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The Helpful Birder

Featured Posts General Birding

Where to Find Birds

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Featured Posts General Birding

Not All Blue Birds are Bluebirds

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Featured Posts General Birding

How Nature Reuses Its Resources

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Bird Species Featured Posts

Species Spotlight: Swallow-tailed Kites

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  • How to Photograph Birds in Flight
    Bird Photography

    How to Photograph Birds in Flight

    One of the hardest things to photograph in nature is a bird in flight. It’s a technique that takes both study and practice. If you’d like to improve your bird in…

    February 7, 2022
  • judging the size of a bird
    General Birding

    Why the Size of a Bird is Such a Difficult Field Indicator

    One useful way to identify a bird is by size. Everyone knows an eagle is bigger than a sparrow, a mallard duck bigger than a cardinal. In fact, it’s a great…

    January 12, 2022
  • Where to find birds
    Featured Posts General Birding

    Where to Find Birds

    Birds are everywhere, right? That’s totally true, except when you’re armed with your field guide, a pair of binoculars, a packed lunch, and a camera. Then they’re nowhere to be found.…

    January 6, 2022
  • Eastern bluebird, Flagler County, Florida
    Featured Posts General Birding

    Not All Blue Birds are Bluebirds

    For beginning birders, the easiest way to identify a bird is by color. Northern Cardinals are red, American Goldfinches are yellow, Eastern Bluebirds are blue. (After all, that’s why they’re called…

    January 6, 2022
  • Featured Posts General Birding

    How Nature Reuses Its Resources

    I find it fascinating how resources are reused by nature in many ways. One example of how nature reuses things is a basic hole in a pine tree. I have really…

    August 2, 2020
  • Florida Scrub-Jays
    Bird Species

    Species Spotlight: Florida Scrub-Jays

    Many of us here in eastern North America know and love (or hate) the beautiful Blue Jay. But there are many other jays present in the US as well, and one…

    May 27, 2020
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thehelpfulbirder

Having a little fun with these adorable seals! I b Having a little fun with these adorable seals! I believe they are both harbour seals (aka common seals), one of two species that pups in Iceland. According to the Icelandic Seal Center, there are four other species that are frequent visitors.

The only place we saw seals on our 13 day trip was at Ytri Tunga Seal Beach on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula north of Reykjavik. It was rainy and incredibly windy, so I was really happy to get a few photos of them resting on the rocks.

#iceland #seals #sealspotting #icelandseals
I’m really excited to finally get to see a Great B I’m really excited to finally get to see a Great Blue Heron (white morph) yesterday! And a bonus for getting to see it in action when it caught this fish. 

I drove two hours to find it, but once there it was an easy spot. Thank you to the friend who told me its whereabouts. (I don’t want to share their name or the location publicly so that I protect it.)

This subspecies is normally found in the Florida Keys and sometimes in southern mainland Florida. It’s sometimes called a Great White Heron, and is easily mistaken as a Great Egret. However, the egret would be smaller and have a completely yellow bill.

Hope you enjoy! 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

#greatwhiteheron #greatblueheron #floridabirds
These two Atlantic Puffins are exhibiting a behavi These two Atlantic Puffins are exhibiting a behavior called “billing”. It’s thought to strengthen a pair bond throughout the breeding season, particularly when they return from sea and it’s time to get reacquainted.

If you turn up your volume you’ll hear the clacks made by their beaks making contact.

Bonus: the buzzing sound near the end of the video is the winnowing sound of a Common Snipe, a prominent species throughout Iceland. 

#puffinsofinstagram #atlanticpuffins #icelandbirds #seabirds #puffins
A series of Black-tailed Godwits in the rain. We s A series of Black-tailed Godwits in the rain. We saw this species in a couple of places so I do have some photos of individuals that look less bedraggled. In addition to the rain this particular afternoon, the wind was gusting about 35mph, so I didn’t stay out very long!

When I birded extensively in England I learned that these are nicknamed “blackwits”, and the Bar-tailed Godwits are called “barwits”. There are no barwits in Iceland, though, so they likely just call them either godwits or something entirely unpronounceable!

#icelandbirds #birdingiceland #vik #blacktailedgodwit #godwit
It’s been months since I posted a mammal, but this It’s been months since I posted a mammal, but this one is worth the change-up! It’s a reindeer we saw near Hoffell, Iceland. I love that the antlers are still covered in velvet this time of year.
Snuggle bugs! Atlantic Puffins in Iceland. #hafna Snuggle bugs! Atlantic Puffins in Iceland.

#hafnarhólmi #icelandpuffins #puffinsofinstagram #icelandbirds #atlanticpuffin
Iceland is full of beautiful places, but one of th Iceland is full of beautiful places, but one of the most unique is Jökulsárlón, a glacial lagoon where icebergs float through unbelievably blue water. The icebergs come from Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier, and then make their way into the sea. The lagoon is right by the famous “Diamond Beach”. The area is chock full of Arctic Terns, Common Eiders, and Black-legged Kittiwakes.

This individual is a young kittiwake, also called a “tarrock”. According to Cornell, tarrock is one of the few English words derived from the Greenlandic language. I didn’t even know there WAS a language called Greenlandic!

In the first two photos you can see some of the icebergs and the cool blue water they’re floating in. For fun, I also included three more iPhone photos, one of the lagoon, one of Diamond Beach, and one of me holding an iceberg 🧊
Common Ringed Plover We recently returned from Ic Common Ringed Plover

We recently returned from Iceland, and I’m so excited to post some of my birds from there! I got 14 new lifers and saw a number of species I’d only seen once or twice previously in Maine or England.

I found this Common Ringed Plover at Vestmannsvatn while unsuccessfully chasing the Arctic Loon there. It’s a pretty good consolation prize for someone who lives in the US.
Happy Monday! #puffin #atlanticpuffin #puffinsofin Happy Monday! #puffin #atlanticpuffin #puffinsofinstagram
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Red-cockaded woodpecker foraging for food in the woods at St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge in Wakulla, Florida (not far from Tallahassee)
Red cockaded woodpecker
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