Bird Watching: It was a good bird watching day, 1 by IrisLover79

IrisLover79 wrote:
Hello everyone!

I'm pretty new to this forum, but I'm probably going to be a regular on here, lol. I've gone from just casually looking at the birds in our backyard to madly trying to snap photos of them. I missed the goldfinches, so I made dad buy some thistle and put the feeders up, again. That brought the little guys back quickly. Then, our neighbor got a HUGE birdfeeder. Seriously, this thing is immense - we filled it up for her and it took about 10 lbs of seed, lol. (And it's empty in 2 days!) So, needless to say, since the "superfeeder" arrived, we've been seeing many more birds than we did before. The usual gang consists of finches, sparrows, grackles, mourning doves, squirrels, and chipmunks. But yesterday was like "colorful bird day," lol. Which really makes me wish I had a better camera!

Started out with seeing a cardinal in the tree. Now, cardinals are common, but I'd been wanting to get a photo of one and finally did! Ü They had been hiding from me. Then the teenage blue jay came to the feeder again. I snapped a few okay pix of him when he flew onto our tall, skinny tree. They're not great, but better than my previous attempts. So, we have red and blue. Then, I spotted a Baltimore Oriole on another tall tree. Those pix didn't come out, but it's only the second time I've ever seen an oriole and they're gorgeous! Okay, so red, blue, and orange. Then, I noticed a Woodpecker (either a Hairy or a Downy) on the same tree with the Blue Jay. The funny thing was, though, that the Blue Jay just could not figure out what the heck the woodpecker was doing, LOL! He was pretty close to the woodpecker, with his head turned and his beak open like, "Whaaaaa?" LOL! He yelled at him to stop it and the woodpecker did, for a bit. So, now I saw red, blue, orange, and black & white.

Then, later in the day, I happened to glance out the window and saw what I thought was a big, white mourning dove on the garage roof. I thought it was an albino, but I got the binos and it had black on the back of it's neck. Looked it up and it's a white pigeon (rock dove). So, all and all, I'd say this was probably the most colorful birds I've seen in one day. I'll post my pix now, but they're not that great. I so wish I could've gotten a shot of the two orioles, when they perched on the wire right in front of our window, the other day. But we were too much in awe to go running for the camera! Oh yeah, and a few days before that, my dad and I saw a turkey vulture soaring over the house for the first time! It's a bird extravaganza, lol!

Here's my pix. (I'm saving up for a new camera as we speak, lol.)

Here's Mr. Elusive-Cardinal on the big feeder.