Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Springtime Birds

Here are a few photos from a short trip I made during the middle of last month's work stint. The weather had just warmed up, at least for that one sunny morning, and birds came calling to two birdfeeders in NJ's backyard. I saw my first Lazuli Bunting. I saw several, in fact: a whole flock. The males have a distinctive, bright turquoise head. Quite beautiful. I really didn't expect to see these birds at a feeder in Nevada, but shouldn't have been surprised (range map).
The female of this pair made a few brief appearances, and I caught her hovering over the closest birdfeeder, trying to find a space at the yellow birdfeeder, crowded by at least one Goldfinch and an unknown and slightly larger brownish bird partly hidden behind the feeder.
The male now has the closer birdfeeder to himself.
A pair of American Goldfinches have now taken over. According to my bird list, these were my first Goldfinches, though I find that hard to believe — probably I had forgotten to mark them down on my incomplete life list.
Look who's been watching! No luck for the watcher, the would-be pouncer: all birds flew away.

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