Feathers are a changing
The goldfinches are back as well, and their feathers are starting to turn.
Kerry--glad to see the goats! Yay!!! Which on is the GOAT? (sorry can't post comments on your post)
Going to see if I can post my response to Andrew's comments here:
Nice to see all the critters, winged and otherwise. That downy and northern flicker simul-snap pix is a bit of a wholly grail round these parts. I've tried often snap a simul-pix both myself but have run a fowl of their skittishness. Amy's is perfect. Being only 2 York yardsticks away (though separated by window) might have something to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThe house finches are almost a perpetual presence and their liveliness is welcome. A couple of hen downys have been around most of the day and just now a downy male hit the suet for a couple of minutes. 3 northern flicker hens are around a lot though but not today. No male n-flickers for almost a week. Their underpants are orange out here unlike the east coast n. flickers which I understand have yellow underpants.
Cornell's cheat sheet doesn't mention speckled starlings (that I can tell). I guess they aren't considered Ivy material but they're out in packs here. A few days ago the big hen northern flicker was really going at it with the speckled starlings that got too close at the suet. That was fun!
Other visitors have been chickadees, the odd jay and once every 4-6 weeks a hawk. Sometimes its a goshawk other times its a cooper's hawk.
Wow - you know your birds. I'll have to pay more attention to the hawks I see on occasion, and try to identify them. And I never thought of them having underpants, but I'll never not think of it again.
ReplyDeleteHey Andrew--for whatever reason I can seem to comment--only post, so I'm responding here.
ReplyDeleteSound like you've got a lot of action out west. Post some pix! That pic of the flicker and woodpecker was dumb luck on my part and a great camera--couple weeks ago (so kinda cheating)--most of the other pixs from that moment are out of focus even w/ the auto focus on. Yes our flicker has yellow underpants--so light up the blog with the orange guy and/or several of the hens (we only have one flicker as far as I can tell). One of my favorite things on twitter are when serious birders post "worst bird pics" which usually is a total blur and then a caption of what they saw. I'll have some pix like those coming up. Would love to see a post of speckled starling--real or illustration--I can't find those in the books. We have a lot of European starlings (new to me this year) which apparently are already in their summer duds as they have orange beaks.
One thing I can't figure out is we have one Carolina wren--but never a mate. What do you make of that? Seems impossible to me--but maybe they take turns eating and I just can't tell them apart?
We have only seen red tailed hawks around here--every now and again. Mike said he saw a cooper's hawk once at our old house years ago, but never a goshawk. Would love to see both of those.
Same feeder 8 feet away from desk outside my west window and large Ponderosa pine 20 feet away from my desk outside my north window for the past 13 years. Its been basically the same species of birds all that time. Used to get 25+ gold finches on the other feeder at one time but haven't seen them in 8-9 years(now I'm lucky if I see 6-12 goldfinches, lessor or otherwise all year).
ReplyDeleteI read it as underpants rather than underparts for the first 2 or 3 months before I realized my mistake. Underpants works just as well and its infinitely more entertaining;-)