Daily Pics Vol.# 93

Here is the Male.

Deb - LOL the bird bath!

Holly - I investigated house and purple finches. The purple finch has a notched tailed and straight pointed beak (hf tail is straight, and beak is rounded on top). If you scroll up to Mrs. Ed's finches, it looks like she captured a male hf.

But, Pelle is the expert, and will swing by at some point and verify.

More interesting hf info: the red color of a male hf comes from pigments that it gets in its food while it's molting. The more red pigment in the food, the redder the male. Females prefer to mate with the reddest male they can find. I guess they think he will make a better bread winner!

Rose - loved the cemetery shots. The background is dramatic, and the moss on the stone adds just a touch of eeriness.

I had commented on almost everyone's pic to a post I had just written, was just finishing up. Went and hit the wrong button, now I've lost everything. grrrr
So to make a long story short, good job everybody and welcome to the bird forum HollyAnnS

Sybil, we're getting what you got yesterday, a nice white coat over the dirty snow. now it's a mix of snow and rain. Must be spring cleaning time up there.;)
This Robin must be regretting his trip up North. Don't you, just feel sorry for the poor thing.

A food fight. They were back again today, in great numbers.
Bohemian Waxwings

In the tree across the street.

Canada geese with robin gathering her nest material. BEV

Nanny, you don't have to worry about them anymore, they've join OP and me, in the North.
Dark-Eyed Junco

More geese

OP, I had read that about the goldfinches, that hte better their diet, the more yellow they get. Thereby proving to the ladies that they are good providers. I did not know that aobu thte housefinchest though, but could swear they are getting more and more color.

Pretty dark here so these next two are a bit on the grainy side. Mrs. C posed for me for a long time!

Peek-a-Dee

I saw this little bird with distinctive yellow markings on it today.

Any ideas?

Yellow-rumped Warbler (a.k.a. Myrtle Warbler)

Resin

Very pretty and a nice catch on the warbler.

Meanwhile, back in the same old same old. A new goldfinch that's brighter than I've seen yet.


This message was edited Apr 12, 2008 6:06 PM

I love that shot of the bats. I actually think bats are kinda cute (except for the vampire bats, they are creepy).

burn- my sympathies. Good news though - warm weather ahead. :)

Thanks Resin.

Snowy day here today.

Speaking of color on birds I watched a nature special where the scientists colored the breasts of 1 male Barn Swallow a deeper color than the rest.

When they checked the DNA on the babes from all the nests in this particular barn way more were fathered from their brightly colored one than any other male around.

Very interesting and a busy season for that fellow! :-)

Great pics everyone!

The White Crowned Sparrows are back.

I guess that means my brightly coloured Pheasant is the popular one, lol. There was 3 females in my garden, one got run over, another has lost it's tail feathers (it's not the preferred female). The immature male hangs around but gets chased off by the pretty one if he's near him. The preferred female and male were wandering around my garden later today in the sunshine along with me, he's getting much braver now too and doesn't take much notice of me.

He stopped short of walking directly towards me, but didn't mind skirting around me. He was making a noise much like a chicken as he wandered, the low brrrrrr sound they make.

He is so incredibly gorgeous!!!

adel those white-crowned sparrows are very cute!

Cold, dark and rainy AGAIN today!

Got this one yesterday morning of the Great Blue Heron going by.

This Chipping Sparrow visited too.

Took these down at the river last week. This guy was just waiting on the bank for us to come in. Not quite as clear as I would have liked and he was getting ready to leave. Wasn't giving me much time.

Time to leave the island. Bad neighbors coming in.

A bit off topic, but wanted to alert you all to Project Budburst, a citizen science site similar to GBBC. It's a US nationwide initiative using volunteers to track climate change by observing the timing of flowers and foliage.

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/citizen_science/budburst/

Absolutely beautiful pictures everyone. It's just a joy to view this thread.

Thanks for the info coo13549.

Kind of liked this photo though of a Cedar Waxwing feeding another one. It was one of those photos where I thought there were waxwings up there somewhere, so I pointed, clicked and was pleasantly surprised!

Grackle taking a bath.

Nice Waxwing shot, Elphaba. Here's a Cardinal partly hidden.

Yes, yes, yes, Resin. I can see the difference between chipping and song now. Thanks!

Enjoying all your photos everybody.

That pheasant is really hot, wallaby!

White Ibis.

Mockingbird singing.

Even from a distance (across the yard), a Painted Bunting shows up well.

Red-Bellied this morning.