(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Daily Bucket - Finally Took a Photo of my Nemesis Bird- Open Thread [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-20 He's flying away right in the middle of the photo I see we don’t have a bucket today. So here is a short one. As I have written before, I have been frustrated in my attempts to get a photo of the iconic Yellow-Billed Magpie. This bird only lives in the Central Valley of California. Before the West Nile virus hit the West Coast, the Yellow-Billed Magpie was fairly common and I would see flocks of them on local lawns and in the fields all over the Sacramento area. The virus devastated the species. It is estimated that we lost 2/3th to 3/4th of the entire population. They are much scarcer now and they totally disappeared from my neighborhood. The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns. We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow. I occasionally see them but never when I have a camera with me. Even when I have my phone, they have always disappeared before I could snap a shot. Last Friday I was meeting some friends and just as I got out of my car, I saw 2 magpies standing on top of a cargo container at the end of the lot. I grabbed my phone and took some shots. Once they realized I was looking at them, they flew away. For some reason, I kept getting errors on trying to load several other better photos I took of the bird, so I posted the only photo that would load. Yellow-Billed Magpies are celebrated on a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 5 in Sacramento Had a couple of nice warm sunny days last week before we were hit with plenty of rain yesterday. More rain is expected tomorrow before we get some clearing and maybe a nice warm and sunny weekend. Please comment on when you had success in seeing or getting a photo of a nemesis critter — bird, critter, reptile, fish, insect, flower, etc. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/20/2159294/-Daily-Bucket-Finally-Took-a-Photo-of-my-Nemesis-Bird-Open-Thread Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/