The wonder of birds is in the striking colors, while all birds have their special features it’s the striking colors of some that catch our eyes.
Here is a little sample from last couple weeks.

1) Dicksissel?
2) Indigo Bunting
3) Scarlet Tanager
4) Common Yellowthroat
5) Yellow Headed Blackbird

That YH Blackbird is something cool

What's wrong, Jack ? You don't care for that metallic engine sound ?

All extremely great photos Tray. The hybrid of the western and Clark's is priceless. Do you see them quite a bit? I've watched the dance many times; never ceases to amaze me.

Jack

I saw this bird one spring feeding in a wet field. For years I looked and talked to people trying to figure out what I had seen. Then a friend gave me Sibley field guide to western birds which I use quit often. Bingo!

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Wow, you really get a wide variety of wildlife from your house.

I have these on my property sometimes. Clark's Nutcracker:

Some Least Sandpiper reflection shots. Shorebird migration has already started for the fall and there are usually the earliest sandpipers to come thru headed south.

I have those Tanagers too, they are found especially in big trees and deep woods. Here's one at the bird bath.

A swallow launching like a missile out of the nest box...and Pileated woodpeckers , here's a couple at suet.

Excuse the less than clear shots. I had an old camera.

1) Dicksissel?
2) Indigo Bunting
3) Scarlet Tanager
4) Common Yellowthroat
5) Yellow Headed Blackbird

The wonder of birds is in the striking colors, while all birds have their special features it’s the striking colors of some that catch our eyes.
Here is a little sample from last couple weeks.

I thought I'd post some of our most common birds. Boreal Eurasia is pretty monotonous ornithology-wise, so they all have actual vernacular English (British) names.

This one should be pretty common in the US, too.


Fieldfares are the most common local thrush species. Some years they form big flocks in the winter, like waxwings.


Just a pair of great tits. They like human company in the winter.


Our biggest and most brazen woodpecker, the black woodpecker. They are very curious and will often follow you in the woods, screaming loudly.


The nuthatch is a frequent bird feeder visitor (and bacon lover).


Tree pipits are among the earliest birds to arrive from Africa.


So are wagtails. They become one of the most abundant insectivorous species in the suburbs because tits and chickadees mostly leave residential areas by mid-May.


This is what an actual goldfinch in the initial sense of the word looks like. They are incredibly hardy birds. I often see them flying and feeding at temperatures approaching -40 C (or F) when few other birds are visible. They visit bird feeders, but it's not uncommon to see them feeding on burdock seeds out in the forest-steppe.


We have two sympatric species of cuckoos here, that are a bit hard to tell apart visually. This one's the common cuckoo. They become very visible and easy to photograph early in the mating season, in June. They spend winters in Southeast Asia.


The most common woodpecker species in boreal Eurasia. As far as I know, Greater spotted woodpeckers sometimes visit Alaska, much to the local birders' delight, but they belong here. They're loud birds, and not too smart. They taste okay, though.


Our Bohemian waxwings are a bit different from your Cedar waxwings.



they gather in HUGE loud flocks in the winter and can completely strip mountain ash and crab apples off their frozen fruit in a matter of minutes.

I have these on my property sometimes. Clark's Nutcracker:

On the nest.

Jonathan would be proud.

Jack

Tray, it was on Tangik Island, in the Aleutian Islands AK. There were 100's of pairs of the nesting on the hill side. We walked up, laid down and stuck our camera down the burrow arms length and took a picture. You would pull it out and look at it, if it was bad, you deleted it and took another. They are neat to watch. They fly laps in a large oval. They would all take off at once and come back in on the same lap.

I could look at bird pics for hours. Never get old.
Welcome aboard Lenny. Thanks for the pics.
Will have to disagree about the Blue Jay though.
Yep, they are smart!. They seem to know when I'm gone and will come n pluck the baby robins/ doves out of the nest.
Dispise them.

Pine Grosbeak-russet Variant I took the picture this fall on my property during a migration. They were feeding on service berry bush. Not a great photo but this is a rather rare bird in our area. Talked to a couple bird guys and they said they had never seen one in the wild.

My Finnish X Siberian female Goshawk. Not sure why it’s sideways, but oh well.

From previous band recoveries it’s most likely these geese are from the Calgary area. But anything is possible.