Anne and I took the bus from Ljubljana down to Piran, which is a beautiful old town on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea (Slovenia’s west coast), and this morning we visited the Sečovlje Saltpans Natural Park. The city bus doesn’t go all the way to the saltpans, so we had a nice little hike over a hill and through some orchards, where we met the friendliest European robin I’ve seen so far.

When we finally reached the saltpans, they did not disappoint. We noticed several small birds right away, but they were shy as heck, and I had a devil of a time getting even this image. It turns out to have been worth it for me, however, because that is a meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis), a close cousin of the American pipit we just saw on the Rio Grande in Texas, and yet another bird that I have never seen before.

Another little bird that I managed to capture is this white wagtail, just like the ones we’ve seen in the South Holland countryside.

Farther “afield”, there were many, I counted 94, striking black-and-white ducks, which turned out to be common shelducks, also like the ones we’ve seen in South Holland.

Closer to shore, here’s a common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos), whom I have glimpsed in South Holland but have failed to photograph until now.

Also foraging along the water’s edge with the sandpiper was this female black redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) with just a hint of red near the top of her tail. I read that “the word “start” in this bird’s name comes from an Old English word for “tail,”” and, by fun coincidence, the Dutch word for tail is still “staart”.

Finally, there were plenty of mallards, mute swans, great egrets, and gulls about, but I was thrilled to finally spot and photograph a little egret (Egretta garzetta), with a black bill and black legs and bright yellow feet.

Slovenia has been quite a gem, and if you ever get the chance to visit, I hope you don’t pass it up.

Anne got herself a paper accepted at a conference here in Slovenia, so I flew down from Delft to see the sights with her. Ljubljana, the capitol, is very nice, and there is a huge park on the edge of town, called Tivoli City Park, which I visited this morning.

Right off the bat, there were quite a few crows, but not like any crows I can recall seeing before. These are hooded crows (Corvus cornix), with traditionally jet black heads, wings, and tails, but with ashy grey bodies.

There were also a bunch of Eurasian nuthatches (Sitta europaea), which look and act like the ones in Estabrook, but their song is different, and they have a prominent black eye stripe and “orangish” bellies.

There were also plenty of great and blue tits around, as we’ve seen is South Holland, but also some marsh tits (Poecile palustris), which I haven’t seen before, and which look a lot like the chickadees in Estabrook.

One of the coolest looking birds I saw was this lone Eurasian green woodpecker (Picus viridis) patiently waiting for someone in the top of this tree.

There are also red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) who have distinctive ear tufts that the American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) in Estabrook clearly lack.

Finally, there was even at least one jet-black squirrel, which I read is merely a melanistic variation.

That’s it for now, and if I see more, I’ll keep you posted

Well, the forecast was correct, and the skies this morning were as grey as clouds that form a thick blanket that blocks out most of the sun. Luckily for us, I have plenty of bird pictures left over from yesterday when the sun was out and the sky was blue.

Let’s start with a great spotted woodpecker, which I didn’t even know came into town, up against some of that beautiful blue. I eventually saw two of them acting as though they were excited to see each other, but I couldn’t tell from the ground if they were excited in a good way or a bad way. I’m sure they’ll sort it out, however, without my help.

An even bigger surprise for me was spotting a Eurasian jay. I saw one or two every so often out in the countryside, but they were shy as heck, and I had a devil of a time getting a picture of one, for you. The ones I saw in town yesterday were nearly tame by comparison.

Plus, there at least three of them, maybe four.

And they were chattering up a storm, which was fun to hear.

You may recall that I got a nice portrait of a female blackbird last weekend, and I lucked out when this male gave me a similar opportunity yesterday.

Another shocker from yesterday was a pair of European goldfinches, whom I haven’t seen in the countryside since October. They are supposed to be here all year, as with the American goldfinches, but not where I was looking, I guess.

It was starting to feel yesterday as though someone had opened a box in town of all the pretty birds I had discovered so laboriously over the summer out on the polder. Here’s a common chaffinch, which I didn’t spot until June 12 and only managed to show you three other times.

Finally, the parakeets were making a racket, as usual, but surprisingly willing to be seen while doing so. And here’s one just showing off in the gorgeous low-sun light against some more of that pretty blue sky.

Besides these beauties, I also saw rock pigeons and wood pigeons; carrion crows, jackdaws, and magpies; blue and great tits; a couple of Eurasian robins and redwings; a song thrush; and even another short-toed treecreeper. Not a bad haul at all for late January, eh?

My apartment in Delft has huge, old-timey windows in one end, and even though they are in pretty good shape, my apartment is a lot warmer if I keep the heavy curtains closed. Thus, I don’t really know what the weather is like outside until I explicitly look, and this morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that the forecast “partly cloudy” had drifted into “mostly sunny” if only for a little while. So I grabbed my camera and hustled out the door to see who I could see.

The cormorants were in their usual spot and this time, one was willing to give us a good look at those magnificent wings. That’s a coot with its head turned in the foreground.

The nesting grebes were still busy at work on their nest. One stayed on it, and the other was busy scrounging up sticks to drag over and add to the pile.

Someone must have gotten too close to the heron, and it retreated to a second-story gutter to let traffic clear out.

And this time I spotted a pair of swans on my first pass. They were flying south at about 20 feet over the river, and I managed to get my camera onto one of them just after they had gone by me.

On my way back south, I found the heron back at the water’s edge, and something in the water must have just caught its eye.

An Egyptian goose was on the lawn behind the heron, and this one was sporting some serious jewelry.

Finally, back at the south end, none of the cormorants had their wings out anymore, but this one was making quite a fist with its foot.

There were also a bunch of black-headed gulls, a few mallards, a few moorhens, and a lone herring gull along the river, and a small flock of graylag geese flew high overhead, which brings the aquatic species count all the way to 11 this time.

The forecast for tomorrow morning is for “light rain”, so my chances of having another photoshoot are pretty slim, and I’ve saved some non-water bird pictures to show you then.

I did find a mute swan in town yesterday, but it was taking a break from the water, so that could explain why I didn’t spot it Saturday when I merely looked down the canals.

It seemed perfectly content to sit right there, between a parked bicycle and a park car, and preen its feathers. It hardly paid any attention to passersby.

The water in the canal right there had a skin of ice on it, so perhaps our hero took the path of least resistance and hopped up on shore in hopes that the “heat” of the “day” would fix that problem, but I’m not sure the “sun” yesterday was up to the job.

Good luck, Sweetie!

Phew! Good thing I saved some pictures from yesterday, because the weather here has returned to its dark and dreary self this morning. In any case, on to the water birds, and the ubiquitous Eurasian coot deserves top billing. If there’s only one bird in a body of water around here, odds are that it’s a coot. Oddly enough, unlike the mallards and gulls, they seem to ignore human sources of food and stick to their strict diet of foraged greens. Probably a lot healthier, eh?

I was a little surprised by the number of great cormorants on the river Schie yesterday, but there was at least a half dozen, probably more, and here’s one drying out its feathers after a swim. It had its wings extended as I approached, but tucked them in when I tried to get a picture.

There was only one Egyptian goose, and it seemed lonely because it was calling from the top of this chimney.

By far the most common gull in town are these cute little black-headed gulls in their winter plumage. There were also a couple of herring gulls, whom we see in Estabrook, and they are nearly twice the size.

Every once in a while, one or two of the coots turn out to be moorhens. Besides the subtle visual differences, they are slightly smaller, and tend to stick near or up on shore.

There were about as many great crested grebes fishing in the river as cormorants, but they don’t need to dry out their feathers so I hardly ever see one out of the water.

The only ducks in town are mallards, or mallard-domestic hybrids, and this sweetie was keeping an eye on me, just as her counterparts in Estabrook do.

There is still one grey heron hanging (standing) around on the river bank. I haven’t caught it fishing in a while, but the fishing must be good enough to keep it here.

Finally, it appears that at least one grebe is getting a jump on breeding season and nesting already! I was surprised by how late into the summer/fall I saw them with chicks, and perhaps this is just the other side to that same coin. Anyway, this is about the only excuse I’ve seen a grebe use to get out of the water.

These are most of the critters I get to see as I walk along the river from my place to the north end of town and back, about 2.5 miles round trip. I nice variety, right? I had also hoped to see the pair of mute swans that I’ve seen on the canals in town lately, but they eluded me yesterday morning. Wish me luck today!

Well, miracles never cease, and the sun “rose” over clear skies in Delft this “morning”. I use scare quotes because the sun only breached the horizon at 8:37am and only reaches 18° above the horizon by noon. It will set again at 5:10pm. I think I’ve only seen the sun one other day since I’ve been back.

Anyway, I took advantage of the rare occasion and set out to see who else might be up and about. I was quite happy to find this surprisingly-obliging female Eurasian blackbird hunting up some berries for breakfast and appearing to be as shocked by the change in the weather as I was. They are usually quite shy, and I’ve only managed a couple other pictures of them since June.

There were also plenty of Eurasian blue tits flitting from branch to branch.

And great tits, too.

We’ve seen tree creepers here once or twice before, but I continue to struggle with getting a good portrait. This is the short-toed treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla), I believe, and it’s a close cousin to the brown creepers (Certhia americana) we see in Estabrook.

There were also plenty of common wood-pigeons around,

A few carrion crows,

And dozens of noisy Eurasian jackdaws.

I also saw but failed to capture on film today Eurasian robins, Eurasian wrens, a great spotted woodpecker, rose-ringed parakeets, Eurasian magpies, a song thrush, and a couple of redwings.

There were plenty of water birds, too, but let me save those for tomorrow in case the sun goes back into hiding.

It turns out that my flight back to Delft leaves later today than I thought, so I did have enough time for one last quick visit to Estabrook Park this morning. I was happy to see the great horned owl near its usual spot on the river again, and it was a little less buried in the sticks than usual. Perhaps it is no more excited about getting soaked from brushing against all the water clinging to the branches than I am.

Up by the pond, the little northern saw-whet owl was also “home” and just as hidden as ever, so I’ll spare you yet another photo of a few feathers and a bunch of blurry branches. Instead, this dapper American tree sparrow, with its rust-and-gray head stripes and yellow-and-gray beak, was far more willing to oblige us with a nice, clear image.

That’s all I had time for today, but here are some more pictures from west Texas. First is a white-throated sparrow, with its characteristic yellow-and-white eyebrow, near the Rio Grande. I also saw one in Estabrook just this morning, but couldn’t get a presentable picture.

Here’s a white-crowned sparrow, with no yellow in its eyebrow and a grey throat, at the bank of the Rio Grande. We’ve also seen these in Estabrook, but no one has reported seeing one there since October.

And finally, another look at that mule deer buck in the hills behind the Terlingua Ranch Lodge after sunset.

If your interested in more trip pictures, I’ve put all the wildlife into one album on flickr and all the scenery pictures into another.

Big Bend National Park and Terlingua in West Texas were amazing, and we saw a lot of wild life, but it is also always great to be back home and get a chance to visit Estabrook Park. I ship out back to South Holland tomorrow, so this might be my last post for a while.

Despite the freeze overnight, as anyone who ventured out on the Oak Leaf Trail this morning knows about, today got off to a gorgeous start in Estabrook with mild temps, almost no breeze, and plenty of sunshine. The first critter I saw taking full advantage of the situation was this musk rat just off the shore of the southern island, where we saw a beaver up on the ice back in December.

At the north end, I spotted a couple pairs of common mergansers, a single goldeneye drake, about a dozen geese, and a few dozen mallards. The surprise visitor, however, was this Cooper’s hawk right overhead.

Out on the water and ice, a lone herring gull found itself a good-sized fish, perhaps already frozen

There was no sign of the great horned owl this morning, but up by the pond, the saw-whet owl was in its usual spot and as impossible to photograph as ever.

Finally, I took one last swing by the river and arrived just in time to catch this beaver giving us a swim-by.

That’s it for Estabrook today, so let me leave you with one more picture from Big Bend, a pyrrhuloxia perched in the bushes by Sam Nail’s old ranch, perhaps waiting for us to clear out so it can get a sip of water in peace. Welp, we’re gone now, so there you go, little buddy.

It was our third and last day in this amazing park, and the sights just kept on coming. We stopped first at one of the old, abandoned ranches, Sam Nail’s, and the old well acting as a water source worked as advertised. The place was abuzz with birds as the sun came into the valley. Here’s a female Phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens).

And here’s her potential mate, a shiny black male Phainopepla. “The name “Phainopepla” comes from the Greek for “shining robe,” a fitting characterization of the shiny, jet-black plumage of the adult male.” “They are not related to North American flycatchers; their nearest common ancestors are the waxwings, which also have a glossy, silky look to their plumage.” “Phainopeplas have digestive tracts specialized for eating mistletoe fruit. These berries are low in nutrients, so the birds have to consume lots of them. The berries spend only about 12 minutes in a Phainopepla’s intestine, and the birds may eat 1,100 berries in a day.” Yikes!

Here’s a spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus), close cousin of the eastern towhee we see in Estabrook Park, and equally hard to photograph. Anne worked like crazy to help me capture this image. “It’s right there! The bright red bird near the ground,” she whispered fiercely.

Next up, we’ve got a bluebird, and imma gonna go with female/immature western (Sialia mexicana), but I’ve been told since is actually a mountain bluebird (Sialia currucoides).

Then we drove the scenic road to the Santa Elena Canyon, and on our way back out, while I wasted my time taking yet another black phoebe picture, Anne spotted our first greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus). Now that is one cool bird!

After that hike, Anne dropped me off at the Cottonwood campground to see what I could see while she grabbed us some lunch at the nearby camp store, and this is who I found: a Javelina! Aka a collared peccary (Dicotyles tajacu).

Finally, we hiked up the wash to the Lower Burro Mesa Pour-off, and a fellow hiker spotted this astounding creature, the first tarantula I’ve ever seen in the wild, likely a “Texas brown” (Aphonopelma A. hentzi). What a sweetheart!

Wow! What a day, eh? Tomorrow, we’ve gotta go home, sadly, so I probably won’t have anything for you, but I might be back in Estabrook the day after. Wish us luck!