Three hairy woodpeckers were apparently feuding either over territory or a mate. I caught this one as it was chasing off after the other two. Love triangle?
There are lots of cedar waxwings feeding on the juniper berries. Their high-pitched "pwee!" sound can be heard throughout the forest edge.
Then a robin came and scared the waxwings away.
"Mrrah-mrrah! says the nuthatch. I leave the translation to you.
Dark-eyed juncos are very plentiful right now, both males and females. The males are a winter bird here, but very few actually stayed over winter. Seeing the abundance of them, and seeing males and females together, indicates that they are in their migration north for the summer.
Townsend's solitaires are highly territorial, and only during the breeding season (and in Glacier) have I ever seen two together. Like the waxwings, they feed on juniper berries.
Lots of mule deer were out in the morning. This one is a yearling. I also saw quite a few white tails near the campground and one elk in a wooded ravine.
Painted Canyon Visitor Center, not your average rest stop.Bison grazing along the roadside. About one second after I stopped taping, this cow charged at the bison on the right edge of the frame, so I missed that. It just goes to show that although they appear and usually are docile, they have an ornery temperament and are entirely unpredictable. If they don't like something that's close to them, they are as likely to move away as they are to absolutely thrash it with their horns.
"Ahhhh! Yeah!!" Almost time to get that winter coat off.
In the process of writing this post, Pipestone National Monument called me for an availability check.
2 comments:
There must be a million blogs out there, but yours is clearly one I enjoy most. I love sharing your photos with my friends in England. This is what they imagine "my backyard" looks like.
I remember back as far as my kindergarten days being fascinated by the cedar waxwings in the evergreens in the winter. I was in a warm house, looking out a big window, toasty warm, and looking almost nose-to-nose with a cedar waxwing in the juniper shrubs. The shrubs were covered in snow, and it was freezing. I have no idea how the waxwings survived.
And on top of that, to a 5-year-old kid, they had such interesting names. My parents were not biologists, but somehow they knew what a cedar waxwing was.
Thanks for posting.
What kind of lens/camera do you use to get your bird pictures? How close can you get? I assume the photos of the birds are telephoto, but you probably walk up to the bison to give them a pat on the head (horns) before you photograph them. Smile.
Yeah! Pipestone, go for it!
the old tbirddriver
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