birds and turtles

[lizardjay]

(xposted to my journal)

My mom and I have been going on walks most times I visit (~every 2 weeks) and I've been accumulating a lot of pictures... these are from three separate parks in our area.

today

The weather was super nice, low 70s with a breeze. Things are finally green! And there's birds everywhere. It's too early for the gnats and mosquitos so it was just really pleasant.




So many turtles!



I took this pic for the floating plants and didn't even realize at first that there were ducks there. Mr. Duck was keeping watch for Mrs. Duck it seems. Sadly some trash was washed up next to them; the park as a whole was very clean but I imagine you have to send a boat out to fish trash out of the lake.




Here's some pigeons. I know they're very common but they're still pretty :)



Near the end of our walk I saw this great blue heron (I think... I'm no birder but it sure looks like one) as we were coming down some steps! I crouched down and crept close as carefully as I could to get these pics. The heron really didn't care; I think I ended up like 10 or 15 feet away, which is far closer than I've ever been to a heron!! The second pic is from after we moved further away and could see it from the side. I never knew they had those long droopy chest feathers, it was really exciting to learn.




March 25th

Not a lot to see at this one... a lot of piney swamp forest as usual. This pic is from a wooden observation tower. There's one of those binocular things there but we didn't see anything interesting to look at.



March 11th

Most of the trail is through the woods which were still pretty brown from winter. But there's also this bridge across the lake and the seagulls were all hanging out there. It was cold and really windy so whenever they tried to fly they didn't actually go anywhere 😅

Comments

[julian]

That there's a breeding male heron. (And quite pretty.)

I like the last one. The seagulls are in formation!

[lizardjay]

Oh, how can you tell? Is it the feathers?

I like it too! I love when birds line up :)

[julian]

Turns out I'm wrong!

I *thought* it was that breeding males were the ones with the neck ruffs. As it turns out, both mature males and females have those. (And the little head plumes, too.)

Mostly, you can tell by size (this I knew -- males are way bigger). Also, males have oranger bills and legs.

[lizardjay]

Ah well, happens to the best of us :D

[adafrog]

Pretty.

[lizardjay]

They are, aren't they?

[sparowe]

What a lovely walk! Thank you for sharing it with us. :)

[lizardjay]

You're welcome :)

[cmcmck]

Lovely pics.

Whereabouts are you based?

[lizardjay]

Coastal Virginia, USA. Lots of wetlands here :D

[shirebound]

Thanks for sharing these wonderful scenes.

I love turtle sightings!

[lizardjay]

I do too! They were very cheerfully swimming around.

[blackcatofmisery]

These are some great photos, especially the seagull ones. The areas look really nice to walk through, and the weather sounds perfect. 😘👌

That's definitely a blue heron, but there's not much difference between males and females except for size. There is special down powder under that chest plumage that's used in grooming, though. They kinda comb through it with their feet and collect the powder to distribute through other feathers.

=^..^=~

[brightly_lit]

Very cool info about the down powder--thanks for this tidbit!

[lizardjay]

I love this info, thank you!

[blackcatofmisery]

You're very welcome!

[yourlibrarian]

Neat set of pics!

[lizardjay]

Thanks!

(Nice duck icon :D)

[nellas]

So very fortunate to live close to such beautiful parks!
That picture with all those turtles paddling around in the water was my very favorite. Really cute. <3

[lizardjay]

I know! There's so many in my area, I'm very lucky :D

The turtles are popular! I get more excited about the birds but they're very cute indeed.