Great Kiskadee

This picture was taken on 27th December, 2006 at the Edinburg, Texas World Birding Center. Kiskadee's are one of the larger members of the flycatcher family, measuring about 10" long. They are monogamus with both parents helping with the feeding of offspring. Although they're flycatchers, they will also eat nuts, berries, frogs, grasshoppers and occasionally will dive for fish in shallow water.

Zebra Heliconian Butterfly

This picture was taken at the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) Park in Mission Texas on 22 December, 2006. The Rio Grande Valley has more butterflies than anywhere else in the United States. There has been approximately 300 different species documented.

Question Mark Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 17th December, 2006. Apparently it was named "Question Mark" because there is a small white question mark on the underside of it's wings.

Cassius Blue Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 16th December, 2006.

Oak Hairstreak Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 16 December, 2006.

White Checkered Skipper Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 16th December, 2006.

Malachite Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission, Texas on 15th December, 2006. This butterfly is quite rare and I was informed that only about one visitor of the park in fifty are lucky enough to see this guy.

Mexican Blue Wing Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 15th December, 2006.

White Peacock Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 15th December, 2006.

Sickle-winged Skipper Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 15th December, 2006.

Texas Crescent Butterfly

These pictures were taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 15th December, 2006.

Queen Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission Texas on 15th December, 2006.

Common Mestra Butterfly

This picture was taken at the NABA butterfly park in Mission Texas on 15th December 2006.

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly

These pictures were taken at the Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort in Mission Texas on 14th December 2006.

Gauva Skipper Butterfly

These pictures were taken on 26th November at the Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort, Mission, Texas. This butterfly is known mainly in South America but does come as far north as the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas. Although the bottom picture shows him to be a metalic blue because of the way the light was shining on his wings, he normally appears almost black with a hint of metallic blue as shown in the upper picture.

Giant Wheel Bug

This picture was taken at Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort on 29th November, 2006. This bug can be a gardeners best friend. They eat other bugs by spearing them and then sucking out their juices. The never seem to attack bugs that are beneficial to the garden, only harmful bugs. They are particularly fond of Potato Beatles.

Praying Mantis

This picture was taken on 29th November, 2006 at the Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort. The ocurr in either gray, brown or green and can change colours to suit their environment. Males are smaller than females and when mating, the male approaches from behind and must be very careful as if the female gets a chance, it will bite the males head off. If it were me, I think I would become celebit!!!

Ghost Crab

This picture was taken on 8th November 2006 at Mexico Beach in the Florida Panhandle. The Ghost Crab lives in burrows on the sand during the day and hunts for food at night. He enters the water mainly to wash his food. Adults actually travel a fair distance from the ocean; I'm not sure how far but I saw one about 200 yards from shore. He is very similar to the color of the sand and this coupled with foraging at night led to his name of the "Ghost Crabe". He is also very wary of enemies and his eyes can "periscope" , raising above his body giving him 360 degree vision. He is also very fast on land and can run up to speeds of 10 mph.

Tarantula

This picture was taken on 24th November 2006 at Bentsen Palm Village RV Park. They are poisonous and they do bite, but they aren't harmfull to humans. Their bodies will measure up to about 2" across and their legs about 5". It takes several years for them to reach sexual maturity. When the male does go looking for a mate, sometimes he will be eaten by the female before he can mate. Even if he is successful in mating, he will then die within a few months. After mating, the female will lay 500 to 1,000 eggs which will hatch in about two weeks. The female doesn't feed the offspring. They're on their own. The female can live from 25 to 40 years. I guess it's better to be a female Tarantula than a male.

Great Egret

This photo was taken at the Rockport Marina on 22 November 2006. This guy is quite tame and his name is Billie. He was named after a fellow named Billie who used to work at the marina and one of his jobs was to catch fish bait and he always gave this Egret some of the bait. Billie died recently of a heart attack and the Marina people thought it fitting to call this Great Egret Billie.

Purple Finch

This picture was taken in our back yard on 20 April 2006. Purple Finches have declined in numbers when the non-native House Finch was introduced in 1940. The House Finches original territory was Southwestern United States and Mexico, but was introduced to Long Island in 1940 and quickly spread throughout the east. Fights between Purple and House Finches almost always end up with the House Finch being the victor.

American Goldfinch (male & female)

This picture was taken on 14 May 2006 in our back back yard. They are an extremely beautiful bird and their favourite food is thistle or Niger seed. They also eat seeds from last years weeds. They don't nest in the spring like most birds but instead nest in July or August and usually only have one clutch but will occassionally have a second.

Redhead Duck

This picture was taken near Rockport Texas on our way home last spring (6 April 2006). The Redhead is a diving duck and eats mainly vegetation but will eat the odd small animal such as frogs and salamanders. They're a fairly small duck weighing 2-2 1/2 pounds and they've been known to lay their eggs in other birds nests, especially Mallards.

The hunter

This is a Tricolored Heron in the hunt mode. The picture was taken on 23 March 2006 at Port Aransas. I was standing on the board walk watching him as he walked very quickly up and down, occassionally shooting his neck forward to catch a small fish or insect.

Misty morning

This picture was taken way back on 24 January 2006 near Mission Texas. I didn't initially publish this picture because I didn't think it was good enough. If you look at it, it's not as clear as it could be, but there's something kind of mystical about the picture. It was taken fairly early in the morning on a day that had a lot of fog. The sun was trying to burn through the fog creating a glow in the water while an assortment of waterfowl (Glossy Ibis in the middle) languish on a log and in the water. One of my favourite shots even though it isn't really clear.

Male Mallard

This picture was taken at Rockport Texas on 6 April 2006. The Mallard is the most common duck in North America and one that most people can identify.

Southern Bell Hibiscus

This picture was taken in our back yard last September. It was a night shot taken with a flash looking straight up as the blossom was drooped over. Unlike the following two entries, this picture hasn't been re-touched using Photoshop.

Back yard Deer - Fun with Photoshop

The top picture was taken last September. I sent it to my brother asking him how do you remove trees in Photoshop. His daughter, Laurie was visiting at the time and she's a Photoshop expert. The bottom picture is what I got back. What's that saying about not believing anything you here and only half of what you see?

Rose Breasted Grosbeak - Fun with Photoshop

I haven't taken too many pictures lately so thought I'd post some from last year. As you can see, the first picture isn't very good. I asked a Niece of mine how to replace the background using Photoshop. She walked me through it and I replaced the background with a picture of the sky which I took. Makes for a much better picture, don't you think?

Female Hooded Merganser

These pictures were taken in our back yard, the first two on May 17th and the last one on 4th May 2006. I never did get a good picture of the male who once the female starts incubating the eggs, leaves and doesn't assist in the incubation or rearing of the chicks. She's nesting in a Wood Duck house that is on the edge of one of our ponds. When the eggs hatch, she flies down to the nearby water and then calls her babies out within 24 hours of them hatching. If she isn't satisfied that the surroundings are safe, she will then march her brood off to a safer place. Her clutch has now hatched but we never did see the little ones. Hooded Mergansers are fish eaters and are very good at catching small fish. Their eyesight underwater is very good. They actually have a third eyelid that acts like a pair of goggles when swimming underwater.

Baltimore Oriole

These pictures were taken in our backyard on May 25th 2006. For awhile the Baltimore Oriole was combined with the Bullocks Oriole and was known as the Northern Oriole, but they found that there were significant differences between the two and therefore they reverted back to their former names. Orioles like tall trees bordering on open spaces and are particularly fond of oranges and sugar water in and Oriole feeder, similar to a hummingbird feeder. You may wonder why I have four pictures all on the same Crab apple branch. There just happened to be an orange placed just to the left, but outside the picture. It made for a nice picture but it was difficult to get them to look into the picture.

Indigo Bunting

These pictures were taken on May 24th 2006 in our back yard. In contrast, the female is mainly brown with occassionally a hint of blue on the tips of their feathers. They're quite remarkable navigators. They migrate at night using the stars to navigate. Experiments have been done where they've captured them and then released them in an area totally foreign to them. They still navigated back to the exact location they normally migrate to. Amazing!!! Humans are supposed to be the smart ones and some of us have trouble getting home after spending a night at the bar.

Green Heron

This picture was taken in our back yard on May 15th, 2006. Also known as Little Green Herons, they are the smallest of our Heron family except for the Least Bittern. They are solitary in nature but may be seen in pairs particularly during mating season. They have a concealed nest in shrubs or low tree branches. We actually have a pair of them visiting our pond on a regular basis. We're hoping they will nest here and that we'll get a chance to see their young. Stay tuned!

Veery

This picture was taken on May 15th 2006 in our back yard. This is a bird that is heard but seldom seen. I guess I got lucky as he perched on a nice birch tree branch in plane sight for about 10 minutes. His usual habitat is the deep dark dense part of the forest eating a mixture of insects and fruit. He has good eyesight in the dark and migrates all the way to South America. He does this at night, keeping in touch with others of his species by calling. He's in the Thrush family but has fewer spots on his breast than most Thrushes.

White Crowned Sparrow

This picture was taken in our back yard on May 15th, 2006. Apparently he is easy to tame and therefore he has been used extensively in scientific experiments, especially related to bird migration.

Rose Breasted Grosbeak

I took these pictures in our back yard on May 13th 2006. The two upper pictures are the male while the lower picture is the female. I'm surprised that we don't have homosexual males. This is one of my favourite birds. The males song is similar to that of a Robin, only more melodious. When courting, he will sing in flight while flying after the female. He sometimes picks the nest site and takes his turn at incubating the eggs and even sings while sitting on the nest.