TURKEY VULTURE

(photo credit: Tim Mantle)

Artist BRIGITTE BOWYER CAREY of Tilloo Cay naturally has a keen eye for a photograph. I was very taken with her images of egrets posted on her Facebook page, and she has kindly said I can encourage a migration to Rolling Harbour. So here they are. The first photo is my favourite, the very epitome of elegance and grace.

To the amateur (me) there is plenty of scope for confusion between the great egret and the great blue heron (white phase) – unless you can see the bird’s legs. The great egret’s are dark; the GBH’s are yellow. There are probably plenty of other distinctions that are completely obvious to a practised birder, but I think the legs are the easiest answer for the untutored enthusiast.

                                 

A PELICAN IN HOPE TOWN, ABACO

Another welcome contribution from Janene Roessler. I’m very excited about this, it’s a bird I’ve never seen except, bizarrely, for the ones in St James’s Park in Central London, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace / the Houses of Parliament. But those ones aren’t wild, that’s the big difference…

Janene says “…I took that photo in the Hopetown Harbour – right out in front of the Hopetown Harbour Lodge dock”

For comparison, here is one of Her Majesty’s Royal Park pelicans. Occasionally they have been known to scoop up and consume feral pigeons, to the distress and consternation of by-standers… 

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Janene Roessler has sent 3 photos of my favourite small bird, the Western Spindalis, taken at Bahama Palm Shores. This one has a wonderfully rich-coloured throat

JUNE 7 2011 HERONS CRANES AND EGRETS                                                                                                                                      

With thanks to David Rainford (and see Woodpecker Post) 

An excellent picture of a Black-Crowned Night Heron, looking in vain for some fish in the pool… (and might that be an idea for next season, PM?)

Juvenile Great Blue Herons on the Abaco Marls

Reddish Egret

A DRAGONFLY IN THE GUEST DRIVE                                                                                                                                                     

With thanks to Michael & Margaret Pettigrew    

This is a enigma formerly wrapped in a chrysalis. The best I can come up with after a brief google is a Great Pondhawk Erythemis vesiculosa or a Regal Darner Coryphaeschna ingens. Suggestions welcome

                                                                                          Photo Credit M & M Pettigrew

MAY 16 2011: CONTRIBUTION RECEIVED WITH THANKS

PETER WESLEY BROWN Gold Rim Swallowtail / Polydamas Swallowtail   (Battus Polydamas Lucaeus)  – see Post PERPETUAL MOTION BUTTERFLY IDENTIFIED. [PWB: Either you have a better camera / faster shutter speed than me… or you are a much better photographer. Secretly, I suspect I know which…]

  

The Reluctant Woodpecker (see April Post): finally, clear proof that it has settled down at last…

APRIL 21 2011: CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED WITH THANKS

AGA GRONSKI Coral or Fringed Hibiscus; White Camelias

  

BRUCE MILLER Belted Kingfisher (excellent! sunlight shows the colouring very well. Where taken?); Purple Heron

    

THE MAIN MAN Curly Tail (PM: near the pool?); Sand Dollar (from Club beach, not a shop in Marsh Harbour I hope…)