Red Bellied Woodpecker doing pull-ups at the feeder

We finally got a picture of the red belly of the red-bellied woodpecker.

Turtles in Love

When Mike got home tonight, he spotted something unusual in the lake. At first he thought it was the muskrat, but then it appeared to be an otter. As he got closer, and watched for a while, he was surprised to see that it was two turtles. Photos don't really do this justice, so there are two videos. The turtles did swim off, unharmed.

Click on the links below for the videos. They are fairly large, but worth the wait if you are a turtle lover.
Turtles (quicktime)
More Turtles

Brown-headed Cowbird

Did you know that a female cowbird makes no nest of her own? Instead she lays her eggs in the nests of other birds, who then raise the young cowbirds.

Female Northern Cardinal

Baby Blue Jays

We were out on a walk this morning when we encountered two baby blue jays under the watchful eye of a mother blue jay. Here are a few pictures. They hopped around a little and even flew (or wing-assisted jumped) from branch to branch on a small tree. The pictures are high resolution, so if you click on them, you'll see larger than life-sized details.

Juvenile Double-crested Cormorant

We took these cormorant photos over the weekend. He was swimming by Saturday and standing on a branch on Sunday. The juvenile Double-crested Cormorant has a lighter color, particularly on the chest than the adults. We can't see any crests on the head, but our bird book indicates only the double-crested gets this light.

Oriole

We've been catching glimpses of an Oriole for a week or two. We've also been hearing a new bird song. We finally saw a pair of Orioles long enough to get some acceptable photos today. Orioles like sitting among the leaves making them hard to spot. We are debating whether it is a Baltimore Oriole or an Orchard Oriole.

Next on our wish list is a green heron we've spotted flying twice. We are also hoping for night heron chicks since we learned that they only fish in the day and have a white "pony tail" during breeding season. Oh, and a male wood duck is back. Here's the back of his head just as he flew away from Mike's "rush and flush" photographic technique. At least he found the camera without waking Chris up.

Blue Jay

Juvenile Canada Goose

How quickly they grow up. Just last month, the goslings were yellow fluff balls. Now the juvenile Canada Goose is starting to look more like the adult.

Juvenile Robin

Well, it must be June. We are starting to see a variety of juvenile birds with different coloring than adult birds. Here is a Juvenile Robin.