Assortment by the lake
Since the theme for this week's SMAP stays free, off I go with random clicks of some of the species I found in a city park in my last vacations (on a side note, crazy how we're already going in SMAP 232!!)
It's always great to find these little guys!! Grebes are those birds you find in water, strolling around, diving, and disappearing for quite some time! There are a few different species, and this one is the smallest of them - the "little" in the name does give it away, right? And for their size, they definitely can hold on quite some time underwater, so it's always a challenge to photograph them, because they dive pretty quickly and you have to be scouting the are, because they don't surface on the same spot.
This on was taken a little after the little guy surfaced again.
Also harder to photograph, but for different reasons, are terns.
Terns are very agile birds and rarely stand still; besides, they dive swiftly and change directions in flight pretty quickly. Got this one from a distance, so no 100% sure on the species, but common tern is the most likely. This one was easier to spot, because she was feeding a juvenile!
Notice how the colour pattern is different here, with different colour patches. It was being quite vocal, and the adult would pass by briefly; didn't manage to catch the feeding part, but seeing them perched is already rare, so won't complain!
Not only waterbirds roamed the park, though. These ones are not the species we normally associate with water...
... but everyone needs water, right? The weather was really hot this day and the views by the lake were stunning, so it's a perfect place to perch and do some tourist-watching.
I've managed to get a couple more species on camera, but will leave them for another post! Have a great weekend everyone!
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Fixe
The different types of birds and their pictures attract me a lot, as you have worked very hard to create these beautiful pictures.
Hi Pardinus,
I recently saw that on ebird.org there is an app called Merlin to identify birds.
But you've had a great day, very active, you've got diving birds there and also others that quite like to sunbathe. I'll keep an eye out to see which ones you've saved for another post. 🧐😃
Merlin is awesome, been using it for years. Especially great if you're traveling abroad and seeing species you don't have in your country. There's even an option to identify by sound! Learned a lot from it already.
Little grebe is so adorable. 🙂
Isn't it amazing how they can stay underwater for so long?
Absolutely! And they don't take that much time to dive again.