In reading up about how best to feed birds, and how some types will eat at feeders, others prefer raised platforms, while still others prefer to eat at ground level, we made sure to have all three covered.
I have since discovered something.
It makes no difference. They all eat anywhere.
It’s interesting how, unlike to many other birds, the female American goldfinches are just a darker gold than the males.
This picture reminds me of the children’s book I used to read to my daughters, long ago, in which a lost little bird kept asking different things if they were its mother.
What a difference between these male and female rose breasted grosbeaks!
(Click on the images to see them at full size)
Last year, we saw some Baltimore Orioles now and then. Usually, just a flash of brilliant colour, and they were gone.
So we were pretty excited to see them showing up at the bird feeder in May, and being able to finally get some pictures!
They are now regular visitors, and we just love them! What amazing colours!
Yesterday, I posted a picture of a common grackle. I almost posted it together with this picture, but on closer inspection, I realized this was a different bird!
This is a brown headed cow bird. The body looks a lot like the grackle! The differences are in the beak (which is shorter on the cow bird) and the eye (which is yellow on the grackle).
I’ve never been much of a bird watcher, but I’ve been trying to make sure I accurately identify the birds we get out our window. In the process, I’m discovering that, for a lot of them, it’s really hard to be sure what I’m looking at! Some are so similar, it’s easy to miss the little details that separate them. Usually, I don’t see the differences until I’ve uploaded the pictures and started to process them for here!
This was taken towards the middle of May, when the rose-breasted grosbeaks first started showing up.
From a single male and female pair, we now get whole bunches of them, visiting us.
This is another one of those birds local to our area that I’d never seen before until we moved back here.
A couple of photos from the last day of April; by this time, we were seeing lots of white throated sparrows visiting the feeding station.
I just love the pattern the lifted feathers are making in the second shot.
The Re-Farmer 