I was looking over the Redbud blossoms, watching the numerous honeybees and bumblebees and just happened to see this insect slowly moving along the Redbud branch.  They are early spring fliers and Redbud is one of their host plants.

Shown here is a bumblebee on a flowering redbud.  The redbuds are a sure sign spring is here to stay.  This image was taken in my backyard on March 9th.  Whenever the redbuds are in full bloom, the dogwoods will soon be showing off their white bracts.  The warm days, although not quite consistent yet, will bring lots of photo opps for insects.  Time to start looking for damselflies and dragonflies.

The fine specimen here is a male Wood Duck.  He’s standing on a large branch from a pecan tree.  The trees are often used as roosts.  The image was taken at Red River National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters Unit.  Wood Ducks frequent the pecan orchard next to Lake Caroline.  A female was nearby.  In fact, I wasn’t even aware she was there until they flew off together.

Male Wood Ducks in breeding plumage, as in this image, are perhaps the prettiest of all ducks in North America.  Wood Ducks can be found on the Refuge in northwest Louisiana all year round.  Wood Duck boxes have been places around the lake.  The Refuge staff collects data on each box.  A banding program during the summer months has also been very successful.  I’m always on the lookout for banded ducks (and any other birds for that matter).  Occasionally a band is visible, but I have yet to get a good image.  Just a matter of time.

Occasionally, as is the case here, they will come up with a prized catch such as this perch.  Yes that little bird will eat the entire fish.  It is just a matter of technique.  That fish is only going down one way.  Head first is the first rule.  For obvious reasons, those fish fins and scales just don’t go down very smoothly against the grain.  The second rule is the fish has to be turned sideways-i.e. the bird’s mouth will open up top to bottom only so far, but side to side will expand a great deal more than what you might think.

I took a whole sequence of images from the time the bird surfaced with the fish until the fish was completly swallowed, except for the tips of the tail.  Looking back at the time stamps on the images-40 seconds for the whole process.  Now that is pretty impressive.

Many sparrows tend to look alike [the proverbial LBJ (little brown jobs)].  Slowly, I’m starting to notice that while many sparrows have similar markings, there are distinguishing characteristics, such as the white eye-ring of the Vesper.  Photographing sparrows can be quite challenging.  They aren’t always perched on the end of a dead branch surrounded by an open field.  You might find them on the ground, in dense cover or feeding in tall grass.  Sometimes by themselves, or maybe with a small flock of the same species, or even in a mixed flock of several different bird species.

Next time you are out walking around during the cool weather, see how many different sparrows you might find.  They are not all always the same species.

Ran into this little charmer down in Key West, Florida last week.  Not shown in the picture is the little iguana he was trying to impress.  She didn’t seem too interested, and the big guy moved on.

This juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk landed in a Locust tree and perched for several minutes before flying off.  I was standing behind my big lens and tripod, so maybe the young bird didn’t see me as a threat.  There wasn’t  any cover around, as this was out in the middle of the moist soil impoundments at Red River National Wildlife Refuge Bayou Pierre Unit on September 23^rd.  During our brief encounter I was able to get off quite a few images of the perched bird with varying head turns as it scanned the surrounding area.  The image shown here is just as the bird arrived and landed on the Locust branch.  The feather details and color patterns are gorgeous.