Bird Weekly – Photo Challenge – Birds With Color in their Name

Posted on May 14, 2021 by

64 Comments

Welcome to Week #47 of the Bird Weekly Photo Challenge. Week #47 challenge is birds with a color in their name such as a Yellow Warbler or Great Blue Heron. As long as it is a color from the color wheel in the title of the name, it will qualify for this challenge. White is a color.

Speaking of Great Blue Herons, the feature image is a mated pair building their nest high up on a palm tree at Viera Wetlands in Viera, Florida.

Being a graphic designer, color is my thing. Being able to print out a specific color on a particular printer takes skill and a lot of practice because all printers are not created equal. Sometimes we just can’t accomplish it…that exact shade in someone’s logo.

Black-crowned Night Heron

On May 28th, the Bird Weekly Challenge is Selective Color. This means your photos need to be monochrome with a spot of the original color left in. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting guides for a couple of photo editing programs to help you with this if you have these programs available to you, there might be some new hints you haven’t tried. Stay tuned for those and I hope you will join us for that Bird Weekly Challenge.

American Idol

There was a special moment on American Idol on the last show. Since it made tears come out of my eyes, chills down my arms and involved color, I thought I would share the mentoring session and the performance. It was just that GOOD!

On Sunday night, Willie Spence had one of the best performances in American Idol history. Chris Martin of Coldplay was the guest mentor for the contestants for this week and he was humbled by what Willie did with his song, “Yellow”. Since this week for Bird Weekly is all about the colors of the name of birds, I felt the urge to share these videos with you.

NOW TO THE BIRDS

Yellow-rumped Warbler

This Yellow-rumped Warbler was a first time visitor to our feeders this spring. Frank and I call them “Rumps” for short. They have yellow on their underwings, but yellow under the tail feathers which give them their name. This warbler migrates by the tens of thousands of birds throughout the southern plains of the U.S., breeding in milder temperatures during the summer. We see them all over the area but this was a first to our feeders. This one thought he was the boss and tried to cover a large area of all the feeders without success. He would chase off the Goldfinches and they would leave, but they came back shortly afterwards…with reinforcements. We had a real battle ground out there for weeks. Bullies are not tolerated!

Yellow-throated Warbler

Yellow-throated Warblers have a bright yellow throat, black, gray and white body. This is a species that was given a proper name. This warbler species hops up the side of a tree much like a Brown Creeper and Black-and-White Warbler. This one just happened to be on the ground in the cover of grass. The one and only time I’ve ever seen one on the ground.

Black-and-White Warbler

The Black-and-White Warbler is one of the earliest warblers to migrate. They are combative and will fight other species for territory. Sound like someone else on this list? Their name makes since as they are fairly easy to identify with their black and white stripes.

Black-throated Blue Warbler

The Black-throated Blue Warbler is appropriately named with its blue back, white belly and black throat. They are difficult to photograph because they sputter around quickly. The black face with the black eye makes it almost impossible to get a clean shot at the face.

Eastern Bluebird

“You talkin’ to me?” What great personalities the Eastern Bluebird has! As with many species, the male is much more colorful than the female. They have a combination of blue on their head and back, orange chest and white belly.

White Ibises

These White Ibises were hanging out near the boat ramp at Lake Deaton in The Villages, Florida this past Monday. The two adults are in full breeding colors looking over their juvenile child who is beginning to lose the baby colors. I featured this on Carol’s Trio Challenge yesterday.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Some birds may have a name that doesn’t make sense. Take the Red-bellied Woodpecker for instance…it doesn’t have a red belly at all. The patch underneath may be a gray, peach or yellow but certainly not red like what is on top of the head. I have so many Red-bellied Woodpecker photos, I could post one a day for 2 months and not repeat. This bird gets another go.

Blue-winged Teal

These Blue-winged Teals were camouflaged in the Salt Marsh and Mangroves at Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. There were 6 mated pairs during migration where they eventually head north to the breeding grounds.

Red-shouldered Hawk

This Red-shouldered Hawk had a face only a mother could love. This was a juvenile that must have fledged recently. He was perched up on a stump near the entrance of the boat ramp at Lake Deaton. I snuck around the port-o-potty to get this photo. At the click of my shutter, he flew up into a tree but the movement was in slow motion. It took everything this bird had to get up in the tall pine tree to a safe high place.

Red-winged Blackbird

Red-winged Blackbirds are some of the most vocal birds around. They are appropriately named as the males have that beautiful dark red spot on the wings. I supposed they could have been called Red-Yellow-winged Blackbird. If they had named this bird by the female colors, it would have been called something totally different. “Brown-striped Mama”?

Lesser Yellowlegs

Greater Yellowlegs and Lesser Yellowlegs are very similar in appearance and difficult to identify. One is larger than the other. Despite this fact, they are not closely related. The Lesser Yellowlegs is closer related to the much larger Willet. They are so appropriately named with those very yellow legs!

Great Blue Heron

This Great Blue Heron thought he was hiding from me in the Florida swamp behind a Cypress stump. Nope!

Green Heron

The Green Heron is small colorful heron but can camouflage itself in the swampy areas in which it habitats. They can be difficult to spot and a good pair of binoculars scanning an area near the surface of water will give you a better chance at seeking out this bird.

Purple Gallinule

The Purple Gallinule could have been called a Rainbow Gallinule. This is one of the most brightly colored birds that is native to Florida. They are here year-round, but are not common. You have to know where to find them. If you ever visit and want to see this bird, check the different State Parks and Wildlife Refuges on Ebird.org for where they have been seen.

Pink Kite

Just for fun! When we were at the Blueberry Farm last week, they had a pink kite (not Kite as in the type of bird Kite, but a real kite made of Tyvek material) flying on a pole in the middle of the fields to keep the berry eating birds away. They also had a loudspeaker with birds of prey playing out of the surround sound. They are not a certified organic farm, but they do not spray their bushes.

Next time…Week #48 – Birds beginning with a “G” (if a bird has more than one word of the name, you can use it as long as it begins with a “G”, ie: Green Heron or Common Gallinule) (5/21/21)

Bird Weekly Challenge Badge.

Category: birds, Birds Weekly Photo Challenge, nature, photo challenge, photography, reflection, travel, Uncategorized, water, wildlifeTags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

64 Comments on “Bird Weekly – Photo Challenge – Birds With Color in their Name”

  2. I had to laugh at that blue heron “hiding”! All these shots are so wonderful— enjoyed reading about them. 🙂
    ~🕊Dora

    Liked by 1 person

  3. What fabulous birds these are! I suspect this may be a challenge too far for me. I think I have one shot of a blackbird, and that’s about it. And the one after – no chance. Photo editing is way above my paygrade!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Well, share your Blackbird. This challenge isn’t the color separation challenge. No technical stuff on this challenge. I was just letting everyone know for the upcoming weeks. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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  7. Oh dear, I will have to restrain myself with this one Lisa. Love the pink kite, made me laugh. I’ll be back later on, too busy this weekend. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • LOL! I knew you had a bunch of color-laden bird names. I’ll look forward to it. The kite was there the week before this challenge so I couldn’t resist! 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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  11. This time I spot a close relative of our Purple Swamphen in your Purple Gallinule; very similar colour and habits, same genus, different species. And I’m sure there are pink kites somewhere nearby too 🙂

    Parakeet morning

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    • It was a great one too! You can save them for other challenges. 🙂 I’m still reeling over losing my SD card that had over 2K photos on it. I’m finally starting to get back in a groove. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      • Sad to hear that! I had an external hard drive get corrupted that had my entire LRC catalog on it…81k! I freaked out! I was actually able to have data recovery because of warranty but it took four (4) months to get it back and my Mac is still trying to sync the old catalog with new 7k of photos into a current catalog. It was scary for a while.

        Liked by 1 person

      • OMG! You know, I’m thinking of purchasing a cloud service to put all my pics on a backup. I have the majority of them on two drives, but the card I lost was my working card. I just hadn’t backed them up yet. 🙂 My SIL says to have 2 backups….always!

        Liked by 1 person

  16. wow – that was quite a performance. I can’t imagine him not winning. And I love the photos of the Black-crowned Night Heron…

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thanks Jim. Do you watch American Idol? I’ve watched it since the beginning and what ABC has done with it has made it far better than when FOX had it. I love Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie as judges. Every year, we say, this is the best bunch yet. 🙂
      That Night Heron pic is one of my favorites in my collection. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  18. Your pink kite heading made me stop in my tracks, Lisa. The cogs in my brain started wheeling… That kind of kite alone would be a reason to come visit. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  23. Wonderful collection of colorful birds! I have had serious arguments with people about that red-bellied woodpecker. “But,” they cry, they don’t have a red belly. Why aren’t they red-headed?” I point out that I don’t name them and there’s at least some red on the head of EVERY woodpecker — at least the boys and at least one woodpecker (who we neve see around here) has a solid red head. They seem to feel I should rename them.

    This is my second week of no feeders. I still go to the window every morning to see the birds who aren’t there. For a while, the little birds would show up the minute the cowbirds left, but after a while, they stopped leaving They literally left one or two of them guarding the feeders from the railing and dozens of them in the nearby trees The only creatures that got into the feeders were the Red-bellied Woodpeckers, squirrels, raccoons, and flying squirrels. The doves ignored them because they don’t eat from a feeder but from the leftover millet seeds the other birds discard.

    We tried shooing them away, but they would stand there and give us that “and what are you going to do about it” look. They would leave only if we went outside and actually stood at the feeders — but they didn’t go more than a tree away. There wasn’t any choice left — and the raccoons were tearing the feeders open and taking whole cakes of suet with them as they left.

    We packed it in for now. At least it is summertime sort of.

    Liked by 1 person

    • They will have plenty of food out there. I know it is disappointing to not see your birds out there. I’m in the same situation. We are not putting feed out. I still have some birds in the yard, but not like the swarm on the feeders. I’ll look forward to September. LOL! 🙂

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    • Thank you Sarah. I got on a Warbler kick there for a bit. It’s fun to see the differences in (similarly named birds) from different parts of the world. I enjoyed your post immensely! I didn’t mind the cheat either. You needed to complete it. Boobys are fascinating birds. 🙂

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    • I forgot the Brown Pelican and American White Pelican. My favorite birds. LOL! I got focused on the Warblers and that was alright with me. I didn’t mention it, but the Red-tailed Hawk was really something too. The last time I saw one on the ground like that, it had attacked our Love Bird and flew off with him. Please don’t fret…it doesn’t freak me out anymore. It was over 12 years ago and nature doing what nature does. 🙂

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