Being Birds: Spring Fun Edition?

So how is the weather where you are? This is how things looked as I was putting this post together here on that high plateau in Utah where I live:

And after about 3 weeks of gorgeous weather with more and more migrants beginning to arrive. Things will be slow for a few days now, unfortunately, but a good opportunity for another look at 'birds being birds.'

"I AM going catch that fish! I can even walk on water when I do it, too!" How can you not love watching Reddish Egrets? I don't chase rarities very often, but I'd be inclined to go look for it if one were reported in Utah.

 "Ahhh . . . . that's the spot!" Here's another Reddish Egret - an immature - scratching its chinny-chin-chin.

Here's a Northern Shoveler at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico really stretching to get to that itch.

Hard to do a post on bird behaviors without the obligatory bathing image, right? Here's a Willet "splish-splashing away" in a tidal pool at Florida's Fort De Soto park.

"Hey guys! Look what I've got!" Non-breeding Laughing Gull in Florida with a pretty impressive catch . . .

down the hatch . . .

Or maybe not. "Uh-oh. I think my eyes are bigger than my gullet . . . "

Loggerhead Shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" and frequently for skewer their prey on thorns. I was on a spring count several years ago and saw one adult with three fledglings gathered around a Northern Mockingbird that was impaled on a barbed wire fence! Can you see the unfortunate grasshopper?

Here we have the latest innovation in traffic control - Homer, Alaska style.

The End. Northern Pintails "dipping" at Bosque del Apache.