Wildlife, landscape and weather photography
A few weeks ago I shared some more pictures from this particular morning in June when a peregrine falcon incited panic in these cool birds. This image was taken before all that action, when the ibis were calmly enjoying a nice, Colorado morning.
These birds are really cool with iridescent plumage when flying or seen from the back. Those white faces and long beaks make for a very unusual look as well.
This was a crazy scene to witness.
Taken on our recent trip to southwestern Colorado. I headed out for an early morning photo drive while the rest of the crew slept in. On the way back to camp, I happened across a good-sized flock of two dozen white-faced ibis hanging out at an irrigation pond.
These cool, iridescent birds are normally seen where I live during immigration and I missed them coming through this year so I was pretty excited.
I spent a while photographing them as they ate and preened when suddenly, for no apparent reason, the ibis took flight and seemed quite panicked. They circled a couple of times and instead of returning to the shore, landed in a bush in the middle of the pond.
As I looked around, I found the cause of their concern – a peregrine falcon. The falcon had apparently buzzed the flock and afterwards was hanging out on the ground nearby. The flock and the falcon were at a standoff and I gave up waiting for one to make a move after about a half hour. Pretty fun to see.
In going back and looking at my pictures, I unknowingly captured the falcon buzzing the ibis in one of the images. You can see it in the widest view shot with the house, right side, middle.
Here’s kind of a fun bird I snapped some pics of last weekend.
It and a couple dozen of its friends were hanging out in a low-lying area that rain and filled up. They worked their way through the marsh-like grass, nabbing little insects as they went along.
We usually only see them on the plains during migration so it was fun to captures some pics of them during that window. Their iridescent coloring is just way too cool.
This is one bird I had not taken pictures of before. Quite unusual looking with those long, curved bills but also beautiful with their iridescent plumage. This pair was hanging out in a nearby pond yesterday during one of the many snow squalls we had yesterday.
These birds spend their winters in Mexico with some living year-round along the Gulf Coast. During summers they migrate through the western United States and breed in a few different locations across the region.
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