Of course there is always the question about making wild animals tame by feeding them, thus making them more vulnerable to hunters, etc., but I dunno-the deer in my area recognize me and let me approach, but disappear if anyone else comes around. Most geese are very territorial and will attack people who approach a nest or mate, so you have to know your animals. Tame deer are the most dangerous of all, I've read. Newspaper accounts tell of urban deer, who are never hunted and thus unafraid of humans, attacking people in their own driveways. It's usually best to let wild animals be wild, and to get a large mammal dependent on humans for food is often the way to get it killed. Like the signs say in the State Parks, a fed bear is a dead bear. And feeding birds human food, like bread crumbs, etc., is never a good idea. Veterinarians warn people not to feed pet dogs human food because it causes the same diseases in dogs that it causes in people, and cooked, processed, chemical-filled food is too nutritionally compromised for wild animals with their natural, raw food diets. Of course, you can feed all the white bread you want to Starlings and House Sparrows. These dumpster birds seem to thrive on garbage!

Thanks! I seldom use a tripod, but since I was in the car, I just balanced the Canon 400mm lens against the window. My Canon EOS 40D needs strong light from behind and to be close to work well, so I was glad the Buffleheads came as close as they did..about 40 feet away while fighting. As to why they were fighting, Buffleheads are monogamous, at least for a few years at a time, so apparently the newcomer male was defending his mate of choice that year. Perhaps she'd not yet made up her own mind because she kept approaching the single male, bobbing her head, and he'd bob back. Whenever he noticed this the first male would attack and drive the single male away, even though the single male kept trying to continue his foraging dives between attacks. These sea ducks are among the last to migrate to their breeding grounds in Canada, where they use Northern Flicker and Pileated Woodpecker holes by small lakes (link to Bufflehead pdf files http://seaduckjv.org/infoseries/buff_sppfactsheet.pdf ) For the Wood Ducks, I crawled into an old slab wood lean-to blind and balanced the lens against a cross bar. They are very jittery and I've not been able to sneak up on them since

Thanks-taking photos from the car was necessary because of the ticks-I just brushed the grass with one hand and instantly had a tick on it. I looked at the photos after I posted them and decided that the Blue Grosbeak must be a juvenile male..I thought it was too early, but obviously not; most females only have blue on their backs. But, hey, I've never photographed ANY Blue Grosbeak before

I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of the cranes. Guess I'll have to get better at sneaking up on them! It's also difficult when your property is flat with no mature trees or shrubs except along the fenceline. I'll have to work on that. Here's a pic of a visitor that came to the house. That was last year and he kept coming back, I expect because he was hunting toads and frogs (and probably the occasional garter snake). We get various water birds because there is a conservation area 15 miles south of us and a large marsh about an hour north of us and we see them flying overhead from one to the other. To bad most of them never land. Anyway, here he is. Both these pics were taken from inside the house. It's a black capped Night Heron. Cute huh? Here' a closer one. When I saw movement at the side of the house, I ran in and got my camera and then headed for the kitchen. When I got to the door, I stopped because he was standing on the windowsill. I walked right up to the counter and started snapping away. Gues he was used to the attention because he didn't move, just kept watching me and posing.