These photos were taken about a month ago when the river was flooding into where we mow. The Heron was getting a lot of small fish here. I think the fish were feeding where the current was light and the fish liked the grass clippings.
The Pelican landed close to the GBH and swam closer then the fight happened...the GBH won
D7100 with 18-300 nikon lens. These were taken early morning and the low sun made the water blue. I did crop and a little pp.

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think of a window AC...it sits outside the window and uses outside air to cool the hot coils.
Your unit is indoors so it is more efficient at cost effective to bring uncooled outside air in to bring down the temp of the hot side of your indoor unit.

If you didnt use outside air, your portable unit would have to use indoor air for cooling the coils and the room temp would take forever to cool. Cause you would be heating up the indoor air to cool the unit that is trying to cool your room.

the high efficient furnaces do the same thing....they bring outdoor air for the combustion chamber that is exhausted out. Its better then using air from the dwelling that is already heated to burn and exhaust away.
I hope this helps...kind of hard for me to explain.

I had 4 pairs this spring, but now they are nesting and not coming to the feeder much. I did have one yesterday. They love grape jelly.

here is another pic for you, I am not sure if they were fighting over a female or the jelly....I think it was the jelly.

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very nice....are you liking your big Sigma lens?

I really like the pelican photo, the detail of the water really makes the photo

Thank-you all for the comments.

Nikon D7100 with the Nikon 18-300mm
it was towards sunset and I was loosing light but still wanted to freeze the wings. There was a jelly feeder right below him and i was standing in the patio doorway, so I was about 15-20 feet away
I was at F 5.6, ISO 2500, and shutter was 1/2000

The F 5.6 gave me that shallow depth of field but by accident the blurred out bird in the background added to the shot in my opinion.

Thanks Saleavitt10 and firtree

he was in a dive for the feeder.

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awesome Larry, what camera were you using?

Thanks BillH and edgrom.

thanks....are they the same size as a cardinal too?

it was hanging out with a male Cardinal, but I dont know if it's a female Cardinal or not. The color doesn't match the females I've seen. Also with the black pattern around the beak, I think it's a male without any red.
I do have rose breasted grosbeaks too, but it doesn't match the female grosbeaks here.
The photo was taken today and I live in Northern Iowa

the only PP was cropping and a little exposure and sharpening in LR
thanks for looking

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I think it's a Ruddy Duck

Yes it is. If you put up a feeder that hold 'niger thistle seed' they will bring all their cousins to eat too. I've had over 20 at a time. They are very common in Iowa and the state bird

We have a lot of Green-winged too. I've seen Pintails, Wood Ducks and Mallards too. Even some Swans this year
thanks for your comments