How graceful and elegant is the Mute Swan! We associate them with music and dance. Partners for life, in mating rituals, they synchronically swim. With S curved necks bending and turning, white wings held tucked, yet feathers fluffed and tail participating as they pirouette together, dipping their heads in the water, and stretching their necks…

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Handsome Red-winged Blackbird flashing red!  One of our most abundant bird species in the US, breeding in all lower 48 states, they reside in our pastures, roadside ditches, freshwater marshes, and suburban ponds. Photographer J.R. Williams took this audacious male, identifiable by yellow-lined, red wing patches on an all-black bird, in full display calling out…

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Dramatically, with outstretched wings, the Snail Kite sweeps down to grasp the freshwater Apple Snail. In shoreline vegetation of south-western Lake Okeechobee, this male extends long, curved claws to capture and transport the snail to a feeding perch. The Snail Kite uses its highly adapted, sharp sickle-like bill to insert inside the curving shell and…

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Have you noticed a solitary brown bird in a nearby pond, floating like a small duck on the surface? Suddenly it disappears, often for a minute, then pops up elsewhere. It is a Pied-billed Grebe, not a duck. No other family of birds can rotate their lobed (not duck like) feet 90° making them especially…

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