Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Linda and I had the opportunity to learn more about the International Crane Foundation tonight thanks to a guest speaker at the local Audubon Society chapter. We are members of the ICF based in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Linda discovered that place sometime back when investigating things to do while in the area. About every year since then we have been making our way back up there to see how the Cranes are doing in their recovery. Tonight we were able to learn a bit more about the site and pleased to see the Whooping Crane (link here) status is starting to look up. Unfortunately, Linda nixed my efforts to put on the Crane suit the speaker brought showing how they imprint the young – someday I’ll get to try that bird suit on and post the pictures here hehehehe. Big thanks to the Audubon Society for hosting that event. Oh, and if you are in the neighborhood you might want to check out the guest speaker for next month – heard it might be on Texas Birding.
Speaking of Texas birding, how about this intriguing specimen.
If you live in North America and Central America, at first glance you might mistake this bird for the Mourning Dove. That Dove is very common in those regions and wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t see at least one a day hanging out in trees next to your feeders or hanging out with their friends on powerlines trying to choose which car they want to aim their white bombs at – based on experience this always ends up being the shiniest clean car they can find. From a birding perspective, the Mourning Dove is one of those species that has become so common I generally do not pay them very much attention. Same goes for those water chickens the Coots. I might take a few pictures of them just to help with the end of day count summary. That is exactly what occurred while we were at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge on our Texas trip back in January 2017.
Hit the jump to read a bit more about this feathered encounter.
