Birds of North America

I moved to North America in 2023 and had an opportunity to explore few places. Got to experience a wide variety of birds that I got to capture through my lens. Few pictures in this blog come after a long wait of 16 years especially Humming bird pictures, that I had seen only through internet as these are not found in India or any other countries in Asia. I used to always hope to capture a Hummingbird humming on a flower! I always had waited for this moment and here it is. It has not been an easy task for me to photograph Hummingbird. Including few amazing facts along with few other bird pictures below.

Ruby Throated Hummingbird. Captured at Raleigh, NC with Nikon D850 + Nikkor 400mm f/2.8
They are the only birds that can fly backward and upside down, thanks to an extremely mobile shoulder joint. Their wings can beat up to 200 times per second, producing a humming sound that gives them their name. 

Ruby Throated Hummingbird. Hummingbirds are the smallest birds in the world, with the bee hummingbird being the smallest bird species overall. Their wings beat at an incredible speed, generally from 12 to 80 times per second while hovering, and up to 200 times per second during a courtship dive. This rapid motion creates the characteristic "humming" sound for which they are named.  

They have a very high metabolism, which is why they need to eat frequently. A hummingbird's tongue is grooved like a "W" and has tiny hairs to help lap up nectar. 

They have a great memory, remembering where their food sources are and returning to the same feeders and flowers year after year. Despite their size, they can be very feisty and will defend their territory against larger birds.

They have little to no sense of smell, but can see and hear better than humans and can see ultraviolet light. To conserve energy at night, they can enter a state of torpor, which lowers their heart rate and body temperature. 

They feed on nectar from flowers and also catch insects in mid-air or from foliage for protein and nutrients. Females build tiny nests from moss, lichen, and spider silk. Their eggs are about the size of a coffee bean and weigh less than a gram. 

The brilliant color on a hummingbird's throat is not from pigment, but from prism-like cells on their feathers that refract light.

Unlike other birds that flap their wings up and down, hummingbirds rotate their wings in a figure-eight motion, generating lift on both the upstroke and the downstroke, which allows them to hover with such control.

The Allen's hummingbird captured at Oceanside, California. It is a small, energetic bird known for its brilliant coloration and aggressive territorial defense. Here are some fun facts about this unique species.

The Allen's hummingbird. They are one of North America's smallest birds, measuring only 3 to 3.5 inches long, but can reach speeds of 49 mph in direct flight and dive at speeds up to 60 mph.

Like other hummingbirds, Allen's hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly forwards, backward, sideways, and hover in place. Their wings beat at about 70 times per second in normal flight, a rate that can increase significantly during courtship dives.

To regulate their body temperature, they tuck their feet into their feathers in cold weather and let them dangle in warm weather.

Male Allen's hummingbirds are extremely territorial and will aggressively chase away rivals, and have even been observed attacking much larger birds of prey like kestrels and hawks.

They have an extremely high metabolic rate, requiring them to feed frequently throughout the day, sometimes visiting 1,000 flowers daily and consuming over twice their body weight in nectar.

While they primarily drink nectar, they are also insectivores, eating small insects and spiders for protein, often catching them in mid-air or plucking them from vegetation or spider webs.

Male Allen's hummingbird. Males perform an elaborate "pendulum" flight display for females, zipping back and forth in wide arcs before climbing high and diving, producing a sharp squeal with their tail feathers at the bottom of the dive.

After mating, the male leaves the female to build the nest and raise the young on her own. Females weave tiny, cup-shaped nests from plant fibers, moss, and spiderwebs.

There are two recognized subspecies: one is migratory, traveling to Mexico for winter, while the other ( S.s. sedentarius ) is a non-migratory year-round resident of southern California's Channel Islands and adjacent mainland areas.

The migratory subspecies ( S.s. sasin ) is one of North America's earliest migrating birds, with males sometimes starting their northbound journey as early as December and arriving at breeding grounds in January.

A collage of few bird pictures that I had taken over a period of past few years.

Female cardinals are vocal singers, are skilled nest builders, and have duller brown and reddish plumage for camouflage.

Female cardinals are vocal singers, are skilled nest builders, and have duller brown and reddish plumage for camouflage.

The Allen's hummingbird. 

The Allen's hummingbird. 

A female Anna's hummingbird has a green back and a dull gray throat and breast, unlike the male's bright pink or red head and throat. While the female lacks the prominent gorget, she may have some red flecks on her throat, and her tail feathers have white tips. They are similar in size and shape to males but appear duller overall, with a green and gray body. 

A female Anna's hummingbird.

A female Anna's hummingbird

A closer look at tiny feathers of a female Anna's hummingbird

The northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

Bees at work, loved the bokeh effect that I got with my 400mm Nikkor Lens.

The Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea) is a stocky North American songbird known for the male's striking deep-blue plumage, its very large, conical bill, and its affinity for shrubby, open habitats. Captured with Nikon D850 + 400mm f/2.8

The Blue Grosbeak. Adult males are a vibrant, deep blue with two broad, rusty-brown wing bars and a black "mask" area around the eyes. Females are mostly warm brown with similar, though less prominent, cinnamon-colored wing bars and an occasionally bluish tail. Both sexes have a characteristically large, silver-and-black bill. They measure about 5.5 to 7.5 inches (14-19 cm) in length with an 11-inch (28 cm) wingspan and weigh approximately 1 ounce (28 grams).

The Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) is the smallest and most common woodpecker in North America, known for its distinctive black-and-white plumage and adaptability to human environments like backyards and parks.

Wild Life From The Forests of Nagarahole

Karnataka is blessed with some of the most magnificent tropical forests of the Indian sub-continent. The state is endowed with varieties of forest vegetation with an enormous diversity of species. The floral diversity is so wide and varied that in some districts, all types of forest from wet evergreen to dry thorn forests are encountered within a distance of less than 100 km. About 60 of Karnataka’s forests are situated in the Western Ghats, one of the mega biodiversity hotspots of the world. The remaining forests situated in the Eastern Plains - although these have limited coverage - exhibit high degree of plant diversity including varieties of medicinal plants. Nagarahole and Bandipur Tiger Reserves are the best forests I got to visit. Sharing some images I got to capture during the my visit to Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

Witnessed some amazing wild life with Sloth Bear (my first time sighting), Indian Gaur in action, group of elephants, one of the chasing us, and beautiful sight of Peakock in its full display with their iridescent tail feathers to attract peahens. This was a very rare sighting that I got to witness. A memorable one from the forests of Bandipur.

All pictures captured with Nikon D850 + Tamron 150-600mm G2 Lens.

MUSCLES

Indian Gaur in action from the Bandipur Tiger Reserve. This was a very rare sighting that I got to witness!! A memorable one from the forests of Bandipur.

The Winner

The sloth bear, also known as the Indian bear. It has also been called "labiated bear" because of its long lower lip and palate used for sucking up insects. 

The typical weight ranges from 80 to 145 kg (176 to 320 lb). 

The paws are disproportionately large, and have highly developed, sickle-shaped, blunt claws which measure 10 cm (4 in) in length. Their toe pads are connected by a hairless web. 

They have the longest tail in the bear family, which can grow to 15–18 cm (6–7 in). Their back legs are not very strong, though they are knee-jointed, and allow them to assume almost any position.[29] The ears are very large and floppy. The sloth bear is the only bear with long hair on its ears.

Sloth bear muzzles are thick and long, with small jaws and bulbous snouts with wide nostrils. They have long lower lips which can be stretched over the outer edge of their noses, and they lack upper incisors, thus allowing them to suck up large numbers of insects. The teeth are usually in poor condition, due to the amount of soil they suck up and chew when feeding on insects. The back of the palate is long and broad, as is typical in other ant-eating mammals

Peacock at its full display 

Peafowl Calling

Peafowl Calling

Awesome view during morning walk in the forest area

Adult males generally weigh from 588 to 1,500 kg (1,296 to 3,307 lb)

Pugmark tracking is a technique that has been used by wildlife conservationists track animals and identify the distribution of species in areas where they operate.

A photograph to remember

Found this guy during the safari a few feet away from the pug mark.

Found this happy calf enjoying some food

A newborn calf will attract the attention of all the herd members. Adults and most of the other young will gather around the newborn, touching and caressing it with their trunks. For the first few days, the mother limits access to her young.

Musth or must is a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants characterized by aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones. It has been known in Asian elephants for 3000 years. Elephants are polygynous breeders (a mating system in which one male lives and mates with multiple females but each female only mates with a single male), and most copulations occur during rainfall. An oestrous cow uses pheromones in her urine and vaginal secretions to signal her readiness to mate. A bull will follow a potential mate and assess her condition with the flehmen response, which requires him to collect a chemical sample with his trunk and taste it with the vomeronasal organ at the roof of the mouth.

It was trying to sense us with its trunk being higher

And then it decides to chase us

At this time, it was pretty closer to us

Started running parallel to our jeep

Followed us for a bit 

The tusks of an elephant are modified second incisors in the upper jaw. They replace deciduous milk teeth at 6–12 months of age and keep growing at about 17 cm (7 in) a year. As the tusk develops, it is topped with smooth, cone-shaped enamel that eventually wanes. 

The dentine is known as ivory and has a cross-section of intersecting lines, known as "engine turning", which create diamond-shaped patterns. Being living tissue, tusks are fairly soft and about as dense as the mineral calcite.

Elephants are usually right- or left-tusked, similar to humans, who are typically right- or left-handed. The dominant, or "master" tusk, is typically more worn down, as it is shorter and blunter. 

Asian males can have tusks as long as Africans', but they are usually slimmer and lighter; the largest recorded was 302 cm (9 ft 11 in) long and weighed 39 kg (86 lb).

Sambar deer captured in rain

Sambar Deer

A family

Mangoose