Birds 2016

[ragdall]

Starting a new year in January seems very artificial because we're in the middle of a birding season, not at the beginning. The same types of birds are here as were here at the end of last year.

I'm still excited to see Pine Grosbeaks in my garden again. I hadn't seen any here for at least 35 years.

Male Pine Grosbeak Female Pine Grosbeak

[ragdall]

A few more January birds

Common Redpoll Male Northern Flicker


Female Hairy Woodpecker "Hoppy" Dark-eyed Junco

[sandrainsydney]

My sister & brother-in-law spent Christmas in Chile with friends who posted a video of the trip, including some birds!

Other videos posted by the Chilean friend are also interesting

sandra

[ragdall]

Sandra,
Thank you for sharing the video with us.

Your sister & brother-in-law must have had a wonderful vacation. The photographer and editor did a wonderful job. The photographs are gorgeous! There must be some beautiful and interesting birds in South America. I'd love to be able to travel there to see (and photograph) them.

[sandrainsydney]

here 'tis - South American birds

[ragdall]

Jan 28, 2016 2:21:04 GMT sandrainsydney said:

here 'tis - South American birds

Sigh. So many birds, so little time (and money for travel).

[sandrainsydney]

I do my travelling via the www

[ragdall]

The Bohemian Waxwings are still in the area but between them and the Pine Grosbeaks, there are almost no berries left on any of the seven Mountain Ash (Rowan) trees in my yard so they won't be visiting me anymore.

This waxwing visited on Jan. 18th.




A Song Sparrow was singing beautifully today. I managed to catch this one, digitally, Feb. 18th.

[maeve]

Both beautiful, rags. Thanks for letting us see.

[ragdall]

Oh dear, it looks as if I abandoned this topic back in the winter.
Spring brought us some additional birds as the winter birds moved on.

White-crowned Sparrows stayed a while, then headed North.




Evening Grosbeaks, male and female, made very brief appearances.




Young male Red-winged Blackbirds sang to one another across the back yard on another occasion.



Hummingbirds began to arrive back in the last week of April. This one is a male Rufous who thought he owned the yard. He spent more time chasing away other birds, including sparrows, siskins and chickadees, than drinking from the feeder.

[ragdall]

We had an unusually warm Spring weather early this year, without the usual bitterly cold spells. This resulted in resident birds being able to nest early. Newly fledged House Finches, with two wispy tufts of feathers appeared at my feeders in May.




A Female Hairy Woodpecker and a Male Pileated Woodpecker each stopped by to check on the suet that still hung in a tree.




These days several hummingbirds battle regularly over the sweet liquid in the feeder, perch on nearby branches to guard it,



and sample the nectar in the Maltese Cross blossoms.

[sandrainsydney]

wow!

[meganl]

what lovely pictures they would make lovely notelets

[maeve]

Welcome, lovely Megan! I'm so glad to see you here.

You're right- Rags' photos would be beautiful note cards.

[sandrainsydney]

a new member! it's been a looong time since we had a new presence here.

rags is the most amazing photographer & she gets her photos (tiny busy hummingbirds!) using an ordinary (ie. not zillion dollar) camera.