Wildlife photos please

[veggiechicken]

Excellent photos Jeff and welcome to the Forum

[catbasket]

Seeing another recently reminded me of these photos from April -



I put chilli powder in the bird food back in April and that kept the squirrels away until last week. Another sprinkling of chilli powder and the squirrels have disappeared again.

Hopefully the squirrels never get a taste for chilli ...

[veggiechicken]

No photos but I have Ravens flying into the garden in Cardiff this week, must be a couple of pairs of them. They're so noisy - makes a change from the buzzards, although they're still here too. The Ravens and the buzzards perch in a big ash tree that is quite close to the kitchen door. fascinating to watch them.

[ryanrocker100]

Birds on the garden on the 16th of september

[ryanrocker100]

Birds on the garden on the 29th of september

[veggiechicken]

Very good photos, Ryan. I particularly like the butterflies. Thanks for sharing them

[chris]

Have you seen this on the BBC new site?

BBC Nature - In pictures: Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners

Some amazing photos there

[PyreneesPlot]

Praying Mantis does ET

These guys are everywhere at the moment.



Good predators - except they keep trying to get in the windows
Perhaps we are on the menu

[catbasket]

This time putting chilli powder in the bird food lasted all of one day before the squirrels were back

Having read that squirrels will eat chilli'd food when they're hungry enough and that nature's winter food supply is pretty poor this year I decided to call a truce and put out a few peanuts every day for the squirrels. Hopefully then they'll mostly leave the sunflower hearts to the birds and not damage the other feeders. Fingers crossed eh?

One of the squirrels has a threadbare tail which looks like the end might be missing -


I didn't realize they had such long claws!

[catbasket]

Yes the squirrels preferred peanuts to sunflower hearts but no, the birds do not like feeding near squirrels. So we bought a squirrel feeder on Sunday.

We're keeping the lid open (during dry weather) for a few days so the squirrels know there's easy-access food in there. The local jays think this is a fine idea!

[veggiechicken]

Beautiful birds - jays. Quite exotic!
My pathetic photo, taken last night, shows the crows gathering to roost in the trees above the "Crows Nest" Treehouse!! They make such a racket but I love to see them there - they look a bit like Chris**as decorations! Any sudden noise will send them off, chattering and flapping in a great arc, then they return to the trees and settle down for the night.

[veggiechicken]

Young buzzard?

I've been mesmerised this morning by a large bird (a juvenile buzzard?) in the garden - so motionless, for such a long time. Just a slight movement of its head, a swivel, watching. Suddenly, it turned its back on me, lifted its tail and carpped!!
Over about 30 minutes it moved to 3 different trees. I didn't dare go outside as I didn't want to disturb it. The photo was taken through the window so apologies for the quality! Last seen it was chasing a magpie that had flown past to taunt it.

[Two_Sheds]

The sparrowhawk just visited, but as usual she was gone before I could even think "camera".

So here's my Egyptian Goose instead

[T8Ter]

Jay

Managed to a get a picture (not the best though) of our Jay that's taken a great liking to the monkey nuts left out

[Ranger Smith]

Java Sparrows

These are Java Sparrows, that I photographed from my car in a parking lot here in Kona. They were eating the pizza crust I threw out for them. Somebody else asked me for bird photos, and it was then that I realized how hard this is to do right. These little guys just WON'T sit still long enough for me to get a good shot.