Following our latest Facebook posts on bobcats, off-course migrant birds showing up far outside their normal geographic range (including a black-throated sparrow photographed far up the coast of Maine), long-tailed-ducks, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff in Oregon and other subjects, our virtual mailbag overflowed this week with more than 1,000 of your comments and contributions (thank you—keep them coming!). Many of you sent photos of bobcats and birds you've seen, and artist Laurie Rothberg shared a watercolor she painted based on our northern-harrier photo from the Malheur refuge. Among the bird sightings you reported were a horned lark and a mountain chickadee, which a lot of people have never seen, so I'm putting up shots of them below. Enjoy!
(The horned lark was photographed in South Dakota by Kathy Zimmerman; the mountain chickadee shot was taken in New Mexico by an unnamed photographer and shared on Wikipedia.)
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Here are Laurie Rothberg's northern harrier painting...
...and the photo that inspired it. We took this picture at the visitors' center at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Kathy Zimmerman's horned lark photo, taken in South Dakota.
A mountain chickadee photographed in New Mexico.