The Wild Sights

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The Wild Sights My name is Dave Anderson, I love watching birds and other wildlife.

10/19/2026

Greater Yellowlegs move very quickly 🚀 when feeding. Even with my shutter speed set to 1/2000 of a second, I was still getting some motion blur!

An immature Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) frozen in the light of the rising sun ☀️
10/16/2026

An immature Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) frozen in the light of the rising sun ☀️

Today was an interesting day of birding and bird photography. Thanks to Hurricane Rachel, I saw one “lifer” and two Clar...
10/12/2026

Today was an interesting day of birding and bird photography. Thanks to Hurricane Rachel, I saw one “lifer” and two Clark County new birds.

However, this very accommodating and common Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) captured my heart.

Have you ever looked into a toad’s eyes? Well, maybe you should 😱This Woddhouse’s toad was huge, the size of a baseball....
10/10/2026

Have you ever looked into a toad’s eyes? Well, maybe you should 😱

This Woddhouse’s toad was huge, the size of a baseball. The toad had just survived a life-threatening battle with some predator, probably a coyote. Toads aren’t fast; they don’t have teeth or claws, but they do have a secret defensive weapon.

When a predator bites or picks up a Woodhouse’s toad (Anaxyrus woodhousii), the large glands behind its eyes (called parotoid glands) and the bumps on its skin secrete a milky, white chemical cocktail known as bufotoxin.

This defense works through a combination of taste and physical irritation. The chemical secretion tastes extremely bitter and foul, which triggers an immediate rejection reflex in most animals. Beyond just tasting bad, the toxin causes rapid burning, foaming, and numbness in the mouth membranes. If a curious coyote or other wild predator grabs the toad, the combination of the horrible taste and sudden burning causes them to immediately spit the toad out, allowing it to escape mostly unharmed.

This toad was sitting out in the open in the hot sun, covered in sand, and had a few small wounds on its body. I was tempted to pour some water I had with me on the toad, but then I remembered that my tap water contains chlorine and can be quickly absorbed, which could be fatal to the toad. Instead, I used a couple of sticks and gently moved the toad to some nearby shade.

American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana) bookends 😊For this shot, I set my exposure so the white feathers on the Avocet...
10/10/2026

American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana) bookends 😊

For this shot, I set my exposure so the white feathers on the Avocet would not be overexposed. As a result, the camera darkened the rest of the image, including the dark water, making it look almost completely black.

Townsend’s Warblers are one of the more common migrating warblers to pass through Las Vegas in the spring and fall. Such...
10/08/2026

Townsend’s Warblers are one of the more common migrating warblers to pass through Las Vegas in the spring and fall. Such colorful birds with their contrasting yellow, black, and white feathers😍

What happened to my spots?!!!A Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius) in non-breeding plumage
10/07/2026

What happened to my spots?!!!

A Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius) in non-breeding plumage

An osprey (Pandion haliaetus) waits for sunrise to begin fishing. Camera: Sony A6700 Lens: Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G...
10/05/2026

An osprey (Pandion haliaetus) waits for sunrise to begin fishing.

Camera: Sony A6700
Lens: Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS
Settings: 600m, F6.3, 1/30sec, 500 ISO

Field Notes:

This image is a mix of calculated fieldcraft and pure luck. Ting Ting and I rolled out of the house at 5:00 a.m. with a plan: set up our photo blind before twilight along a river frequented by herons, egrets, kingfishers, and raptors. I hadn’t visited this spot in a couple of years, leaving our exact target birds a bit of a question mark. Our blind is an old, beat-up shelter that is a tight squeeze for two, but we made it work and hunkered down in position just as the blue hour began to fade.

Before we even saw it, we heard the sharp, piercing whistle of an osprey flying above us. It dropped onto a branch about 100 feet away, and was nearly swallowed by the shadows. We waited for 20 minutes, and our patience was rewarded as the first direct rays of sunrise caught the turning leaves, transforming them into glowing amber orbs behind the osprey.

Locked onto my tripod, I pushed the limits of the low light I dropped my shutter speed to 1/30s, to soak in enough exposure, hoping the osprey held still long enough to capture a sharp image.

Minutes later, the osprey took off to fish for carp in the river. The third photo in this series captures the same bird about 45 minutes into its morning patrol.

Rare Bird Alert: Chestnut-collared Longspur. These sparrow look-alikes are typically found east of the Rocky Mountains, ...
10/05/2026

Rare Bird Alert: Chestnut-collared Longspur.

These sparrow look-alikes are typically found east of the Rocky Mountains, but this one ended up in a tiny city park of Beatty, NV (population 880).

There is some new research on birds that end up way outside their normal range. In the past, ornithologists thought that the birds’ internal compass was out of whack, but it turns out they might be explorers looking for new areas to live in.

https://baynature.org/2026/09/15/science-nature/wildlife/are-vagrant-birds-lost-or-pioneers-for-clues-researchers-look-to-the-farallones/

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89142

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