And a joyous holiday feast to all today! I relate strongly to this fledgling American Dipper who kept yelling for food long after he should have been stuffed. #birds #birdmas #americandipper #fledgling #hungry

Wild turkeys

That’s #Birdmas for this year. In the New Year, I’m going start #WildlifeWednesdays here on #BlueSky. I have more than enough terrible, grainy pics and stories to go with them to keep me going for a while. #Birds 🪶5/5

Turkey flock

#Birdmas Day 25 The Turkey
We’ll wrap up #Birdmas with THE Xmas bird: the turkey. Before the arrival of Europeans, wild turkey were found in (what is now) the eastern USA and much of Mexico. They’ve been introduced into the west and are now found as far north as southern Canada. #Birds 🪶 1/5

Osprey

Osprey holding yellow perch

Osprey

#Birdmas Day 24 Ospreys
I did my doctoral work on ospreys in the 1980’s and most of the images here were taken back then. My apologies for the quality of the pics. As a poor grad student all I had was a Pentax SLR and 150 mm lens. Digitizing slide film hasn't helped either. #Birds 🪶🧵 1/7

Goose gang brood

Coyote

Leaders of gang broods have more brood-rearing experience. We’re not sure why they do this but tending a gang brood might be a way to signal quality / dominance. As the goslings are precocial & feed themselves, the tending adult’s main job is watching for predators like coyotes. #Birds #Birdmas 6/6

Giant Canada Goose

Canada Goose nest

Hatchling Canada Geese

#Birdmas Day 23 Canada Geese
The Canada Goose is a North American species that has been introduced widely across the globe. There are many races and sizes, with Giant Canada Geese, reaching 20 lb, more than twice as large as the smallest. #Birds 🪶 🧵 1/6

Barn Swallow nest with chicks.

Barn Swallows are found across the northern hemisphere and have been the focus of studies of sexual selection and parental care. For example, the reddish orange gapes of the chicks serve to signal offspring quality to parents: the redder the gape, the more the chick is fed. #Bird 🪶 #Birdmas

Tree Swallow

Tree swallow in nest box

Tree Swallow nest with eggs and one chick

Purple Martin female entering nest box.

#Birdmas Day 22 The swallows
The swallows are aerial insectivores with close to 100 species across the globe, 8 in North America. They are favourites of behavioural ecologists as study species because their nests are so accessible, either in colonies or nestboxes👇. #Birds 🪶🧵 1/4

White pelicans fishing

White pelican flock

You sometimes see pelican flocks herding their fish prey. This is an example of cooperation where everyone benefits. #Birds #Birdmas 🪶 5/5

White pelicans in flight

Brown pelicans

Australian white pelican

#Birdmas Day 21 The pelicans
There are 8 species of pelicans across the globe. Two of them, the Brown and Peruvian Pelicans, dive for fish. The others catch fish while swimming or wading. #Birds 🪶🧵 1/5

Geese using ground effect

Pelican using ground effect

And #birds have other energy-saving tricks too. You’ll often see cormorants, pelicans & geese skimming just above the water. Why so low? It’s something human pilots know well: they’re using ground effect. Wingtip vortices are compressed close to the ground & provide extra lift for free. #Birdmas 3/4

Goose flock

Goose flock

If you have a clear view of the flock so you can follow it for a while (the Prairies are ideal because mountains don’t get in the way), you’ll see the flock leader dropping back after taking a turn at the front. As the leader does the hard work, they rotate this task. 2/4 #Bird 🪶 #Birdmas

Cormorant flock

Crane flock

Goose flock

#Birdmas Day 20
Today it’s not a bird but a bird behaviour: flight
Ever wonder why ducks, geese, cranes & pelican flocks fly in a V-formation? It’s an energy-saving device. The followers draft off the bird in front, as their wingtip vortices provide lift for the bird slotted behind. #Birds 1/4 🧵

Western grebe with glowing red eyes

Diving western grebe

The grebes are waterbirds, but not waterfowl. That term is reserved for ducks, geese & swans. Western grebes are primarily fish eaters, but like other grebes will eat invertebrates too. The grebes have conspicuous glowing red eyes that may aid in underwater foraging #Birds 🪶 #Birdmas 3/5

Western grebe nest

Western grebe clutch

Western grebe nesting

Like other grebes, western grebes build floating nests. When the eggs hatch, adults and chicks swim away, with the back of the parents serving as a portable nest. These grainy pics were taken many years ago when I did my MSc on western grebe foraging behaviour. #Birds 🪶 #Birdmas 2/5

Austalasian grebe

Western grebe trio

#Birdmas Day 19 The grebes are some of my personal favourites. There are ~22 grebe species worldwide with the Australasian little grebe (left) one of the smallest. The western grebe, conversely, is one of the largest. It breeds in colonies on lakes and marshes of western North America. #Birds 🪶🧵1/5

Having problems with today's #Birdmas, so will do it sequentially.

Western grebes

Western grebe

The grebes are waterbirds but not waterfowl, a term reserved for ducks, geese & swans. Western grebes are primarily fish eaters, but will eat invertebrates too, as will other grebes. Most species have conspicuous glowing red eyes that may aid in underwater vision. #Birds #Birdmas 3/5

Western grebe nesting

Western grebe nest

Western grebe eggs

Like other grebes, western grebes build floating nests. When the eggs hatch, the adults and chicks swim away, with the backs of the parents serving as a portable nest. These grainy pics were taken many years ago when I did my MSc on western grebe foraging behaviour. #Birds #Birdmas 2/5

Cedar waxwing feathers

Cedar waxwing waxy wingtips

And they are called waxwings because of the waxy red tip on some of their wing feathers. We're not sure why they have them: maybe an ornaments that functions in sexual selection. #Birds #Birdmas 🪶4/4

Cedar waxwing

Cedar waxwing

#Birdmas Day 18 The Waxwings
On the Canadian prairies, these colourful birds will brighten any grim winter day. If you see a bird flock in mid-winter moving from fruit tree to fruit tree, good chance its waxwings, either Cedar or Bohemian (I only have pics of cedar waxwings here).
#Birds 🪶🧵 1/4

Cattle egret

Cattle egrets are another global species, but are relatively recent arrivals in the New World. They reached northern South America in the late 19th century and have spread north and south ever since, arriving in North America in the 1940s. They are now found across southern Canada. #Birds #Birdmas

Cattle egret

Cattle egrets are so named because .... well I'll let you guess why. They enjoy a commensal relationship with cattle. As cattle walk through tall grass flush the egret's insect prey, making it easier for the egrets to catch. #Birds #Birdmas 🪶

Blackbird chasing egret

Great egrets are wading birds often found in swamps and marshes alongside blackbirds where they are threats to the blackbird nestlings. So its understandable that blackbirds will mob egrets like this fierce fellow. #Birds #Birdmas 🪶

Great egret

#Birdmas Day 17 The Egrets
The egrets are members of the same family as the herons (Ardeidae) that we visited earlier. They're found on every continent except Antarctica. Great egrets (shown here) resemble great blue herons but are a bit smaller, without the head plumes. #Birds 🪶🧵

#birds people, if you're not following Scott's #Birdmas threads, please do. Some great insights on lots of birds (I particularly liked the one about kookaburras snagging snags). 🪶 #ornithology

correction #Birdmas Day 16

Coot feeding chick

Both parents raise the kids, and they usually divide the brood, half to mom and half to dad. The orange whiskers on the chicks signals chick quality to its parent. If you have more whiskers than your brother or sister, you get fed more. #birds #birdmas 🪶4/4

Coot flock with black swan

Coot nest

Coots are members of the rail family and they are not ‘waterfowl.’ That term is restricted to ducks, geese & swans. So we call them waterbirds. They build floating nests in lakes and marshes and lay clutches of up to a dozen eggs. #Birds #Birdmas 🪶3/4

American coot

Eurasian coot

The Eurasian coot and American coot are different species but nearly identical – some American coots (left) have a red spot between the eyes (the callus) that Eurasian coots (right) lack. But they occupy the same ecological niche and are similar in most respects. #Birds #Birdmas 🪶2/4