BIRDS OF A FEATHER!!

[DonE]

Took these at a local wetlands area near where I live in Fl. It is now pack full of all sorts of different birds. Here are a few from the area.

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/6995/a44vk.jpg

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7666/a39wc.jpg

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/3783/a87vr.jpg

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/3406/a217tq.jpg

[T.D.]

Absolutely beautiful shots!

Love the green winged teal and the caracara.

The bald eagle shot is stunning.

Thanks for sharing.

[Billginthekeys]

nice Crested Caracara. where did u shoot these?

[DonE]

Brevard County, Fl. The Viera wetlands area. Unbelieveable how many birds there are out there this time of year.

[Billginthekeys]

Brevard County, Fl. The Viera wetlands area. Unbelieveable how many birds there are out there this time of year.
cool. well keep them comeing. nice stuff

[canonloader]

Excellent stuff here. Very clear and sharp.

[hTr]

Very nice stuff, sharp

[Mr. E]

Very nice! First pic I've ever seen of a caracarra! I've only seen the drawings in the Sibley guide before that! Way to go on all the pictures!

[iterrier]

Beautiful colors on the first one. It looks like the male's head matches the colored water reflections. Nice series.

[downywp]

Wow, I am seriously jealous of the Crested Caracara, great shots! :)

Edit: I noticed he's wearing jewelry, did you report it?

[Reed Goodwin]

Excellent shots! The water in the first one is amazing. They all seem to be very sharp and detailed. My only suggestion would to have a little more depth of field in the first one as it looks like the duck in the back is a little soft.
Reed

[DonE]

Thanks for the comments and helpful suggestions. I need it trust me. No I did not report it and to be honest with you, don't have a clue as to who to report it. I know we have a group of the Caracara living in this area. They did a report on them as they began to tear down some trees in order to build a church. I was very lucky to find it sitting on the pole and drove by it before it hit me. Then I hit the brakes turned around took two shots and the bird had enough and flew away.

[DonE]

Here is the other shot I got of the Caracara.

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/6097/c14rg.jpg

[canonloader]

Not sure it would do any good to report a banded bird, unless you have the band number.

I have helped do some banding back in the day when few had any camera good enough to even shoot a bird, let alone see the band. The numbers and bands were small. Now that digital has taken the world by storm, maybe the banding codes need to be updated. Say a band with colored rings like on the old resistors, or a bar code that could be read from a cropped digital image?

[downywp]

Hi Don, Here's a couple of links that you might find useful:

http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/homepage/reptauxm.htm

http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/homepage/aboutaux.htm

[DonE]

Very cool, thanks for the info.

[Reyno]

Beautiful captures Don. Like em all. When were these taken?

Mitch: Due to their decreasing population (<500) of these birds, most of the Caracaras @ the Viera are now banded and have also been embedded with a satellite tracking antenna and so are the ones found at Three Lakes Wildlife area in Kenansville. I took one inflight where the antenna is sticking out. I'll post that later. Got lucky last year I was able to capture an unbanded adult and a juvenile.

[DonE]

These were taken around 4:30pm until sunset. I stayed out there until sunset as it was a very nice one. Date was Jan. 20, Sat.