Friday, July 8, 2011

Pigeons of Turkey

Okay, I'm not even going to try and make you guess.  I went to Turkey in June.  (I have been very fortunate to have been able to travel a lot these past few months!)  While the scenery was INCREDIBLE, the bird life was not so dramatic.  Of course, it didn't help that I didn't have a field guide to Turkish birds.  But even with my limited bird knowledge, I could recognize our friend the rock pigeon when I saw him.
Bonus white dove(?)  in this photo.


Other birds seen in Turkey include the following sparrow-like varieties:






Then there was this fellow, looking out of a pipe:


Interesting head shape!

Here we have some kind of swallow, I believe.  There were a whole bunch of these sitting on a wire at the ruins at Patara.



A few more unidentified avians to round out the sampling:


So there you have it!  I did see many swallows flying around, but they were hard to get a picture of.  And I think the Turkish people are raising pigeons for their poop for farming purposes...hence the plethora of pigeons.  Here is the exotic home of these pigeons:

Let's back up a little to get the bigger picture:

And even more, for an idea of the landscape:
Not bad digs, eh?

We passed these bags on one of our hikes...
...which we surmise are filled with pigeon poop, thus lending credence to our pigeon-raising theory.

Finally, just for fun, here's a photo of me and my traveling companions, friends Claire and Gillian:
It was a wonderful trip!

More Picture from the Galápagos

Just wanted to throw a few more of the 2,400 up here...then on to a new location.  

Mockingbird...these guys are tough!
Mockingbird??  Not sure what happened to this guy!  Fresh from a bath??

Flycatcher, I think.

Doves feeding

Oyster-catcher and sea lion

The lovely lava heron

Frigate birds often accompanied our boat, taking advantage of the updraft.  They didn't even need to flap their wings!

Deflated frigate bird

Nasca boobies don't make a very fancy nest.


Juvenile yellow-crowned night heron



Flying under water!


This is our partially-molted friend, just after diving in!

Great blue heron

The fierce mockingbird again

Yellow warbler?  Such a sweet fellow!

I was TOO close to this heron...had to zoom OUT!

Here he is.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Bird Paradise

Well, if April 23 to June 11 is two weeks, then I'm right on time with this post.

What happened was I took too many photographs.  Over 2,400, as it turns out.  Well, Mark took some of them, but I must admit I took most of them.  I blame my super-duper Canon PowerShot camera for being too beguilingly wonderful!  And the digital age for being too enabling of shooting everything in sight with the idea of sorting through them later.  And the place I was in, for being too wonderful with amazing photo opportunities at every turn...even though I just got a great shot of a x, y, or z, there is ANOTHER GREAT SHOT of x, y, or z, and I can't pass it up!

So here are some photos from my mystery location, which will no longer be a mystery in about two seconds.  Enjoy!

Swallow-tail gull

Blue-footed booby...now the jig is up!

Flycatcher

Waved albatrosses

American oystercatcher

Finch

Lava heron

Hawk

Nazca boobies

Great frigate bird

Yellow-crowned night heron

Whimbrel

Coot

Penguin, almost finished molting

Pelican