I've been neglectful

So sorry, that's what happens when school work and sickness get in the way of blogging!

Been busy busy busy with classes, homework, and ornithology field trips this week. And I've been sick the past few days, finally slowly recovering.

So here I'll share some photos that I took on one of our trips...

First up, a little goldfinch:
This cute little pied-billed grebe caught a fish and struggled with it quite a bit... and another grebe kept chasing after him! It was quite funny, the chase went on and off for several minutes.
The bird of the day turned out to be a least bittern. We even saw two of them! This little guy was really close to the walk way, and stayed perfectly still, even though there was a crowd of students all trying to take pictures.
At first due to the size and body shape we thought this was a raptor, but it was in fact a turkey vulture. It was really neat getting to look at it through the high power scopes our professors had.
I took lots of photos of the various waterfowl, and I like this one the best. The common moorhen is really neat looking, and I had never seen one before.
And of course being the herp lover I am, I couldn't help but notice all the painted turtles in the water.

Even though it's fall, one male had it in mind to seduce a female! He was doing the mating wiggle dance and everything! We were bird watching for about two hours and he was chasing after her the entire time.
The male is the smaller one, on the right. I wish I had gotten a video, the males do a hilarious waving and gesturing of the front feet/claws.

The female was totally not into it.