birding

cross posted from [email protected]

There is this little crow at Piazetta Savoia in Cagliari who left its nest a bit early two weeks ago. The staff of the surrounding gastronomy fed it and now it is absolutely not scared of people and hangs around there. Doing all kinds of dorky baby crow stuff. Really crazy to see, never seen this before. It made me jump just now, as it nibbled on my sandals as I am writing this.

I passed by here earlier in the morning and was glad to not see it here, so it does seem to have a bit of a life outside of the Piazetta.

I am no crow expert, but I know that it quite often happens that crows leave their nest too early and then keep sitting on the ground. That does not mean the parents don't care for it anymore, but they may still be feeding it. So I would not just pick up a sitting baby crow before observing if the parents are still there for it. It could take a couple hours though.

This Jackdaw was taking little flights of a couple of yards each while it hunting food close to where I was sitting. No single photo is outstanding, but the best of the set presented this way amused me.

Reading, UK, Canon R5 MkII RF200-800

I've seen Robbins around our lawn sprinkler before... I'll have to keep my camera more handy in case they show up again

Location: Mississauga, Ontario
Date: 2025-06-14 12:43pm
Camera: Sony A6700 with Tamron 18-300mm @ 300mm

This shot was pure luck. It was sitting on a chimney while I was taking some shots when it suddenly took off. I barely got it in frame -- the top of this cropped shot is the top of the original frame.

Young Herring Gull, Prospect Park, Reading, UK. Curiously, Herring Gulls seem to stick to built up areas of the town rather than the park, and the Black-headed gull are vice versa. But this one was hanging around with the Black-heads.

Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800mm

Nesting season in the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve means a survey is required before doing any work. Found this nest in the grass under a pickleweed bush and had to relocate our planned work. Since work is restoring habitat for the Belding's Savanna Sparrow, we were happy to do so.

June 2025 in Germany

Technical Details:

Lumix G85 + Lumix 100-300 f/4-f/5.6 @300mm

• Shutter: 1/1000s
• Aperture: f/5.6
• ISO: 3200

Female Mandarin Duck (less flashy but far cuter than the male) leaping off the bank into the water, and I got really lucky with the timing (if not quite the focus).

Reading, UK, Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800mm lens

Prospect Park, Reading, UK, Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800mm lens.

Alas, tracking a moderately fast bird with an overly heavy leans still leads to mistakes, such as clipping the wing tip!

Location: Mississauga, Ontario
Date: 2025-06-06 11:18am
Camera: Sony A6700 with Tamron 18-300mm @ 300mm

This was actually taken through the window of the second storey of my house. The trees are quite close to the house and this little guy was hopping around from branch to branch, singing his heart out.

Fish and Wildlife's camera caught a Ridgway's rail out for a stroll with its chicks this morning. Super exciting as this bird is on the endangered species list.

Look at this bird

And how it squawks at you

He'll eat your mangoes, too

And he is all...

We put some food on the grill and noticed someone checking on us 👀

Western pa

While walking outside I saw a white-breasted nuthatch doing an interesting behavior I’d never seen before: it was perched on the palm tree in the photo, and was repeatedly spreading its wings wide and swaying from side to side, almost snakelike:

When I got home I checked a reference guide, which mentioned this is a behavior that white-breasted nuthatches will do to deter nest predators. I couldn’t figure out exactly why it was doing it when I was there in person, because I didn’t see any snakes or other birds. But I did see a clue in the OP photo, and my reference even specifically mentioned this animal as a nest predator of nuthatches.

So, did everyone else see it immediately and I’m just slow? 😁

Green herons are indeed green, or at least appear so via some kind of iridescence when they're hit by sunlight. You don't typically think of finding herons in a tree, but in a tree is precisely where these two were. I believe this is a male and female pair but I don't know enough to be sure.

They have quite an extensible neck, but when they're just sitting around and not pecking at anything they usually keep it retracted like this. It makes them look like any other songbird until you notice the long legs and the bodaciousness of that beak.

Bonus picture of this one having a floof:

Not as in its description. "Superb starling" is literally what it's called. Lamprotornis superbus. I find them significantly more superb than the common European starling, anyway.

These are endemic to Eastern Africa which is obviously not where I spotted this one. Naturally, it was in a zoo.

Here's a bonus picture of it going scritch.

I have no idea if this was a male or a female since they are not sexually dimorphic and this one was, for the first time in recorded history, not making any noises.

Edit: I notice these are the very birds pictured in the "birds make friends, too" article posted here recently. How serendipitous.