Owls, Woodpeckers, Doves, and Hummingbirds:
American Barn Owl Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl Black Chinned Hummingbird
Downy Woodpecker Broad-Tailed Hummingbird
Red Naped Sapsucker
American Barn Owl Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl Black Chinned Hummingbird
Downy Woodpecker Broad-Tailed Hummingbird
Red Naped Sapsucker
|
American Barn Owl: (Tyto furcata)
Order: Strigiformes Characteristics: The American Barn Owl is a medium sized owl with no ear-tufts and a heart-shaped face. Ghostly pale and normally strictly nocturnal. They are silent predators of the night world. The facial disc is whitish, finely rimmed in orange-brown. Eyes are blackish brown and the bill is cream-coloured. Upperparts are generally pale yellowish-brown with fine blackish spots, denser on the crown. Back and wings-coverts have pale greyish areas spotted with triangular shaped whitish dots, shading into blackish at their narrower upper ends. The edge of the wings are orange brown. Picture: https://pixabay.com/photos/barn-owl-bird-owl-animal-wildlife-1835674/ |
Great Horned Owl: (Bubo virginianus)
Order: Strigiformes Characteristics: With its long, earlike tufts, intimidating yellow-eyed stare, and deep hooting voice, the Great Horned Owl is the quintessential owl of storybooks. This powerful predator can take down birds and mammals even larger than itself, but it also dines on daintier fare such as tiny scorpions, mice, and frogs. It’s one of the most common owls in North America, equally at home in deserts, wetlands, forests, grasslands, backyards, cities, and almost any other semi-open habitat between the Arctic and the tropics. Great horned owls are large and thick bodied with two prominent feathered tufts on their head. They are mottled gray-brown with a reddish brown facial disk and large yellow eyes. The flight and tail feathers are distinctly barred dark and light. The throat is whitish and inflated when calling. Picture: https://pixabay.com/photos/owl-great-horned-owl-portrait-3745861/ |
|
|
|
Downy Woodpecker: (Picoides pubescens)
Order: Piciformes Characteristics: Downy woodpeckers are small, black-and-white birds with a straight bill and a distinctive undulating flight. They are the smallest woodpeckers in North America. The benefits of being small can have certain advantages. The Downy Woodpecker is able to forage for food where heavier woodpeckers can't, including on the slender upper branches of trees and shrubs and on weed stems. Nimble and active, Downies can even cling upside-down like a nuthatch or chickadee. Picture: https://pixabay.com/photos/bird-downy-woodpecker-wing-nature-7767225/ |
Red Naped Sapsucker: (Sphyrapicus nuchalis)
Order: Piciformes Characteristics: They have a long white bar on the folded wing. A black stripe through the eye is bordered by white stripes. The belly is mottled black and white, with a dingy or yellowish cast. Female Red-naped Sapsuckers have a white patch on the chin while males have entirely red chins. Red-naped Sapsuckers are industrious woodpeckers with a taste for sugar. They drill neat little rows of holes in aspen, birch, and willow to lap up the sugary sap that flows out. The presence of sap wells is a good indication that they are around, but so are their harsh wailing cries and stuttered drumming. Picture: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-naped_Sapsucker/id |
|
Mourning Dove: (Zenaida macroura)
Order: Columbiformes Characteristics: A graceful, slender-tailed, small-headed dove that’s common across the continent. Mourning Doves perch on telephone wires and forage for seeds on the ground; their flight is fast and bullet straight. Their soft, drawn-out calls sound like laments. When taking off, their wings make a sharp whistling or whinnying. Mourning Doves are the most frequently hunted species in North America. Picture: https://pixabay.com/photos/mourning-dove-bird-dove-wildlife-1980911/ 
|
|
Black Chinned Hummingbird: (Archilochus alexandri)
Order: Apodiformes Characteristics:Dull metallic green above and dull grayish-white below. Males have a velvety black throat with a thin, iridescent purple base. Females have a pale throat. In both sexes, the flanks are glossed with dull metallic green. Female’s three outer tail feathers have broad white tips. The bill is black. Hovers at flowers and feeders, darts erratically to take tiny swarming insects, perches atop high snags to survey its territory, watching for competitors to chase off and for flying insects to eat. During courtship and territorial defense, males display by diving 66-100 feet. Picture: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-chinned_Hummingbird/photo-gallery/303887411 |
Broad-Tailed Hummingbird: (Selasphorus platycercus)
Order: Apodiformes Characteristics: A jewel of high mountain meadows, male Broad-tailed Hummingbirds fill the summer air with loud, metallic trills as they fly. They breed at elevations up to 10,500 feet, where nighttime temperatures regularly plunge below freezing. To make it through a cold night, they slow their heart rate and drop their body temperature, entering a state of torpor. As soon as the sun comes up, displaying males show off their rose-magenta throats while performing spectacular dives. After attracting a mate, females raise the young on their own. Picture: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Broad-tailed_Hummingbird/id |
|
|
