Backyard Birds

I've been wanting to do a post all about backyard birds and I figured no better time then now, since we're moving soon and will have all new birds visiting  in an all new location.


Like I've mentioned before, I have always had some interest in birds.  
This is the earliest photographic evidence of that... (haha) 


It's so funny, the random things that come up when you go through old photos.


Hahaha! I almost forgot about this...  
In Dec. of 2006, this male Ringed-Necked Pheasant* literally appeared in our backyard one day out of no where.

April 2008 - this Orange-Crowned Warbler* caught my attention.

In June 2010, a male Downy Woodpecker* would come by for a daily visit to a bird bell I put out on my patio.

I set up my bird feeder around the time I first started really getting into birding.  
(Around March 2011)  Since I set up my feeder at the beginning of my birding "career", many of the birds I saw were lifers.  Seeing and successfully identifying birds on my feeder helped fuel the growing birder within. 


March 2011

House Finch

April 2011

• House Finches*
• Black-Capped Chickadees*
• Song Sparrow
• Yellow-Rumped Warbler* - male

May 2011

• Cooper's Hawk - scoped it from the living room! heehee
• House Sparrow - male
• Red-Winged Blackbird - male
• White-Crowned Sparrow
• Red-Winged Blackbird - female
• Anna's Hummingbird* - male
• Black-Headed Grosbeak*
• Purple Finches - after so many house finches, I started to develop a keen eye.

Red-Winged Blackbird and House Sparrow - weird combo

Young male Red-Winged Blackbird 

Black-Headed Grosbeak

June 2011

• Mourning Doves*
• Great Blue Heron - flying majestically above
• Northern Harrier - perched on the play structure at my apartments!
• Norther Flicker

*Lifers!

July 2011

• Song Sparrow - after being gone for 2+ months.  and even now I rarely see song sparrows at my feeder.
• American Goldfinch

September 2011

• Oregon Juncos - for some reason it took them forever to show up at my feeder, but they basically haven't left since.
• Western Scrub-Jay
• Downy Woodpecker - back for the first time in over a year! only briefly this time :

This Anna's Hummingbird comes by on a daily basis and sits on that branch, chattin' up a storm.

A young House Sparrow sits in a basket of seeds.  I love this one because he almost looks like a tiny hawk staring down at his prey.

The now full grown House Sparrow emerges from the basket of seed.

October 2011

• Lesser Goldfinch
• Steller's Jay

Lesser Goldfinches

An Oregon Junco takes a try at the branch

November 2011

• Spotted Towhee

Thomas loves Black-Capped Chickadees

December 2011

• European Starling - surprisingly they've only visited 1 or 2 times

January 2012

Anna's Humming bird 

Febuary 2012

• Yellow-Rumped Warbler

Yellow-Rumped Warbler, a rare visitor to my feeders

March 2012

• American Goldfinches - first of the season!
• Great Egret - flying above
• Song Sparrow
• Lesser Goldfinches

Guinea Hen - this was at an apartment we looked at - a potential backyard bird if we moved in.  We also saw a Peacock!  Apparently there's a stable near by where a bunch of these birds live.  How weird is that?  

House Sparrow 

House Sparrow - male and House Finch - female

Sauvie's Island

This was a ground breaking birding trip for me.  We saw a wide variety of species, several of which I have yet to see since then.  I was into it enough the first trip to buy a bird identification book.  Smithsonian Handbooks Birds of North America Western Region By Fred J. Alsop III.  Not your typical field guide, but I highly recommend it, particularly for beginners.  We bumped into another birder with a scope who said he saw a Golden Eagle up ahead.  My cousin said that can't be.  Well we saw it and took down every detail of it.  During the debrief we explored our books to figure out for sure if this was indeed a Golden Eagle.  It came down to, among several key factors, a detail I found in my book about the flight pattern.  Something clicked with me right then that this is something I liked.

• Bald Eagles, including juveniles
• Sandhill Cranes*
• Ring-Necked Ducks*
• Lesser Scaups*    
• Golden Eagle*
• Northern Harrier*
• Red-Tailed Hawk
• Ring-Necked Pheasant* - male 
• Bufflehead
• Great Blue Heron
• American Coots*
• Mallards*
• Northern Shovelers*
• Spotted Sandpipers*
• Pileated Woodpeckers - male and female

*Lifers

Ring-Necked Pheasant (Digiscope photos)

Golden Eagle

Pileated Woodpecker