Rare sightings…

Hi All! I was traveling this weekend and so only got out into the countryside briefly on Saturday morning, and then I haven’t had a chance to show you what I found until now. Despite a short visit, I did manage to capture a couple of interesting and pretty sights on film.

This first one is actually from work during the week. I can see the clock face on the side of the Electrical Engineering building from my office, and one day I noticed a bird flying up to it. Well, it turns out to be a popular hangout for a peregrine falcon, which you can see perched in the six o’clock position.

The building is 22 floors (90 m / 295 ft) tall, the clock face is naturally near the top, and the closest I can get is the 4th floor of the nearby 3ME building in which I work, so I’m at least 200 yards away, but here’s my best close-up. It’s at least good enough for a positive ID. Perhaps it is one of the falcons I on the Architecture building back in July.

Anyway, out to the countryside, where I enjoyed the rare treat of a green-winged teal drake standing for a portrait and even giving us our first glimpse of his namesake green wing.

As seems to be often the case, the feathers are iridescent and so the color we perceive can vary with the light available and the viewing angle, so here he is again with the feathers at a different angle and looking much more blue.

And, lest you suspect this is just some trickery with image processing, which is exactly what I immediately feared when I saw the images myself, you can see the green version on Oiseaux-Birds, and the blue version on the Pedia of Wik. Finally, for some idea of how often they show off either color at all, simply google images of “Eurasian teal”. A rare treat indeed!

Lastly, on my way home, I was surprised to find this ring-necked pheasant foraging out in broad daylight beside the River Schie.