Stoney Creek (Wintergreen), VA, 6/26-30/16

All photos are © Marshall Faintich

The off and on rain has kept me close to home most of the past week, but there can be some good wildlife to see here. The three juvenile Red-shouldered Hawks are still calling to each other in my yard, although one of them seems to prefer to spend a lot of time near the next street over and calls from afar. These hawks are funny - they try to stay visually hidden most of the time, but vocally, they are far from hidden.

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Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk

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Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk

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Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk

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Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk

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Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk

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Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk

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Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk

I have seen the usual cadre of woodland birds and woodpeckers.

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Pileated Woodpecker

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Red-bellied Woodpecker

There was a Great Blue Heron along Sawmill Creek pond #3, and I saw it pick up a long stick and then drop it. Perhaps it thought the stick might have been a snake meal? Then there were two more Great Blue Herons at the pond at the end of my yard.

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Great Blue Heron

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Great Blue Heron

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Great Blue Heron

Every once in a while we get a bird strike on one of the windows looking out onto our back yard. Usually it only happens when a small bird is scared by a hawk and isn't looking where it is flying. The other day there was a mark on the window at our deck, and when we went to look, there was something on the deck. I first saw a downy, white feather, and when I looked more closely, the rest of it was the tail end of a fish! I can only assume that one of the juvenile Red-shouldered Hawks was carrying a fish meal, and wasn't paying attention to where it was flying.

Some of my summer time wildlife subjects are dragonflies. Taking an in-focus photo of a bird in flight is easy compared with a flying dragonfly. I know that sometimes they will mate as one dragonfly clings to vegetation, so I focused on a "perched" dragonfly and waited a few minutes - got the photo!

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Dragonflies

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Dragonflies

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Dragonflies

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Dragonfly

We also have lots of deer that roam here in Stoney Creek, and the fawns are now out with their mamas.

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Deer

BTW, Alice and I are moving to Crozet at the end of August, and if anyone is interested in a house with a pond that is in a great birding and wildlife location, please contact me, as our Stoney Creek house is for sale.


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