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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Baby Starling

mrsroadrunner A Wildlife,Nature Photographer,Oregon

Baby Starling

Sunday I headed to our ponds to see what was going on.

One of the boys was going after something, I thought it was the frogs and I do not like them going after the frogs.

Much to my surprise


it was not a frog the dog was going after, but this baby starling.

Telling the dog to get back I grabbed one of the shovels for the little bird to hop on, which it did and I held the poor tired thing in my hands and went to grab a extra cage so the baby bird could rest.

The baby starling was sleeping in my hands by the time Guy fetched a extra cage.

One of my sons grabbed some bedding, I put some water in the cage with the baby starling.

The starling woke up by this time, drank and drank the water. Took a bath, cleaned himself real good.

The baby starling talked and talked and talked as I took a little nap. By the time I woke from my nap the baby starling was all rested and ready to go!!

I took the baby starling outside where I found him, let him go where he took off !

I am glad the little baby bird was not hurt by the dogs!! Better yet did not fall into the pond!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Woolly Bear Caterpillar by Coralie





Coralie aka Mrsroadrunner: Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar &emdash; Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar 203

We came across many of these caterpillars feeding on Nettle and some other plants.
I believe it was stinging nettle, however the plant it was feeding on was not the subject I was photographing.
These beautiful Caterpillars is what I was photographing.
The Banded Woolly Bear Caterpillar is supposed to be the red/orange band with black ends, these are black banded with red/orange ends.
There sure is a lot of caterpillars on this planet! I must of looked through everything I could find about Oregon species, everything came up the Banded Woolly Bear Caterpillar.

The folklore on predicting the weather was rather neat to read. The amount of black on a Woolly Bear Caterpillar can predict how bad of winter a place is going to have. Folklore is fun, but does one really want to believe?
Some people are sensitive to these caterpillars, but rarely.As many of us know, they do not sting or bite.
The National Geographic has a nice article on them. The article talks of research done on insects who exhibit self medicating behavior. Claiming sick caterpillars taste change to whatever food will cure their sickness. Or something rather, go check it out!
These are the photographs I got of these Woolly Bear Caterpillars. There was quite a few of these at the place we were at!


Coralie aka Mrsroadrunner: Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar &emdash; Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar 182


Coralie aka Mrsroadrunner: Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar &emdash; Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar 188


Coralie aka Mrsroadrunner: Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar &emdash; Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar 237


Coralie aka Mrsroadrunner: Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar &emdash; Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar 240


Coralie aka Mrsroadrunner: Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar &emdash; Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar 243

Coralie aka Mrsroadrunner: Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar &emdash; Banded Wolly Bear Caterpillar 225

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Spring Is Here Wildlife In Oregon

mrsroadrunner A Wildlife,Nature Photographer,Oregon

Spring Is Here Wildlife In Oregon

This past week has been CRAZY!!

Crazy good that is! This is not going to be a post about one species, I captured way to many things this past week for that.

So this is going to be a mix of photographs, a mix of adventures.


Spring is here, and so are the ticks!! I have had more ticks on me this past week then I have in a very long time! BTW YUCK!

We went to two different places. We have had to stick around the house until Guys work picks up, or gas prices go down or I sale more photographs haha! To keep himself busy, Guy put in another little pond! It is so cute!!

The Black-headed Grosbeak did stop by again, so did the deformed female red winged black bird.

The golden crowned sparrow stopped by, a house sparrow stopped by who had what looks like cotton in his mouth for his nest?

The Lazuli Bunting stopped by again and the red house finch is becoming a staple here too!

The starlings are doing their mating dance,

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Between you and I, I have not even been through all my photographs! I have not researched all the species I photographed either. Shame on me I know! Call this a huge brain fart haha!

This butterfly stopped in to get a drink and this black and white cat came as close as he dared to watch all the activity going on here! My sons black cat was not thrilled with this other cat, so just to show the black and white cat he could my sons black cat jumped up and over the fence to get a drink.

Then the darnedest thing happened!! We had not one, but three Lazuli Buntings stop by! So of course I have enough photographs of these pretty birds to do a whole post on all three of them!!

The deformed red wing black bird stopped by again as well!

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As I said we have went to several places. We decided to go to a marsh we know of that is rather out of the way of a lot of people. Locals know of it but we were very fortunate and we never seen a living human soul there! This was just a delight!! We arrived before dawn, I stayed in the truck and drank my hot coffee as Guy let the dogs out to do their thing before we headed out to hike to the marsh.

WOW was it cold at first!!

As the sun slowly came up I had enough light to take photographs. The clashing of heat of the rising sun and the cold of the water gave off a lovely fog for my photographs. I took advantage of this!!

I got a couple coots, one was a hoot running on the water!!

Of course being a marsh we had geese! WOW did I get photograph of geese! But I promise not to get carried away on this post!

The marsh wrens were out, and actually allowed me a couple shots. Ya, ya just a couple haha!

Amongst all the noise of the birds, and there was a lot of birds!! A coyote started in!! We were very close to this coyote and it sounded so scared! Our dogs circled us, with ears up they looked for the coyote and we did too. I agreed with Guy, this coyote sounds really young! Young and very scared! Off in the trees we heard another coyote answer the other. Slowly we heard what we thought was the younger coyote make its way to the other. Though never did we see either coyote! We just heard them. Off in the distance we seen cattle, the cattle heard them too! We seen the cattle to far away to really get a good look at them, but they formed a circle. Than the head cow took the circle away, moving pretty quickly until out of our site and I am sure out of the reach of the coyotes??

The mountain bluebird was down at the marsh as Mt. Jefferson was finally seen! Mt. Hood was still not seen due to the clouds.

The yellow headed black birds were all over this marsh!! I will show a few of the shots I got of them. They were nesting. Males who were single were courting the females, and the couples who were together were very protective of their nests! Fighting was going on, both physical air acrobatics as well as verbal arguing!! I was even threatened by a couple who felt I was way to close to their nest and they intimidated me by doing flybys. Making me duck of course!! Nothing like seeing birds flying straight at you and at the last moment duck!! They were just intimidating me but still!!

I will just have to do another post on these yellow headed black birds, males and females. I shot a female gathering nesting materials, she was so fun to watch!!

I almost forgot about the red headed ducks!

Now the last I am going to show directly of the marsh in this is the goose and the yellow head. There are just to many photographs to show everything in this one post!!

Now Guy and I were talking of the Antelope and they should be showing themselves real soon. They will be skittish for a while but we will see them soon enough. Well, we did. Just two right now, but they will find each other and get into bigger herds soon enough.

This woodpecker I got was so funny! Diving and coming back to his perch with a big old bug in his mouth haha! Again just to many photographs for this post.

I photographed a couple grey and yellow birds, as of yet I do not even know their name or species.... yet! Mind you I have not even went through all the photographs I got!

The hawks are always around and at times follow us. We kick up bugs and rodents as the dogs and us walk so it makes sense the birds of prey are going to pay attention to us.

Now you see why I break up my week into different posts?

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Now being spring many things are out and about. At a spot we went to Sunday many Banded Woolly Bear caterpillars were around. Here is just a couple shots of them.

Now this snake is just a three feet or more gopher snake, no means is it a rattle snake or anything dangerous! I was stepping on it at first and did not realize it!! I got off a couple shots before it coiled up. I got way to many photographs of this snake to post here, so here are just two of the photographs.

The dogs I told them to get away from the snake and me, so they went off to sit together to watch me as the snake was VERY loud about the whole thing! Guy happened to get the dogs attention and I snapped this photograph.

I saw this bird with a red beak. Some kind of sage hen, quail, grouse?? Not sure yet but I added a photo in of it. Scared the crap out of me when this one and another one was hiding in the grass, I new the one was there somewhere?? Then it flew up a couple feet in front of me and scared the crap out of me!!

Now the lizard, I seen it running so I got out of the truck after it. It went still and frankly I had no idea where it went?? But I seen it not far from my feet, just as still as still could be! This lizard unlike the other one I got did not have the blue on it, so at this time I am not sure what kind it is. I would think the same species?? BUT until I look it up....

So this was my week. I got more shots of cascades, some flowers other birds, and who knows what for I have not been through all my photographs but they can keep for another day.

The joy of living in the high desert of Oregon in spring time!!

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