Once again I've got a number of recent birding outings represented here, as well as a trip to the coast.
First, I enjoyed seeing a bunch of Wood Duck chicks at the local ponds, and had some good luck in finding American Dippers.
We then made a trip to a zoo and "safari" and continued to the coast. I'll publish some zoo photos in a later gallery. I didn't get a whole lot of photo opportunities on the trip, but at the coast I photographed some Black Oystercatchers that were very alarmed by a drone. Even at places on the coast where drone flying is permitted, I wish there were signs telling people to stop flying their drones if any birds are alarmed.
A couple days later at the local wetlands back home, I was able to find a rare Great-tailed Grackle. The American Bitterns were hunting out in open that day, which is very unusual. I also photographed my first American Coot chicks, and I believe my first perching Black Tern.
These photos are © 2025 Phil Thompson, all rights reserved.
My "birds in review" collages can be found here.
Signature
📄 hashes-2025-06-24-074242.txt
📄 hashes-2025-06-24-074242.txt.sig
The above hashes-<date>.txt file contains SHA-256 hashes of all the photos
from this shoot. The hashes-<date>.txt.sig is a signature of that hashes
file, created with my PGP key. The signature file
itself was written to both the Bitcoin Cash and Algorand blockchains, in the
OP RETURN and Note fields respectively, using the transactions below.
In short, this proves that these photos and the signature both existed at the time the
transactions were written to the Bitcoin Cash and Algorand blockchains.
This blog post has more details.
view the BCH tx on blockchair.com: b1c8b38e5605fa00b7333ca77f63e8a0f95071dd29a103e001a473c18f1c7cea
view the ALGO tx on explorer.perawallet.app: FTC5ASUBRPRLCNTEQOYTR3EVKGD4ODA2XJ46MAAIFYCSCRM5DFLA
9:00AM Friday June 13, 2025
Wood Duck (Juvenile)
9:02AM Friday June 13, 2025
9:11AM Friday June 13, 2025
9:11AM Friday June 13, 2025
This is a focus stack of 4 frames, made in Photoshop.
9:14AM Friday June 13, 2025
Wood Duck (Juvenile), Wood Duck
9:14AM Friday June 13, 2025
Wood Duck (Juvenile), Wood Duck
9:14AM Friday June 13, 2025
Wood Duck (Juvenile)
9:14AM Friday June 13, 2025
Wood Duck (Juvenile), Wood Duck
9:21AM Friday June 13, 2025
Wood Duck (Juvenile), Wood Duck
9:33AM Friday June 13, 2025
9:40AM Friday June 13, 2025
Green Heron
9:40AM Friday June 13, 2025
Green Heron
12:17PM Sunday June 15, 2025
American Dipper
12:18PM Sunday June 15, 2025
American Dipper
12:18PM Sunday June 15, 2025
American DipperThis Dipper had something strange going on with its right eye. Its left eye looked normal.
10:49AM Tuesday June 17, 2025
American Dipper
2:11PM Wednesday June 18, 2025
Acorn Woodpecker
2:11PM Wednesday June 18, 2025
Acorn Woodpecker
1:46PM Friday June 20, 2025
Turkey VultureI've never seen a Turkey Vulture flying carrying food before.
1:46PM Friday June 20, 2025
Western Gull
1:46PM Friday June 20, 2025
Western Gull
1:47PM Friday June 20, 2025
Western Grebe
1:47PM Friday June 20, 2025
Western Gull, Brown Pelican
1:49PM Friday June 20, 2025
Brandt's Cormorant
1:49PM Friday June 20, 2025
Brandt's Cormorant
1:50PM Friday June 20, 2025
Western Gull, Brown Pelican
1:51PM Friday June 20, 2025
Common Murre
1:53PM Friday June 20, 2025
Western Gull
3:00PM Friday June 20, 2025
Black OystercatcherIn defense of the drone operator, I think the drone was flying over the beach, not over the water or offshore rocks where the Oystercatchers feed. Still, it was sad to see the birds so upset by the drone. They were flying around hollering for quite a while, wasting a lot of energy.
3:00PM Friday June 20, 2025
Black Oystercatcher
3:00PM Friday June 20, 2025
Black Oystercatcher
3:00PM Friday June 20, 2025
Black Oystercatcher
3:00PM Friday June 20, 2025
Black Oystercatcher
3:00PM Friday June 20, 2025
Black Oystercatcher
3:00PM Friday June 20, 2025
Black Oystercatcher
3:13PM Friday June 20, 2025
Black Oystercatcher
3:15PM Friday June 20, 2025
Pelagic Cormorant
3:15PM Friday June 20, 2025
Pelagic Cormorant
3:17PM Friday June 20, 2025
3:17PM Friday June 20, 2025
3:17PM Friday June 20, 2025
Western Gull
3:17PM Friday June 20, 2025
Western Gull
3:17PM Friday June 20, 2025
3:17PM Friday June 20, 2025
3:17PM Friday June 20, 2025
3:17PM Friday June 20, 2025
3:21PM Friday June 20, 2025
Pigeon Guillemot
3:21PM Friday June 20, 2025
Pigeon Guillemot
3:30PM Friday June 20, 2025
Double-crested Cormorant
3:33PM Friday June 20, 2025
3:33PM Friday June 20, 2025
6:20AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Purple FinchI don't get a lot of opportunities to photograph Purple Finches. It was still pretty dark (it was 6:20am) so there's not a lot of image quality here.
6:20AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Purple Finch
6:20AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Purple Finch
6:46AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Virginia RailAnother bad shot of a Virginia Rail. I caught a few quick glimpses of these guys on this outing.
6:53AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
6:53AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
6:53AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
6:53AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
6:53AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
7:17AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Marsh Wren (Juvenile)
7:18AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Marsh Wren (Juvenile)
7:18AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Marsh Wren (Juvenile)
7:18AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Marsh Wren (Juvenile)
7:19AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Tree Swallow (Juvenile)
7:20AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Tree Swallow (Juvenile)
7:29AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Tree Swallow (Juvenile)
7:32AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Black Tern
7:33AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Coot (Juvenile), American Coot
7:33AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Coot (Juvenile), American Coot
7:34AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Black Tern
7:35AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Black Tern
7:47AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
7:48AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
7:48AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American BitternI noticed this bird and the scene were both completely still from one frame to the next, so I stacked 9 frames to denoise this shot. This was shot with an ISO and shutter speed that resulted in low noise in the first place, but this stacked image did show a nice reduction in noise. Compared to the single frame processed with my ususal DxO PureRAW denoise step, this stacked image has less fine detail. I think the scene wasn't quite still enough to allow details to survive the stacking process, but it was still a good experiment.
7:50AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
7:51AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
7:51AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Great-tailed GrackleI didn't see this guy on the walk out, but on the walk back I saw a smaller blackbird chasing a larger one. It turns out he was still in the expected spot, even after an inch of rain fell the previous day. This species is rare here, but we had a lone female in almost the same spot last year.
7:53AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
7:53AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
7:55AM Sunday June 22, 2025
American Bittern
7:56AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
7:56AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
7:57AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
7:57AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
8:05AM Sunday June 22, 2025
Black-crowned Night HeronThis is a locally rare bird. I went to look again where I saw it about two weeks earlier, and to my surprise it was sitting in the same spot! It was really hard to see among the vegetation. I don't think I made any noise or sudden movements, but it must not have liked me as I was looking with my binoculars and unfortunately it flew off.