Saturday, August 15, 2009

Feathered Friends

I love my new house! I get some nice visitors in the backyard (click pictures to enlarge).

Mating pair of cardinals. This was
taken a few weeks ago when the male
was
still trying to impress his lady.

Then there are what I believe are Peregrine Falcons but I haven't confirmed it yet . They are still young so it's hard to tell if their feathers will darken on top or not. The eye is dead-on for a Peregrine though. I have had 2 juveniles regularly flying around the house and I think this is one of them. In the beginning they made a lot of noise as they flew around and they often flew in large circles. But they are maturing very quickly and now are quite quiet and fly straight.

This is what they sound like. Hope this works!

soundboard.com

This morning I finally managed to get a half decent picture of one on the telephone pole at the back of my yard. Too bad about the pole but it's pretty amazing to me all the same.


Look at that eye!

And then he (or she!) was off.

3 comments:

Once Upon an Equine said...

Oh! I absolutely love cardinals! Great that you got a picture of the male and female together. I wish artists would paint & sculpt both males and females instead of always just the bright red male. I would like to get a pair of figurines that have male and female. My artist friend kindly sent me a color pencil sketch of a male and female.

RuckusButt said...

Thanks Once Upon. I think the female is just as pretty as the male, you just have to pay attention to detail. It's too bad the picture is actually better focused on the tree than the birds!

HorseOfCourse said...

Thanks for the beautiful pictures!

What a lovely red colour! Is the bird named after a cardinal's red coat, do you think?

And the Falcons...
I agree with you, the eyes on the picture was amazing.
I love that impression of speed and strength that you get looking at the birds. Just beautiful.