What is your favorite bird? (bugs, insect, Alabama, California)
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I have been and am still a raptor fan. My favorite overall is the Prairie Falcon. Beautiful powerful and surgically precise. A small but still massively awesome raptor rivals the Prairie Falcon on my list. The Shrike. Greasy fast, highly maneuverable, and plumb lethal to much loathed vermin such as mice and super intelligent. They are also quite social and outgoing if you have a pair working your place and they become used to you. I've had them (usually the male) perch on the front of my tractor when I'm clearing tumbleweeds and pounce on mice shaken from the cover with zeal even making return trips for more.
I love them.
What a sweet post! And how lucky you are to have such interesting and satisfying experiences. That's why I love living in rural areas it's a chance to see so many wonderful different species of birds and watch their behavior.
Yep, ravens and crows. They they weren't here, we'd be sick at best, and dead at worst.
I'm so glad to find so many people on this thread who love ravens and crows. I do too. When I lived in New Mexico I finally got to see ravens every day which is a real treat because they really don't come into populated areas that much except maybe on the fringes.
The wood owl because it is a mysterious bird I hear often.
The Gänsesäger as it is a beautiful bird that is the signal winter is here, and that it is over.
But my ultimate favorite must be the mouse buzzard, because although they look clumsy and stupid, the more you observe them, it becomes clear they are neither.
I'm so glad to find so many people on this thread who love ravens and crows. I do too. When I lived in New Mexico I finally got to see ravens every day which is a real treat because they really don't come into populated areas that much except maybe on the fringes.
I have three crows that hang around my neighborhood that are fun to watch. There is a landfill a few miles away with maybe a dozen or two crows but these three crows just like hanging out in my sparse desert area and watch the people. When I was in grade school there was a talking crow who would come and sit on the windowsill and talk and the kids went nuts and the teacher had to stop while the crow was there. She could not compete with a talking crow.
I think my favorite bird -- most fascinating, anyway -- is the Roadrunner. Thay are miniature raptor dinosaurs and will stand their ground and face you down if you come near. They will sometimes hunt in pairs and corral tiny quail chicks into a corner. Thats when I finally have to intervene. They can eat the snakes and lizards but not the quail.
I had a wonderful day the other day watching the Red Bellied Woodpeckers come to the feeder, and hang around in the high trees surrounding the property. The main one was a baby, and one of the parents stayed close by, but came to the feeder separately. The baby was so cute!
Then the next day a juvenile female Nuttall's Woodpecker came and has been coming every day. Another baby! Woodpeckers are so adorable the way they hang on the feeders.
I was contemplating my earlier answer in this thread about my favorite bird o saurus critter being a toss up twixt the Shrike and the prairie falcon. As to just why those are my favorites. I hit on that with the story about the Shrike riding on the front of my tractor and picking off mice from his perch whilst I cleared tumbleweeds. How they get really social when they hang around your place and get used to you. That is massive cool.
The Prairie Falcon made the toss up with the one of the other coolest things I've seen power birds do. I worked for the Army for a long time on a remote training and storage base that had a lot of old abandoned sections with tall structures. We still had to PM these areas though and the desert wildlife had set up communities on them. There was a pair of falcons nesting in one that I was keeping tabs on and one day I rolled in and there were two Ravens harassing one of the falcons who was guarding the nest. The male as it was the smaller of the two and females are bigger in the falcon world.
He couldn't get airborne cuz he would have left the nest open for pillaging which was the Ravens intent and they were dive bombing the hell out of him. Then as one swooped out and up after an attack pass and got out into the clear I heard a shrill scream and mama came blazing in from high altitude at mach speed and nailed the would be nest robber with a loud THUNK like a bat hitting a watermelon and an explosion of black feathers and rode the shattered remains all the way to the ground. The other beat an afterburner retreat cawwing loudly the whole way. It was SOOO massive cool! Nest plundering stopped butt cold.
Ravens can be cool but they are pillaging vicious nasties when opportunity arises and I don't mind seeing them get their a$$es kicked. Seeing it happen that time was a special treat. A close runner up to these two events involved a female Great Horned owl They are a LOT smaller than the males but no less pretty. We had this black rooster that was a flogging hen abusing turd and he had a date with the ax and stump if I didn't just snipe him with a 22 rifle. It was after dark and the chickens went into a plumb ruckus so I went out to see what was up. There in the yard this female GH had that rooster pinned to the ground throttling him with her wing spread out and looking at me with that tone that said "is there something you need? If not begone with you." LOL it was pretty awesome. That rooster got his cumuppance that night.
Thatroosterwas bout as big as Mrs. GH Owl but after she finished choking him or he died of heart failure I'm not sure which she still airlifted her prize out of the yard. I was quite impressed. Ans he saved me the trouble of having to off that rooster and deal with his tough and unappetizing carcass. Three days of stewing was the minimum it would have took to make a pot of soup passable with him so I was cool donating to the GH owl fund. And got a neat show thrown in. I've seen all manner of raptor action but those three went into the books at the top.
Those are great stories! And you're a great storyteller.
Yep. Great stories. Amazed to hear that a Shrike would perch near you on a moving tractor. The few I've seen in the wintertime have always been so elusive!
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