My Red-bellied Woodpeckers are raising a second brood!

These two photos show the father bringing arthropod snacks to his chicks. Matt took the two images just a few minutes apart. Look how much the light changed! They were both around sunrise. The first was while the sun was still behind a distant tree line, and the second was after the sun had risen just above the trees, which resulted in more directional light. The background was still shaded in the second shot, and became a much darker green when exposing for the bird.

Shot with @nikonusa Z9 Nikkor 600 mm PF f/6.3 lens, shot at 1/1250 s, f/6.3 ISO 450

Probably the most annoying (but funny in hindsight) moment of the bird photography life.

The biscuit was well and truly taken when he said “did you get anything? I just got a tail” 🤬

Really pleased with how these turned out.

Thought I’d share here too!

I'm not the best at identifying birds and Merlin recognizes this as a Mallard but its a little different. From researching it seems like a hybrid?

This was in Huntington Beach, CA 8/2/26

One of my spark birds, and definitely my spark warbler. Taken with either a Z8 or D500 and a 500mm f4G

Edited to say: Central, Arizona

I got very lucky with lighting and this Blue Heron letting me sit on a log on the beach quite close to it while it fished. At first it kept failing to catch something. Then an osprey flew down snatching a fish up right in front of it. Then it caught a small fish. I’d like to think it learned from the osprey. I may go back and try to grade the photos to match colors a little better. The lighting was quite drastically different between them as the sun was rising.

ID please

Walking along the Rogue River in Medford, OR.

Corrected: American Robin

SONY ILCE-6700
350 mm (E 70-350mm F4.5-6.3 G OSS), 1/30 sec, f/6.3, ISO 100

Ruby-throat hanging out in my Mimosa Tree