Hi rachel,

What an amazing and beautiful collection of pic's, thanks ever so much for sharing, I really enjoyed them.

All the best, Nev.

Great photos as always, Rachael! Wow, I really miss the fall colors back east. One correction on your ID's, the Savannah Sparrow is a Swamp Sparrow. That dark eye-line, dark brown crown, and rufous colored scapulars are clinchers for Swamp Sparrow.

BN

Thanks!
A Swamp Sparrow? I thought it was just a washed-out photo of a Savannah because the one other Swamp Sparrow I've seen had a dark breast
{{gwi:1376884}}From 10-4-08 to 10-5, my birthday

I always love your pics and look forward to them.

Great photos! That Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle looks like it could lie in the road and be mistaken for a speed bump.

Claire

Beautiful photos as usual, I love the first turkey vulture shot. Congrats on the lifer!

I don't visit here very often, but what a treat this morning to pop in and see your marvellous pictures. Thanks so much.

Rachel,
Amazing photos! I love the close up of the TV & Cuddleback pics. And the spiny softshell-I've never even heard of such! Are chicken turtles the same as painted? Wonder why they're called that-do they taste like chicken? The Pipit is one of my nemesis birds. People see them near me all the time but I never have. Congrats on the Dunlins! Please keep taking us on your treks.
Susan

Thanks so much for all the cool pictures. Your fall tree colors are wonderful this year. The leaves around here mostly turned brown or yellow brown and fell off. A very disappointing showing this year. The Juncos showed up here (MA) two days ago, so it shouldn't be long before you start seeing them.

Wow, can you call em' or what? The Juncos arrived Saturday.
Thank you all for the kind comments!

I think the Chicken Turtle is called that because it "chickens" and slides off rocks into the water at the last minute when you approach. It has a plain shell with small offset scutes (plates)and vertically striped back parts.
Eastern Painted Turtles have large shell scutes in straight rows, with light colored edges that form bands over their backs, easily seen through bins. They have 2 bright yellow spots on each side of their heads, and red and black shell edges.

We saw a juvenile Bald Eagle at the Minor Clark Fish Hatchery today, so they're back!!

Leaves are disappearing, though

Oh wow. What a pictorial treat.

Thanks for the turtle info, I should have looked in a field guide myself. It's a very pretty turtle! No juncos yet but I saw & heard the 1st white throats this weekend. There used to be a PBS show called NatureScene that visited various places guided by a naturalist, Rudy something. He would name all the interesting birds, insects, trees, flowers, butterflies etc. Rachel, you should do that! I for one would watch!
Susan

Wow, thanks! I'm no expert, just looked up local stuff enough that I now know some things common to this particular area. Even with a familiar bird I often consult several field guides to try to confirm age, gender, if possible.
People become experts in what they constantly encounter. There's always someone who knows more than I do in any given area, and someone who has less experience, so knows less.

I keep telling the story about how I'd attend the beginner birding weekend at the Jenny Wiley State Park in Prestonsburg every year and was awestruck by the knowledge of the birding experts who attended. I began playing bird song CDs constantly to learn more migrating warbler songs.

Then one Birding Weekend as the attendees were getting ready to leave on a lake birding trip, our boat lacked a bird expert. A staff member came by, glanced into our pontoon boat and said, "Oh, there's an expert in this boat," pointing at me, and went on.
Everyone began staring at me expectantly, so that's how I became an official "expert!"

Great photos, thanks for posting! Looks like you had a wonderful time and congrats on the Dunlins!

Thanks!

Wed. the birdky list said that someone spotted an immature White Ibis at the Minor Clark Fish Hatchery, so if I don't get called in to teach this morning, we plan to head over there. I have a great idea for a possibly fool-proof portable bird hide, so I plan to get the materials today, do a prototype, and test it. If it works, I should finally be able to get up close and personal.

For anyone who cares about the jaguar (?) we've been camping in the screen tent every night it's not raining, and heard its territorial bawls, 2 nights later, two booming coughs, right behind our house. The same night our poor Cuddeback cam took 586 empty photos, so the sensor was apparently jammed and we had to mail it in for repairs. I plan to buy one of those bear protector cages to protect the cam.

Lovely series of pictures with pictures landscape!....thanks for sharing.

Just a couple of weeks ago I finally purchased a trail camera, [Bushnell Sentry] for under a hundred dollar.
It has infrared night vision,.. some pictures with Whitetail doe & fawn.

Konrad

Wow! Those photos are great! I've been paying anywhere from $80 to $300 for one IR game cam after another-none have worked and all of their images have been blurry, except for the flash Non-typical Cuddeback Capture.

I could walk in front of the IR cams and they wouldn't catch it

Another fantastic collection of nature shots Rachel.
Some of your best bird captures yet. The Yellow-rumps, Killdeer, and Sandpipers stand out, and your fall landscapes are really beautiful too.

thanks for sharing these,

Kenn

My trailcamera died!...even with good batteries it would shout down after about 2 hours of operation, good thing
was, it was under 30 day's and could have all my money back including batteries.
I was wrong,....looking at the bill, it was not under $ 100.00, it was on sale from $ 200.00 for $ 159.00
I loved this camera, think I'm waiting for the new Bushnell come down in price.

Konrad

Not surprised about your cam-we've not had one single IR cam work, and even our trusty Non-typical Cuddeback flash cam went beserk, altho I suspect animal tampering.

The same day my cam broke, a neighbor's dog went beserk barking at dawn, so he turned it loose. Jeff said he and his two sons saw a "black panther" stick its head around the barn, give the dog one swipe across the face, then walk off into the woods without a backward glance. He said it had a "3 foot tail."

I was nervous about our dogs, but he said the cat only attacked in self-defense and didn't kill the dog tho he had to 2 take it 2 the vet for stitches.

I kept reminding myself that jaguars don't attack people last night while we were sleeping in our screen tent with front flap open when I kept hearing it (?) bawling in the woods behind our house. It happened 5-6 times over two hours time-each time all the dogs in neighborhood would go beserk.

Luckily, none of our dogs are loose.

I'm still waiting to get my cam back. Since most of the birds spooked and avoided the new chair blind, even tho it was hidden in the brush, I'm going to try out a new bird blind prototype invention idea this a.m. that should make me "invisible" and draw birds to me at the same time.

Organic bassetlvr, you are right about the turtles-Midland Painted Turtles, found in our area, can look extremely similar to Chicken Turtles-found alittle further south-as I found out when I looked at online photos on several websites. Some looked more like the ones I've been seeing than the ones in my field guide.

Here's a photo of another of what I now am calling Midland Painted Turtles, but with a plain shell, smaller, misaligned scutes, strongly striped face, similar to Chicken Turtles

Always speak up and question IDs! Not everything looks like the field guide photo