WINGSCAPES

An Unfriendly Greeting?

“Go away! Go away!” That would be quite a surprising thing to hear as you stepped out your back door and into your garden one morning; however if you lived in South Africa you just might. Fortunately it wouldn’t be one of your human neighbors expressing a less than friendly sentiment but the call of the Grey Go-away-bird.

 

The Go-away-bird, Corythaixoides concolor, is a South African species of Turaco also commonly called the Grey Lourie or the Kwêvoël. Mostly fructivorous (fruit-eating), these birds are also fond of plant buds and insects on occasion as well.

Needless to say, this image of one, submitted to the BirdCam Photo Gallery by Justin from South Africa, certainly adds another species to the BirdCam Life List. Baie dankie and thanks Justin!

Flicker, flickr, and Creative Commons

Stop by the Wingscapes BirdCam group on the popular photo sharing site flickr and you will find there, among the nearly six hundred other images uploaded by enthusiastic BirdCam users, this image depicting the red-shafted form of the Northern Flicker.

This particular flicker image was recorded and uploaded to flickr by John Riutta (OK, me); a point emphasized here due to the copyright setting of the photo being "Attribution." This means that so long as the owner of the photo is identified, it can be shown on other websites.

There are hundreds of other superb images in the group that we'd love to share with everyone here on the blog but as the copyright on most of them is "All Rights Reserved," we can't without direct permission. So in order to make it easier to share your wonderful images of which you are sufficiently proud (and understandably so) to have uploaded to the flickr Wingscapes BirdCam group, please set the license settings to "Attribution Creative Commons" so we can easily share them here and further increase the number of people able to enjoy them.

Midnight Snack

Of all the features of the BirdCam 2.0, the flash has certainly done the most to enable BirdCam users to discover and record images of the many interesting creatures that prowl the night right outside their very doors. From skunks to raccoons to deer and even bears, BirdCam users have been uploading images they’ve recorded of their local nocturnal wildlife to the Photo Gallery like never before.

 

One such recent contributor is Derek of Lalvern, UK who shared this brilliant image of a fox making a night-time visit to an impromptu “fox feeder.” Brilliant photo Derek! Many thanks indeed for sharing it with everyone.