I’m finally getting around to posting ‘part two’ of the Jordan Lake outing mentioned earlier, which is not the Jordan Lake outing from yesterday, which yielded only cruel juvenile woodpeckers. I had to split up the photos because there were too many, and so we get to the more specific topic of raptors.
The outing started out with a lot of promise, given this appearance within ten
I had a few of these images waiting for an opportunity to write them up (while giving a little space from the last post about them,) and just now, I added some more. The raptors from the previous lake trip are still waiting in the wings – a ha ha ha.
We’ll start with the oldest, dating back to September 20.
This minuscule juvenile green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus)
Our opening image is crappy – I’ll admit that, but it’s kinda the point of these posts so don’t get too excited. It comes from 2018 but isn’t really the first image of a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in the wild that I’ve taken – it’s the first that I can lay hands on. But first, a little backstory.
This area of central NC had never been a decent
Stopped down at Jordan Lake yesterday to do a few tests, and just see what was happening.
Results: Tests weren’t promising, and not much. Distant osprey, and an eagle before I had my camera out.
But as I stood in a familiar location, I heard some cheeping and caught a flash of movement, then had to stake out the area for a little bit.
Discovery: The nest is reoccupied.
Does this
I think, anyway.
Over at the neighborhood pond the other evening, right as the beavers would be making their appearance (and were,) my attention was distracted by a pair of subjects quite close by, and so I switched focus over to them.
This is a pair of juvenile green herons (Butorides virescens,) and judging from their appearance and behavior, they’d recently left
Given the success of previous efforts and the fact that I had the opportunity to pursue such actions, I’ve been making more trips down to Jordan Lake to try and keep an eye on the red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) nest. It hasn’t been daily, nor for more than a couple hours at a time (mostly,) due to storms and heat and, you know, having a life.
[Claps and rubs hands together] So, I’ve had most of these photos sitting in the blog folder for days, waiting for all that jazz below to be done so I could devote the time to a larger post, one that I didn’t want to double-post and try to keep track of, and the time has arrived.
I’d noticed last year that a sharpshinned hawk was starting a nest nearby, but nothing ever seemed to