20180519 Moccasin Island Tract
Eastern Meadowlark
This is the first in a series of photos I took of this eastern meadowlark. Meadowlarks have a great, unmistakable song that I love to hear. Different meadowlarks from different locations have different but similar songs. Here is a video of an eastern meadowlark with a song very similar to the songs our local meadowlarks sing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv2u39NDmZA
The Two Pecan Nature Trail (sign in video) sounds to me as if it is in Texas, but I couldn't find it via Google.
Eastern Meadowlark
I took this series of birds to try out a friend's Canon EF 500 f/4 L IS USM lens that he is selling. As you can see the lens produces very sharp photos with great background blur (bokeh).
Eastern Meadowlark
Beneath each photo is a tiny black "i" inside a small gray disk. Click the "i" to see technical info about how the photo was taken.
Eastern Meadowlark
I love these birds. They are cute, bright, colorful, sing beautifully, and can balance themselves on barbed wire. But I see he has one of the barbs between the toes of his left foot. He's obviously not dumb.
Eastern Meadowlark
Here's lookin' at you, Kid. I guess this bird's name is Humphrey Meadowlark.
Eastern Meadowlark
Check out his claws. Ouch! Meadowlarks belong to the Icterid family, which includes blackbirds, orioles, and cowbirds. Sibley says Icterids eat mostly insects while breeding, and fruits and grains when not breeding.
Eastern Meadowlark
I thought this time he was standing on just the wire, but I was wrong. If you click on the photo and select a larger size from the size icon, you'll be able to see one of the barbs between his left toes. He obviously knows what he is doing.
Loggerhead Shrike
Different bird (obviously), farther away, yet the lens does a great job of keeping this loggerhead shrike sharp.
Loggerhead Shrike
Shrikes are carnivores. The have a hook at the end of their bill, and perch hunt. They wait for prey to come along , swooping down and quickly killing it in a manner similar to a falcon.
Loggerhead Shrike
Sibley says their nickname is Butcher Bird. They often take their kill and wedge it into a branch fork or impale it on a thorn, fence barb, or broken twig for storage. If you see such impaled prey there's probably a shrike around.
Loggerhead Shrike
Their food consists of small mammals and large insects, as well as other birds, at times as large as a northern mockingbird. They are small yet powerful and ruthless hunters. Sibley says one even took down a mourning dove.
Female Wild Boar
What's that? That's not a bird. It's a wild female boar. I was going to go exactly there to view an eagles' nest, but four wild boars escorted three little brown youngsters across the road, so I stayed away. Luckily the wind was coming from their direction. They didn't see me and didn't smell me. I took other photos of the females and their offspring, but they caught me by surprise and moved faster than I could focus on them, so the photos are not presentable. Bye, boar.
P.S. Notice how tall the thistles on the left are. Wow!
