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Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #113

Steve Boyes

Birds are not the easiest animals to photograph, especially in flight. Many species move quickly and are shy of humans. It takes skill and many hours of practice to get great bird photographs. Every week we are amazed by the quality pictures that are shared on our Facebook page. Here we present this week’s selection for the Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs. Thank you to everyone who submitted photographs this week and well done to all those selected. To be in the running for next week’s Top 25 you can submit photographs on the Facebook page with species, location, and photographer as the caption. Also, follow us on Twitter for regular updates and on Instagram to learn more about the birds that we featured this week!

 

A beautiful Black-chinned Hummingbird probing for nectar at a Columbine flower. This hummingbird is a female, she is lacking the black patch on the chin which distinguishes the two sexes. Photo by Jola Charlton

 

In the 1930s Black Drongos were introduced to the island of Rota, to control insects. It appears that the Drongo then moved onto the island of Guam. Due to their aggressive nature, Black Drongos both prey upon and dominate the local birds. Black Drongos are believed to be contributing to the decline of many of Guam’s endemic species. Photo by Sourav Mookherjee

 

Two beautiful Blue-tailed Bee-eaters passing food to one another in mid air. We can only marvel at their flying skills! Photo by Shyam Sundar Nijgal

 

Brown Fish-Owls are generally nocturnal but sometimes they will hunt during the day, especially if it is cloudy. Photographed by Amit Kumar Srivastava

 

Burchell’s Starlings occur in the savannas of southern Africa. This stunning individual was photographed in Botswana by Owen Deutsch

 

Coppersmith Barbets eat a wide variety of fruits, including figs and guavas. Photo by Goutam Mitra

 

A beautifully captured Common Loon with chicks. Tim Nicol photographed this trio in Colville National Forest, USA

 

Female Common Kingfishers have been known to lay up to 10 eggs in one clutch! Photo by Ganesh Rao

 

This striking Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrush was photographed in Pangot, India by Rajesh Chowdhury. These forest-dwelling birds forage mainly in the undergrowth

 

This little Caspian Plover undertakes an amazing inter-continental migration every year. They breed in western Asia in the summer and over-winter in southern and eastern Africa. Photo by Vishwas Thakkar

 

A Coppersmith Barbet excavating a hole to nest in. This stunning action shot is by Asim Haldar

 

This eye-catching bird is a male Crested Bunting. They can be found in India and south-east Asia. Photographed by Vishal Monakar

 

This Kentish Plover was photographed on the northern coast of India by Aravind Venkatraman. These plovers are primarily coastal birds but they also make use of saline lakes, lagoons and seasonal water bodies

 

A stunning capture of a Northern Gannet by Carlo Galliani. These birds forage in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans

 

The Painted Sandgrouse can only be found in India and parts of northern Pakistan. This bird was photographed in Pune, India by Ram Vaidyanathan

 

A Red-wattled Lapwing taking a drink in Jamnagar, India. Photograph by Vishwas Thakkar

 

A Red-Vented Bulbul photographed in Dubai by Mukund Kumar. Like most bulbuls, these birds are opportunistic foragers, they eat fruit, insects, nectar, flower buds and sometimes even small vertebrates

 

A Red Avadavat collecting material for his nest, the breeding pair builds a globular nest made of grass. Photo of Souvik Pal

 

A female Pied Bushchat captured in Bangalore, India by Paneendra BA. These birds are insectivores, they typically use the ‘sit and wait’ technique for catching prey. They perch in an elevated spot, when they see prey and they swoop down to the ground to catch it

 

Peregrine Falcons are skilled hunters, during the breeding season males will often catch birds that weigh up to 20% of their own body mass. Photo by Suketu Purohit

 

The Western Yellow Wagtail prefers wet and boggy habitats with low vegetation.This wagtail was photographed in Cuttack, India by Amit Kumar Bal

 

A White-eared Bulbul taking a drink at Creek Park, Dubai. Photo by Mukund Kumar

 

A magnificent Osprey with a freshly caught fish. This photograph, by Soumik Biswas, makes you appreciate the sheer size and strength of their talons!

 

A beautifully captured Shikra, by Priyank Kapdi

 

An Indian Thick-knee photographed by Indranil Bhattacharjee. Female Thick-knees lay their eggs in a scrape on the ground, when the young hatch their primary defense against predators is to freeze and stay camouflaged to avoid detection

 

Edited by Christie Craig, Campaign Manager

Our mission is to build a global community around the freedom and beauty of birds in the wild as ambassadors for the natural ecosystems that they depend upon. They are the music, decoration, and character of every terrestrial habitat on the planet and have been around since the dinosaurs. They are the witnesses and ambassadors of the awesome power of nature. The wide availability of good, cheap optics has opened their world to us for the last few decades. Amazing, affordable DSLR cameras with long lenses are delivering brilliant digital bird imagery to online communities.

We are in a day-and-age during which more bird species are threatened with extinction than ever before. The Wild Birds! Revolution aims to publish the “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week” to 1 million people every week by the end of the year. That is a revolution that will change the world! Join thousands of other weekend naturalists, photographers, birders, experts, hikers, nature-lovers, guides, scientists, conservationists and artists that share the thousands of wild bird photographs submitted to the Wild Bird Trust website and Facebook page. Thousands of wild bird enthusiasts are going out every day to photograph our planet’s beautiful birdlife. Pick up your camera, fill your bird feeder, open your heart, and join the Wild Birds! Revolution!!

 

https://voices.nationalgeographic.org/2017/11/03/top-25-wild-bird-photographs-of-the-week-112/

Changing Planet

Steve Boyes has dedicated his life to conserving Africa's wilderness areas and the species that depend upon them. After having worked as a camp manager and wilderness guide in the Okavango Delta and doing his PhD field work on the little-known Meyer's Parrot, Steve took up a position as a Centre of Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology. He has since been appointed the Scientific Director of the Wild Bird Trust and is a 2014 TED Fellow. His work takes him all over Africa, but his day-to-day activities are committed to South Africa's endemic and Critically Endangered Cape Parrot (Poicephalus robustus). Based in Hogsback Village in the Eastern Cape (South Africa), Steve runs the Cape Parrot Project, which aims to stimulate positive change for the species through high-quality research and community-based conservation action. When not in Hogsback, Steve can be found in the Okavango Delta where he explores remote areas of this wetland wilderness on "mokoros" or dug-out canoes to study endangered bird species in areas that are otherwise inaccessible. Steve is a 2013 National Geographic Emerging Explorer for his work in the Okavango Delta and on the Cape Parrot Project.