Birds, birds everywhere

Squawking red-winged blackbird.



A meadowlark?



What is this fellow? Yellow bottom, sparrow type bird with dark head with yellow throat.





Silly white-crowned sparrow.





A goldfinch pretending to be a leaf, lol.

Backyard Birds

The little red-breasted nuthatches may be small (smaller than the chickadee), but they are mighty. They will run off other birds twice their size! lol

Not the best chickadee picture ever but he was so cute gathering fuzz.

A baby. . .robin?

Now the white-breasted nuthatch is bigger than the chickadee, but more mild mannered than the red-breasted ones.

And the little Downy Woodpeckers are content to nibble on suet and be left alone.

Elegant Black Swans

Almost. . .but not quite

Remember last year, when I saw this Killdeer, I had hopes of being lucky enough to see some of the little yellow cottonball babies?

As I peered through a fence (restricted area) I saw a few Killdeer and I wondered if I would be luckier this year.

We nearly missed them, they're so small!  No longer cottonballs, but cute nonetheless.  Miniature versions of their parents dodging this way and that.

The fence kept us from getting closer, darn it!  And they would not come nearer.

There's one on the far left and one on the far right.

Maybe next year.

~ ~ If you wonder why I'm not around, it's because we're up on Washington Island this weekend and there's no internet there - heck there's barely tv there, see you Sunday night.  Oh, don't forget to sign up for the Christmas Ornament Swap a couple of posts down :) ~ ~

Oogly Scavenger

While Dennis waited in the car I walked closer to the Turkey Vulture and clicked away. The bad thing is, I had to get within 10' of his dinner (a raccoon) to snap him.

I was holding my breath for these photos, lol.

Then, I scared him away. Hey, he looks like I did when I went down the zipline!

I'm sailing. . .

He didn't go far though, I bet he was afraid I was going to eat his stinky dinner.

A tree full of Commorants

We stopped at a cache one day, here in Wisconsin, that was near a lake. I walked to shore to see what I could see and I found a tree of Commorants! My first time seeing them in Wisconsin!

With Dennis’ help, some maneuvering through the woods got us closer.

Would have loved to get even closer, but that wasn’t to be.

They could hear us, but not see us, and we feared making them leave.

New Bird in the Hood

I had a new visitor to my yard. A bird I had not seen here before. She tried to ignore me.

Peeking over her shoulder coyly.

Then she finally let me get a better look. If I’m not mistaken I think she’s a female Scarlet Tanager. Whatever she is, she sure is cute!

Backyard Birding

I love sitting and watching the birds at the feeders.

I took these as our days started warming and the snow began to melt, exposing hidden seeds, and attracting the Redpolls. Btw, our snow is almost completely gone from our yard now, only a tiny little pile remains.

It amazed me that she kept creeping closer to me.

And the Cardinal played peek-a-boo, the big fraidy cat.

I kept looking for a male Redpoll and finally found one. He wasn’t as friendly as the female.

But he was entertaining.