Tag Archives: raleigh birding

The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

A Coopers Hawk encounter at Mid Pines Rd in Raleigh, NC

By Sally Siko

While birding this morning along Mid Pines Road near Raleigh North Carolina, my friend Corie and I spied a Coopers Hawk perched on a branch at the edge of the woods.
The bird stayed put for several minutes and then it dropped down and glided silently to land in the trees on the other side of the road.
It’s not often that I’ve been able to get a close up look at one of these beauties so it was a lot of fun getting these shots.


Coopers Hawks are a year round resident of North Carolina and are found mix of forests or woodlots bisected with fields and open areas containing thickets and brush piles. Happily they seem to prefer to perch on the limbs of dead tree branches in fields or on fenceposts which makes them a little easier to find and photograph.

Interestingly Coopers tend to be more tolerant of people than other raptor species so it’s not unusual to see them in urban areas too.
In fact I think I’ve seen more Coopers Hawks flying through the crowded suburbs of North Carolinas neighborhoods this year more than I can remember.


We spent about 10 minutes watching the Coopers as it was totally relaxed and calmly preened on its perch.
This particular hawk is missing one eye but didn’t seem to be showing any signs of discomfort. I’m not sure how it lost that one eye, yet the bird appeared well fed so I suppose it hasn’t impacted it negatively when it comes to hunting for a meal.

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding captured on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

Birdwatching News, Field Notes, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

A Little Blue Heron encounter in Raleigh, NC

Earlier this month, a pair of Roseate Spoonbills caused quite a stir in the Triangle birding community by showing up at Lake Lynn in Raleigh. While these two were definitely a cool sight, they weren’t the only interesting bird to show up at Lake Lynn that day, check out this immature Little Blue Heron!



The young Heron was hanging out with the Spoonbills as they hunted for a meal together on the mud flats in the north end of Lake Lynn.
The larger birds seemed to tolerate the young one as the Little Blue followed the pair of Spoonbills like a puppy, following their every step through the shallow water.
Then, for whatever reason the Spoonbills decided to chase the Little Blue away.



The Heron tried to hide on a fallen willow branch but the Spoonbills pursued him relentlessly causing the Little Blue Heron to eventually make his escape by flying up into the higher boughs of a cypress tree.
Not long afterwards, Great Blue Heron flew in and watched the Little Blue intently.
Perhaps the larger Heron was eying the little one as potential meal lol!
After an hour or so of sitting in the tree top, the Little Blue Heron ended the interspecies standoff by launching himself from the tree into the air flying south across the water, disappearing around the bend of the shoreline.
Not long afterwards, the Spoobills headed out in the same direction…

Although they aren’t a particularly common sight at any location in North Carolina, coastal populations of Little Blue Herons are a year round resident of the Tarheel state and they’re also found here in the Triangle from June to August.
They are usually spotted hunting for fish, invertebrates, frogs, small reptiles and insects in shallow freshwater marshes, ponds and on mudflats.
Though it might seem that this elegant white bird is miss named, Little Blue Herons are indeed covered all over with a steel-purplish-blue colored plumage once they reach adulthood.
What a beauty!

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the full frame beast of an SLR, the mighty @canonusa
#5Ds

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina, Field Notes, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

Great Horned Owl nest in raleigh, NC

While birding with a small group of friends a few weeks ago, we were lucky to spend time watching these Great Horned Owls in Raleigh, NC. Owls are sensitive to the presence of people in their nesting territory so I was using my 600mm lens so I was far enough away as not to disturb the birds.


I’d never seen an owlet before and was absolutely thrilled to see his little white fluffy head poking up from under his sleeping mother.
Nearby, we found the father Owl snoozing in a nearby pine tree.
Aren’t they lovely?



With a breeding season that starts in December, Great Horned Owls are one of the earliest species of birds to lay eggs here in North Carolina. Interestingly, they don’t build their own nests, rather they will take over the vacant nests of crows, hawks, Ospreys and other raptors as needed.
Incubation takes around 33 days and by 7 weeks of age, the Owlets are capable of taking their first short flights out of the nest.


Finding a Great Horned Owl can be challenging but the best way to spot one is to look for them in dry habitats like long leaf pine forests at dusk or very early in the morning.
When searching for these impressive raptors, it pays to look down at the ground too!
This is because Owls regurgitate the indigestible hair and bones of their prey: called owl pellets. You can often find a number of these pellets below their preferred perching trees.



Although they are a year round resident of NC, as a nocturnal bird, they tend to be more vocal at night during the wintertime months and can be best located by sound from November through February. Look for their distinctive, large football-shaped silhouettes on the top of bare tree top snags or telephone poles at the edges of fields.

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the fabulous full frame @canonusa
#5Ds

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An eastern Towhee at the prairie Ridge Ecostation in Raleigh, N.C.

Check out this handsome male Eastern Towhee that I found at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation in Raleigh, N.C.
He responded well to my pishing attempts and was not the least bit shy as I took these photos .



A familiar sound found throughout the southeastern woodlands of the U.S., the Towhees’ song sounds a lot like “Drink your teeeee” – lasting about one second, starting with a sharp call (“drink!”) and ending with a short “teeeeea”. Its short two-part calls rise in pitch and are sometimes called a “chewink” call.


Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc
Canon 5Ds

Happy Birding!

-Sally

Photos captured with my mighty Canon 5DS. If you are interested in getting shots like these with this 50 MP beast of a camera, please check out the link below to Canon USA.

Birdwatching NC is sponsored by Canon USA and I am proud to be a Canon shooter. After 13 years of trusting my professional photography business to Canon’s line of products, I cannot recommend this company strongly enough. If you have have any questions about my gear, shoot me a message!

Birdwatching NC is also sponsored by Zenfolio. Zenfolio is a photography website gallery and hosting company. I’ve been using Zenfolio to show and sell my images for over a decade and actually recommend this company to other photographers over WordPress!

You can check out Zenfolio for free by clicking the link below.

With custom galleries, online storage, the ability to sell prints and digital downloads, a powerful blog with seamless SEO tools, Zenfolio provides everything a professional photographer would need to run their photography business online.

Lastly, in addition to running things around here at Birdwatching NC, plus operating a North Carolina outdoor wedding photography company, I also provide website SEO and building services for photographers who need a solution to showing and selling their work online through my company Websites for Photographers. In a nutshell, I design kickass websites on the Zenfolio platform built from the ground up with a sound foundation of SEO principles in place so that my clients get found by more customers on the web.

I also provide SEO services and site audits for existing Zenfolio users to fix search engine indexing problems fast.

If you are a wildlife or bird photographer who is in need of a solid website please check out my company Websites for Photographers by clicking the photo link below.

Custom website design and SEO for Zenfolio users https://websitesforphotographers.zenfolio.com/
Field Notes, Out There with the Expert, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

A White -throated Sparrow at the prairie Ridge ecostation in Raleigh, North Carolina

Another commonly seen wintertime bird here in NC is the White throated Sparrow. I spotted this one at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation in Raleigh a few day’s ago. There were a ton of them there hanging out in the low brush and thickets throughout the property.



During winter and migration migration periods, they forage on the ground in large, loose flocks. They will be here in central N.C. to about the first or second week of May before they head out to their breeding grounds in New England and Canada.



I watched a group of about 20 birds flitting in and out of the bushes, rustling the leaves and chattering to one another. The Prairie Ridge Ecostation seems to host the perfect habitat needed to feed such a sizable flock!
White-throated Sparrows seem to be quite adept at scratching and are able to find seeds deeply buried in leaf litter.
Their winter diet consists mainly of seeds and fruit when available. They are also quite fond of red and white millet seeds, black oil sunflower seeds, and cracked corn offered in our feeders.

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc
Canon 5Ds

Happy Birding!

-Sally

Photos captured with my mighty Canon 5DS. If you are interested in getting shots like these with this 50 MP beast of a camera, please check out the link below to Canon USA.

Birdwatching NC is sponsored by Canon USA and I am proud to be a Canon shooter. After 13 years of trusting my professional photography business to Canon’s line of products, I cannot recommend this company strongly enough. If you have have any questions about my gear, shoot me a message!

Birdwatching NC is also sponsored by Zenfolio. Zenfolio is a photography website gallery and hosting company. I’ve been using Zenfolio to show and sell my images for over a decade and actually recommend this company to other photographers over WordPress!

You can check out Zenfolio for free by clicking the link below.

With custom galleries, online storage, the ability to sell prints and digital downloads, a powerful blog with seamless SEO tools, Zenfolio provides everything a professional photographer would need to run their photography business online.

Lastly, in addition to running things around here at Birdwatching NC, plus operating a North Carolina outdoor wedding photography company, I also provide website SEO and building services for photographers who need a solution to showing and selling their work online through my company Websites for Photographers. In a nutshell, I design kickass websites on the Zenfolio platform built from the ground up with a sound foundation of SEO principles in place so that my clients get found by more customers on the web.

I also provide SEO services and site audits for existing Zenfolio users to fix search engine indexing problems fast.

If you are a wildlife or bird photographer who is in need of a solid website please check out my company Websites for Photographers by clicking the photo link below.

Custom website design and SEO for Zenfolio users https://websitesforphotographers.zenfolio.com/
Field Notes, Out There with the Expert, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

House Finches at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation

Stoked to get a decent photo of these House Finches at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation in Raleigh, N.C. a couple of days ago.
It was neat to hear them tweeting at one another as they watched me watching them 🙂


Native to the deserts and drier areas of the western United States, the House Finch is now commonly found in parks, fields and neighborhoods all the way down here in central N.C.


Though they are sometimes misidentified with the Purple Finch, these colorful little birds with the bright red heads are a cheerful sight in our yards all year round.
Dedicated vegetarians, House Finches will forage on the ground, in shrubs or in the mid canopy of trees, chomping on seeds with a series of quick nibbles before flying off for more.

Photo by Sally Sally Adams Siko
Canon 5Ds

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc
Canon 5Ds

Field Notes, Out There with the Expert, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

Raleigh Birding : A Brown Thrasher at the j.C. Raulston Arboretum

The Brown Thrasher is another familiar resident of backyards, gardens and woods here in North Carolina.
These fierce looking birds are talented mimics, nearly as talented as their close relative, the Northern Mockingbird.


Their calls are generally made up of a few repeated notes, the most common of which sounds like a loud whirring kiss. Additional calls include harsh chirps, muted whistles, and metallic hissing noises.
🍁
I photographed this one at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh as he was searching for food under the box hedges. It was interesting to see one at close range because usually they are a bit shy.
🍁
Brown Thrashers are primarily a ground foraging species of bird. Using their long, slightly curved bill as a rake, they’ll sweep the leaf litter around to uncover delicacies such as insects, fallen seeds, and berries.
They are sometimes quite noisy as they go about the business of finding their next meal. Often sticking to dense undergrowth, the sounds of scraping of dry leaves and their loud whirring chirps are a distinctive clue that one is nearby.

Photo by @sally_siko
Canon 5Ds

Field Notes, Out There with the Expert, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

Eastern Towhee at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, N.C.

The Eastern Towhee is a strikingly colorful New World sparrow which is a year round resident throughout North Carolina.
They’re voracious eaters of seeds, insects, and fruits and are frequently seen scurrying on the ground, in and out from under bushy hedges.
They also may be heard chirping their familiar calls of “Drink your teeea!” through dense shrubs while they search for food.


I photographed this male yesterday at the JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, North Carolina as I was preparing for a photoshoot. It was cool to see one up close!
So far, it’s the best photo I’ve got of this handsome species.
Will be on the lookout for more in the future.
🙂 Photo by @sally_siko
Canon 5Ds

Field Notes, Instagram Birding, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

A Brown Thatcher at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh

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Another 3D bird photo taken with my Canon 5DS 🙂 So, my day job as an event photographer is pretty cool! I specialize in capturing outdoor weddings which means that I’ve got the opportunity to travel all over North Carolina to spend time with like-minded nature loving couples in gorgeous natural settings. A nice side bonus is that once I finish photographing each wedding, I’ve sometimes got the time to do a little birding at the venues. A win-win in my book! I spotted this Brown Thatcher recently while at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh after photographing a small ceremony in the Klein White Garden. He and his mate were hunting for bugs in the underbrush and I was lucky to catch a glimpse of him when he stepped out into the sunlight for a few seconds. Have you ever noticed that Thrashers have a Mockingbird – like vibe to them. They’ve got a similar shape and a certain fierce look about themselves. This is because they share spots in the Mimidae family, a talented group of mimickers. In fact, the Brown Thrasher boasts the widest repertoire of songs in the U.S. Photo by @sally_siko . . . . #birdnerd #birdsofinsta #birdsofinstagram #ncwildlife #birding #birdwatching #Birdbehavior #bird #birds #yatesmillpark #ncbirding #ncbirds #ncbirdwatching #canon #canon5ds #brownthrasher #birdsin3D #canon5DS #eastcoastbirding #3dphotos #nchiking #ncoutdoors #ncnature #silvercordeventphotography #silvercordphotodaily #ncwildlifephotographer #naturelovers #birdwatchingnc #northcarolinabirds

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