th - Nov 3rd***

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An eventful week, taking us through Halloween and then right up to Daylight Savings Time and the rollback of the clocks. Maybe some scary birds or wildlife this week?

Back to the Florida wetlands and on a busy October 13th day - the sun was still a little harsh in the early afternoons which is the only opportunity I have to go shooting, but the diversity is picking up with more migrating species and wintering species starting to mix in with the regulars and year-rounders.

The following were all shot at Green Cay Wetlands and Wakodahatchee Wetlands as usual, with the A6300 and FE100-400mm GM combo - the latter shots also taken with the FE 1.4x teleconverter attached. All shots posted at 1400 pixels on the long side if you click the originals:


A close shot of a large male green iguana, turning on some orange colors to attract a mate. The tree canopy filtered some of the hard light and made it warmer


A wider shot, showing some of that long black and green striped tail


The native, and dwindling, purple gallinule, climbing his way up a reed to get at those dangling purple flowers


A red-bellied woodpecker, drilling away on a branch over my head - I didn't see him so much as feel him, when he dumped a bunch of sawdust on my head, causing me to look up!


Normally a ground-dwelling bird, it was a little odd to see this ovenbird up in a tree - he seemed to be annoyed at another bird, and was chasing him and yelling at him


Haven't located one of these little guys since last spring - I heard the tiny calls, then had to reallys train my eyes to find where he was sitting - at 50+ feet away, even with 400mm APS-C I had to crop nearly to 100% to show this ruby-throated hummingbird


Another bird back for fall - but stubbornly sitting in a shady spot with strong backlighting - the colorful male painted bunting


Near the woodpecker, but a completely different forest than the first hummingbird, I happened to find another ruby-throat, sitting up in the trees just over my head. This is very difficult to find two hummingbirds in the forest completely wild, with no feeders nearby


A neat, wide-bodied dragonfly, really showing off those wing engines - and the neat fake-eye details behind the real eyes facing back


A basilisk lizard, climbing his way up a branch


Way off, about 120 feet away, I saw this large pileated woodpecker on the side of a tree - we don't see the pileateds very often at these wetlands (1.4x TC)


A tricolor heron, seemingly studying his own reflection - but actually on the hunt for fish (1.4x TC)


As I was approaching another dead tree to shoot the red-shouldered hawk at the top, the pileated woodpecker from the other dead tree decided to fly over to this one (1.4x TC)


He was doing some kind of challenge to the hawk, bobbing his head left and right, and staring him down (1.4x TC)


Here, the woodpecker climbed up to just under the hawk, who was staring back at him - it was like gunfighters at a duel, staring each other down (1.4x TC)


The hawk drew first, with a flutter of the wings and an aggressive move, and the pileated scattered off - not quite as brave as he looked (1.4x TC)



--
Justin
galleries: www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

male Oregon Junco






female Oregon Junco






Mountain Chickadee






Flicker

Great interaction between RSH and WP...nice shot of the PB

Bee working the lantana today




Cooper's hawk dove into heavy cholla cactus to nab this quail (which you can barely see)




Vorticella hanging out.



--
Steve W

Only made it out twice last week. A-68 and 70-400mm G2.


Great Blue Heron - Links Pond




Piebald's one-year younger brother with a littlw backlight




Piebald's younger brother and mom




Eastern Gray on a fence




Eastern Chipmunk under a stoop




Six-pointer




Eastern Chipmunk in backlight




Female Red-bellied Woodpecker




Another Eastern Chipmunk - check that tail!




Eastern Gray - eye level

--
AEH
Question: What do you do all week?
Answer: Mon to Fri. Nothing, Sat & Sun I rest!

Nice ones Steve, especially the Vorticella!

Another selection of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, all good shots. The Heron seems to be rather blue, maybe overexposed?

Cholla the enemy of all...hope it got out alright.

Australian Painted Lady - Vanessa kershawi




The smallest robber fly I've come across





A77ii, Sigma 150mm f2.8 OS HSM macro, Meike Mk-320 flash

These are excellent - esp that last one of the robber fly--exposure and detail spot on.

Steve West said:

These are excellent - esp that last one of the robber fly--exposure and detail spot on.

Click to expand...

Thanks Steve. The robber fly was shot on a tripod with natural light. I can't get reliably sharp macros/close ups at 1/125s. I could see that the back light was strong on the second shot so I used a piece of A4 white paper as an improvised reflector which helped - a bit.

Nice wing spread and focus on the lady and just a perfect shot of the robber fly with reflector!

Three real nice ones Steve. Really like the Cooper's nestled in the cactus - nice camo!

Nice shots of those tiny birds, but that flicker is a dandy! Great colors, focus, pose and setting!

Amazing stuff Justin! That iguana is just perfect - colors and light! Perfect dragonfly too. Also really like the tricolor and the sequence with the Pileated and Red-shoulder. I suppose that if the pileated knew that one good stab would do away with the hawk, he'd be a little more brave

Some beautiful birds, especially that closeup of the flicker showing off those nice patterns. All are birds I'd love to see again someday!

Very cool Steve - nice bee capture, and the hawk is a neat if a bit gory thing to see - cooper's on the attack are amazing how they'll fly at such speed right into thick branches and obstructions without fear. Here, they'll swoop through heavy forest at high speed, sometimes emerging into a clearing where a bird is from a slot between branches barely larger than his torso. Amazing birds!

Very nice deer and rodent selection this week - nice to see piebald's family though still will miss seeing him around these threads. Looks like weather's still pretty nice by you - we Floridians could use a strong northern cold snap and heavy snow to drive the winter birds down here!

Lovely closeup work Craig - that's a thick looking painted lady - nice eye detail on the side profile - and the robber fly is a cool looking fellow closeup. I thought my skipper last week had big eyes, but those robbers have some seriously large eyes!