I'm chronically late for work, so I usually travel from the Tube station to my desk at speed. It takes something fairly unusual to arrest me in my stampede. Like coming across this guy in the corridor.



It's fairly common in the UK to employ falconers to keep pigeons off historic sites you want to keep nice and clean -- it's less controversial than shooting or trapping them. I work in the Houses of Parliament, and this is the reason why they aren't covered in pigeon crap.



Isn't he a beauty? And very willing to strike a pose for the camera. Also, this bird is than I am.

He is spectacular!

(I only dream of coming across such stately beauty in my commutes!)

truly majestic

He's gorgeous!

I think there's a poem somewhere in the idea of keeping excrement off the Houses of Parliament...

The fella who did a lot of the really interesting research on this (very special) species is James Bednarz, at Arkansas State. His work showed that HHs do in fact hunt cooperatively, and that their confusing mating arrangements (often more than 2 birds at the nest) are different from the Galapagos Hawks, which they superficially resemble.

His web site, though, needs some work:

http://www.clt.astate.edu/jbednarz/Publications.htm

JB was also a co-author on the paper in which Galap Hawks' weird mating system - cooperative polyandry - was revealed (but has yet to be fully explained). One female, multiple males...and multiple paternity in the nest. And they all tolerate each other, work together defending the territory, etc. Weird.

Mmm... cooperative polyandry...

Not quite my backyard, but I thought of you guys...

Birds in my backyard, well sorta....



Rare ducks found dead on Midway Atoll

Not mine, obviously, but I saw it in a book and thought it was gorgeous/appropriate:

I never seem to get pictures of them, but this summer we had the most beautiful Red-Winged Blackbirds I'd ever seen. There were quite a few of them, too. Plenty of Sparrows, also. This summer it seemed like a lot of the birds who've been missing have come back.
I'm glad, they make the whole area so much nicer.
Not quite my backyard, but here's a picture I got from the road near a neighbor's farm:

And a few I got last winter:

I was in Kailua, Hawaii standing at a semi-busy storefront, chatting on the phone and couldn't help but to notice this particular bird next to a posted sign and had to do a double take:









These images were taken with my camera phone. I couldn't believe how close the heron let me approach it!

I imagine that the heron was doing a bit of a double-take too, else it wouldn't have stayed near the sign when you approached.

Great shots (my camera phone is nowhere near that quality, so I'm quite impressed)!

The lake in my hometown in California is a great place to see birds and tons of other things like interesting rocks.
There aren't any special or exotic birds there usually, but there's always a good photo op. I can't say I'm an enthusiast (at least not a knowledgeable one), so I can't say what these are with any certainty. But I'm sure anyone who cares will know
I do love taking pictures though, and at least here someone besides my parents can appreciate these pictures.




The last two photos are obviously of Geese, although I'm not sure what kind. (anyone?)

Well, it's spring again, so I should bust out my camera and get photographing!