Saturday, April 07, 2007

Flowers and birds again

It's springtime, and I may have mentioned the wildflowers once or twice. Here's some more for your delectation.

These were taken at the Wildflower Centre on a sunny day last weekend.

Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes


Ah, no idea what this is called. Some kind of honeysuckle?


Not a clue about these either but they look nice:


These purple ones are seen a lot on roadsides. These butterflies are big, too.


Flowers are on our lake, too:


And here we have one of the many resident ducks:


We also have a resident Hawk. I initially thought it was a Harris Hawk but now I think it is either a Broad-Winged Hawk or a Red-Tailed Hawk; not entirely sure which. Either way, this chap is really quite large and is a lovely bird. I see him fairly often in the mornings particularly; he likes to perch on the lights around the edge of the lake during pauses in his mouse-hunting exploits.

Here he is the other morning, after catching something. He flew up into a tree where he thoroughly annoyed a couple of blue Jays. This picture would have been better with a bit more light; never mind.


This is the hawk just 10 minutes ago. His other favourite perch is the lighting fixtures right above my office window. Today he is sheltering there from the peeing rain - hence why he looks a little bedraggled.



More as and when...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jo,
I thought I'd check with our bird guy here - does all the bird scaring with "falcons".
He reckons that your bird of prey is a a junvenile red tail buzzard.
The wing shape apparently gives it away.
A Buzzard in the uk is what an American would call a Hawk as they relate buzzards more to vulutre like birds.
ATB from the UK

futurshox said...

Thanks Gary, that's good to know!