It’s not clear just what caused this Eurasian Jay’s left foot to be malformed. Perhaps it was an injury that didn’t heal well. Perhaps it was an infection. Perhaps it was this way since hatching. Whatever the cause, it could be a very serious problem for it indeed if it is unable to adapt.
Had the problem involved its beak or a wing, it’s difficult to imaging the poor bird being able to survive as such impairments would restrict eating and movement. Fortunately, as Colin from Welwyn Garden City who used his BirdCam 2.0 to record this superb image of it reports, the Jay seems to have adapted quite well. It has no difficulty in either feeding or flying. It is even perfectly able to bury the nuts it collects - called “caching,” a habit of many jays and related birds - in the ground for later retrieval when food becomes scarce.
For more colorful great bird feeding photos and videos, please visit the Wingscapes' Youtube channel and Facebook page.
One of the things we like best about social media is it allows us to see how people are using our products and what they think of them; most recently the new Wingscapes AutoFeeder. Now that it’s available in the marketplace, we’ve begun to see photos of them circulating around via Twitter and Facebook, as well as uploaded to the BirdCam Photo Gallery. For example, this BirdCam 2.0 recorded image of a Red-breasted Nuthatch snatching a seed from the tray of the AutoFeeder maintained by The Well-read Naturalist in Scappoose, Oregon.
Another image from this same series of photos was also recently shared on The Well-read Naturalist’s Facebook page, where it has been the subject of a good amount of discussion about the AutoFeeder’s various features and advantages.
For more colorful great bird feeding photos and videos, please visit the Wingscapes' Youtube channel and Facebook page.
Chances are you remember seeing the famous “drinking bird” toy at least once - the little plastic dumb-bell shaped figure, usually sporting a top hat, that repeatedly tips its bill into a glass only to immediately right itself then repeat the process over and over until everyone present tires of watching it. Strange as it may seem, these odd little toys are actually quite representative of the way most birds actually drink.
With the curious exception of pigeons, most birds can’t draw water into their bills when their heads are lowered. In order to drink they must dip their beak into water, allow a little to collect inside it, then right themselves with their beak pointing upward - as demonstrated by this Blue Jay photographed by Jinger in Deerfield, Wisconsin using her Audubon BirdCam - and allow the water to flow down their throat.
To learn more about how birds drink, you might be interested in a podcast about the subject produced by our friends at BirdNote.
For more colorful Blue Jay photos, please visit the Wingscapes' Youtube channel, our Photo Gallery and Facebook page.
When we’re asked for tips on how to set-up our BirdCam 2.0, Audubon BirdCam, or TimelapseCam 8.0 cameras for the best results, one bit of advice we always make sure to impart is “consider what will be in the background of your images and videos.”
Of course, we were just thinking of making sure a lawnmower or the kids’ toys weren’t visible in the shot. Betty from Farmington Hills, Michigan however has apparently taken considering the background of her Audubon BirdCam photographs to a whole new level - even color coordinating the nearby flowers with the Blue Jays that visit her birdbath. Now that’s planning ahead!
For more colorful Blue Jay photos, please visit the Wingscapes' Youtube channel, our Photo Gallery and Facebook page.
As summer shifts into autumn, the hummingbirds being seen in the Pacific Northwest are likewise shifting from Rufous Hummingbirds to Anna’s Hummingbirds. As Anna’s Hummingbirds will over-winter in the mild maritime climate of the western regions of Oregon and Washington, backyard nature enthusiasts there keep their nectar feeders stocked and their Wingscapes BirdCams focused on them year-round.
Given the deep pink to violet full-face gorgets of the Anna’s males, pictures taken of them can be anywhere from stunningly beautiful to, as was the case with this one caught doing his best Angry Bird impression recorded by the BirdCam 2.0 of The Well-read Naturalist, down-right comical. Nevertheless, even if it appears to be angry, a hummingbird visiting one’s feeder in winter is always a cause for joy. For more comical bird antics, please visit the Wingscapes' Youtube channel and Facebook page.
There’s a reason most hummingbird feeders are made with half a dozen or more individual feeding ports; more often than not, the common backyard-visiting hummingbird species are content to share a feeder with others as you have witnessed in photos on Wingscapes' Facebook page. Generally, that is.
For example, this BirdCam 2.0 image of two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds recorded in Lineboro, Maryland, could not have been recorded in - say - Portland, Oregon where Rufous Hummingbirds are the common hummingbird species. Rufous Hummingbirds are notoriously unwelcoming to others wanting to share “their” feeder.
However these two Ruby-thoats shown here seem, at least during the moment this image was recorded, untroubled by one another’s presence. One can almost image this scene taking place between two people at a lunch counter.
“Pardon me, is this seat taken?”
“What? Oh… no, it’s not. Go ahead.”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
The look on this Blue Jay’s face while watching the nearby Red-bellied Woodpecker just seems to say it all; “how do you do that?” Little does the blue jay likely know that if it had feet like the red-bellied woodpecker it would perch the same way.
Rather than having three forward-facing toes and one backward facing - the best arrangement for perching on branches, most woodpeckers have four-toed feet with two facing forward and two facing backward; an arrangement called “zygodactyl.” These zygodactyl feet, combined with their stiff tail feathers, are ideal for remaining upright while grasping the sides of trees.
Of course, without a vertical surface against which to prop their tails, woodpeckers tend to hand underneath whatever they perch on - just like this one here in George’s Wingscapes BirdCam photos.
Back when old Carl von Linné - Linnaeus to his friends - came up with the idea of binomial nomenclature to help scientists sort out and describe each species they discovered, the idea was fairly simple: each creature was given a Latin genus name and a Latin species name. The genus name was shared by a number of similar species and the species name was unique to just those who could, essentially, reproduce with one another to produce fertile off-spring.
While these two names are usually different, (Turdus migratorius - American Robin, for example) once in a while they end up being the same. When this happens the species’ binomial name is called a “tautonym.” These Eurasian Goldfinches, recorded with a BirdCam 2.0 by Trog Trog of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England, have such a name - Carduelis carduelis. However there are others, including a very well-known North American backyard bird. Know which one it is? Know any others? Post the answer on Wingscapes Facebook page for all other Wingscapes fans to marvel at your genius.
Of all the classic kid jokes, “Why do hummingbirds hum?” is by far one of our favorites. The answer, of course, is “Because they don’t know the words.”
Granted, the real cause of their trademark sound - the sound that makes most us stop and look around for an airborne glint of green, red, purple, or blue - is their rapid wing beats. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, like this one photographed by Adam in Dudley, North Carolina with an Audubon BirdCam, flap their wings an astonishingly fast fifty-three times per second, fast enough to produce the humming sound so familiar to us all.
Nevertheless, we still like the “they don’t know the words” explanation; it just reminds us of how much fun it was to be a kid watching a hummingbird on a summer afternoon. For more photos of hummingbirds up close and personal, check out the Wingscapes' Photo Gallery.
Honestly, have you ever seen so many shades of blue on a single bird?
Given their raucous ways, many people who live in areas inhabited by Blue Jays may not always stop and consider what truly beautiful birds they truly are. Then again, many people might not get the chance to really do so as they go flashing through the yard, scattering all the other birds at the feeder, then just as soon as they’ve grabbed what they came for, zipping out just as quickly.
Fortunately, BirdCam enthusiast extraordinaire Nancybirdies used her Audubon BirdCam to capture this stunning image of one stopping in for a visit to her bird bath. We’re always happy to see her latest photos uploaded to the Wingscapes Photo Gallery but this one - showing the remarkable plumage colors and patterns of this frequent back-yard visiting jay - is most certainly one of her best.