After three or four days of birding an open prairie habitat, I found a slightly early Western Kingbird. As expected, it was sitting up on a transmission tower, squeaking away. Other than that, this gallery is mostly zoo photos. As we were leaving the zoo I spotted a bird soaring quite high, and got a few bad photos of it. I figured it was probably a Red-tailed Hawk and didn't think much of it until looking at the photos on the computer — it turned out to be a Swainson's Hawk, a rare-ish bird in the area. I'd seen one before, but these were my first photos of one. Pretty cool!
These photos are © 2026 Phil Thompson, all rights reserved.
My "birds in review" collages can be found here.
Signature
📄 hashes-2026-04-21-084612.txt
📄 hashes-2026-04-21-084612.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: 87ed99290d96d5512ba6466d97f28781aae5226b013fb0f6a2086efa1ed119cc
view the ALGO tx on explorer.perawallet.app: YJCHYVGYEQ53FIKAINNCUUH6JLUSRY5KEJLFHA45KSIDALV55R7Q
8:43AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western KingbirdI took this "insurance shot" right when I heard the Kingbird, in case it flew off and it was visible in this shot. It turns out it is visible... barely.
8:51AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western Kingbird
8:51AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western Kingbird
8:52AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western Kingbird
8:52AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western Kingbird
8:52AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western Kingbird
8:53AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western Kingbird
8:53AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western Kingbird
8:53AM Thursday April 09, 2026
Western Kingbird
9:42AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Mountain Goat (Captive)
10:03AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Orangutan (Captive)
10:03AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Orangutan (Captive)
10:07AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Orangutan (Captive)
10:07AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Orangutan (Captive)
10:14AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Brown-headed Cowbird
10:16AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Northern White-cheeked Gibbon (Captive)
10:22AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Asian Elephant (Captive)
10:22AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Asian Elephant (Captive)
10:22AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Asian Elephant (Captive)
10:26AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Asian Elephant (Captive)
10:26AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Asian Elephant (Captive)
10:34AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Ring-tailed Lemur (Captive)
10:34AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Red Ruffed Lemur (Captive)
10:35AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Red Ruffed Lemur (Captive)
10:36AM Saturday April 11, 2026
African Wild Dog (Captive)
10:36AM Saturday April 11, 2026
African Wild Dog (Captive)
10:36AM Saturday April 11, 2026
African Wild Dog (Captive)
10:36AM Saturday April 11, 2026
African Wild Dog (Captive)
10:37AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Ring-tailed Lemur (Captive)
10:37AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Ring-tailed Lemur (Captive)
10:37AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Ring-tailed Lemur (Captive)
10:38AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Crocodile Monitor (Captive)
10:38AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Crocodile Monitor (Captive)
10:41AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Linnaeus's Two-toed Sloth (Captive)
10:52AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Speke's Gazelle (Captive)
10:52AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Giraffe (Captive)
10:55AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Song Sparrow
11:00AM Saturday April 11, 2026
White-faced Whistling-Duck (Captive)
11:00AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Northern Bald Ibis (Captive)
11:01AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Northern Bald Ibis (Captive)
11:01AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Northern Bald Ibis (Captive)
11:01AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Lesser Flamingo (Captive)
11:02AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Lesser Flamingo (Captive)
11:02AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Lesser Flamingo (Captive)
11:02AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Spotted Towhee
11:03AM Saturday April 11, 2026
White-faced Whistling-Duck (Captive)
11:04AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Fulvous Whistling-Duck (Captive)
11:28AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Mountain Goat (Captive)
11:31AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Snowy Owl (Captive)
11:31AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Snowy Owl (Captive)
11:32AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Snowy Owl (Captive)
11:44AM Saturday April 11, 2026
California Condor (Captive)
11:44AM Saturday April 11, 2026
California Condor (Captive)
11:44AM Saturday April 11, 2026
California Condor (Captive)
11:55AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Swainson's Hawk
11:55AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Swainson's Hawk
11:55AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Swainson's Hawk
11:55AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Swainson's Hawk
11:55AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Swainson's Hawk
11:55AM Saturday April 11, 2026
Swainson's Hawk
4:22PM Saturday April 11, 2026
American Robin