Saturday, May 23, 2009

Update from the Lake: Some Birds

I was recently at our lake house for several days, longer than I've been there for - a year? More? While there, I spent a lot of time outdoors, watching birds, doing yardwork, and walking. One thing I noticed: it's finally spring at the lake, as evidenced by robins, which were out hopping around, chirping and singing.
robin Robin, standing on a piece of basalt in our front yard.
woodpecker White-headed woodpecker going after something in one of our Ponderosa pine trees.
hawk Hawk or falcon flying overhead, don't know what kind... Do you?
pigeons Band-tailed pigeons that just flew down from a tree to land on someone's deck. I saw one in our yard briefly, as it was leaving.
wren House wren hopping about in the front yard. The wren is a very small bird, hardly stands still, is very difficult to photograph. It was very busy checking out everything, including a bird house way too big for it, some small potted evergreen trees, and some hens and chicks.
barn swallow Barn swallow on a wire above the cedar walk area. They were flying around, darting quickly in the air, and it was only possible for me to get reasonable photos when they stopped flying. This is the first time I've seen them hanging around in such large numbers.
jay A bird in a fir tree, apparently trying to hide from me. Probably a Steller's jay.
And our tree swallows! Here's a female checking out one of our bird houses.
The male of the pair, popping his head out of the same nesting box. When they hang on the edge of the hole with their feet and pop their heads out like this, we call them "porpoises" and call the act "porpoising." [Kind of silly, we are sometimes!]
The same female standing on the box. I don't think they actually nested here, but this may be the same pair that was later building a nest in a bird house in the front yard.

I also saw several other types of birds, including vultures, juncos, chickadees, blackbirds, cowbirds, and a pair of quail.

7 comments:

Mathias said...

What nice birds! We sometimes have birds stopping on our balcony that my room window is facing. You remind me that maybe I should keep my camera closer to make more fotos. There are some nice, little birds with yellow and blue colors here.

Chris M said...

As for your hawk.... My guess would be Cooper's Hawk, although it could be a darker male North Harrier.

Silver Fox said...

LostGeo, I almost always have my camera with me!

Chris, I think I'd lean towards Cooper's Hawk of those two, unfortunate that it didn't fly a little closer to the ground so I could get a clearer picture!

Cath@VWXYNot? said...

Wow, what variety! Very cool.

I need to start carrying my camera more often too. I'm still gutted that I missed getting a shot of the coyote I saw in a misty cemetery with a mountain backdrop, one morning a couple of months ago

Silver Fox said...

Oh, that coyote sounds so neat! Too bad you didn't have your camera with you, but so cool that you saw it.

Cath@VWXYNot? said...

Yeah, it was a special moment.

And then this morning, I saw a drenched squirrel perched on a mailbox, eating some food. Super cute. Camera? At home. (But at least dry).

Silver Fox said...

You're gonna learn!