Bald Eagle

As America’s national wildlife symbol, the bald eagle is an immediately recognizable raptor with a wingspan of 6 to 7 feet. This large eagle was photographed near the Missouri River on a cold winter morning.

Common Loon and One-week Old Chick

The Common Loon is the Minnesota state bird. It has a black bill, red eyes and a spotty black and white body with a black/iridescent green head. The common loon has four calls. The tremolo, which sounds like maniacal laughter, is an aggressive call. The wail is a long, drawn-out sound that people mistake for a wolf. The hoot, a shorter call, is used to communicate among parents and young. Male loons make a yodel sound when guarding their territory. Loons can dive as deep as 250 feet to search for food.

Eastern Kingbird on Thorny Branch

The Eastern Kingbird is a medium-sized bird that is easily recognizable because of a distinctive white band across its tail. It practices a technique called “hawking,” where it flies out to catch insects and returns to the same tall branch.

Great Horned Owl in Burnt Forest

On a “washboard” gravel road in Grand Teton National Park this immature owl was spotted in the distant trees. The surrounding forest was mostly black, burned by the Berry fire in 2016. Over the next hour, the owl never moved, but turned his head numerous times to show that he was attentive enough to spot a mouse 25 yards away. Great horned owls live between 10-15 years in the wild if they are not preyed on by another animal and have been known to live up to 30 years in captivity.

Eastern Kingbird

The Eastern Kingbird is a medium-sized bird that is easily recognizable because of a distinctive white band across its tail. It practices a technique called “hawking,” where it flies out to catch insects and returns to the same tall branch.

Sandhill Crane Quartet

Like sharing a cup of coffee before work, these cranes check their surroundings as the sun breaks for a new day. Cranes congregate and sleep together on sandbars and shorelines of the Platte River during their annual migration.

Trumpeter Swan

As the largest waterfowl in the world, trumpeters often have wingspans of seven feet across and weigh 25-30 pounds. They were hunted nearly to extinction in the nineteenth century with fewer than 50 remaining in the United States in the 1930s. Conservation efforts have enabled the regal and stately trumpeter to make a successful comeback in the northern Rocky Mountains.

Great Horned Owl Chicks

Admired by many Native American tribes for its strength, courage and beauty, the great horned owl is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas. Its primary diet is rabbits, rats, mice and voles. Like most owls, the great horned owl makes great use of secrecy and stealth and is most active at night and early morning. The great horned owl is strictly monogamous and typically lives to about 13 years old.

House Finch

Photographed in Wilderness Park near Lincoln, Nebraska, the male House Finch is known for its bright red head and cheerful song. Its historic range is the western United States to southern Mexico, but it was introduced to the northeastern United States about 1940. Its habitat now includes cities, suburbs and farms.

Tricolored Heron in Hilton Head Wildlife Refuge

Faster than a speeding bullet, a tricolored heron can catch a small fish with its pointed beak. This heron stood motionless in a shallow marsh for nearly two minutes before its head darted into the water, coming up with its next meal.

Wing Stretch

The Common Loon is the Minnesota state bird. It has a black bill, red eyes and a spotty black and white body with a black/iridescent green head. The common loon has four calls. The tremolo, which sounds like maniacal laughter, is an aggressive call. The wail is a long, drawn-out sound that people mistake for a wolf. The hoot, a shorter call, is used to communicate among parents and young. Male loons make a yodel sound when guarding their territory. Loons can dive as deep as 250 feet to search for food.

Red Bellied Woodpecker

The red-bellied woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker common in many Eastern woodlands and forests, preferring old stands of oak and hickory trees to young hardwoods and pines. Its common name is somewhat misleading, as the most prominent red part of its plumage is on the head; the red-headed woodpecker, however, is another species that is a close relative but looks quite different. The red-bellied woodpecker uses its bill as a chisel for foraging, drilling into bark or probing cracks on trunk of trees, pulling out beetles and other insects with the help of its long tongue.

White Ibis in Louisiana Bayou

An ibis is a wading bird that belongs to the family of ibises and spoonbills. Ibises inhabit salt marshes, swamps, areas near the lakes and rivers, tropical mangroves, forests and marshy mountain meadows where they walk slowly with their heads down probing the muddy surface for insects and crustaceans.

Mourning Dove

The Mourning Dove is different from other doves primarily because of its pointed tail with large white spots. It has a hollow, mournful song and its range extends from southeast Alaska to Panama. It lives primarily in farmland, towns, open woods and grasslands.

Great White Heron Building Nest

The Great White Heron builds tree nests in colonies called rookeries. Always close to water, heron nests are typically built a few feet above the high tide mark and are made of heavy twigs and small branches. The Great White Heron’s diet consists primarily consists of fish, amphibians and crustaceans and they catch their prey by stalking and silently waiting before swiftly striking with their long beaks. Their spectacular plumage nearly caused their extinction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when hat makers used their pure white feathers in fashionable ladies’ hats.

Great Blue Heron and Turtles in Louisiana

Perched on a single leg, a Great Blue Heron surveys its surroundings in Louisiana bayou. Great Blue Herons typically live in and around salt and fresh-water environments, have wingspans up to six feet and fly approximately 25 mph.

Quick as a Wink

Faster than a speeding bullet, a tricolored heron can catch a small fish with its pointed beak. This heron stood motionless in a shallow marsh for nearly two minutes before its head darted below the water, coming up with its next meal.

Great Blue Heron in Louisiana

Displaying the grace of a ballerina, a Great Blue Heron surveys its surroundings in Louisiana bayou. Great Blue Herons typically live in and around salt and fresh-water environments, have wingspans up to six feet and fly approximately 25 mph.

Cooper's Hawk

A Cooper's hawk is a medium-size hawk native to North America that captures a bird with its feet, then repeatedly squeezes it to kill it, rather than biting its prey.

Osprey Chick High Above the River

Sitting in its nest about 100 feet above a river in Yellowstone National Park, this osprey chick practices wing flapping before taking its first flight. Osprey nests are a bulky mass of sticks often five feet in diameter and two to seven feet thick. They prefer nesting sites with clear visibility and an abundant food supply, eating almost exclusively live fish. Ospreys mate for life and typically live 15-20 years. Amazingly, an osprey migrates up to 160,000 miles during its lifetime.