Sunday, December 12, 2010

Thanks for Birds

Here are the birds I saw in my father's yard in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, over Thanksgiving. Some are year-round residents, and some are winter visitors.

First up, one of several blue jays - this one out in pouring rain.

blue jay

blue jay

A mockingbird - first up, looking angry on a sunny day.

mockingbird

This mockingbird was in the rain. It was amusing - my sister had raked up all the leaves the day before, and this afternoon the back yard was filled with birds, despite the rain. This mocker was extremely annoyed at their presence, and spent a lot of energy trying to scare off the cardinals and towhees... who got out of his way but promptly came back.

mockingbird

Here's a hermit thrush.

hermit thrush

Here's an eastern phoebe.
eastern phoebe

A pair of mourning doves in the front yard.

pair of mourning doves

A Carolina wren.

carolina wren

Here's one of a number of little Carolina chickadees that, accompanied by titmice and other little birds, move through the woods every day, generally too flitty to get good pictures of.

carolina chickadee

Here's one of the titmice.



Here's a female cardinal - this shot is of her in a little Japanese maple.

female cardinal

And here's a male in the back. There were actually five pairs on the rainy day!

male cardinal

When I first saw this, I thought it was a thrush, but it's a brown thrasher instead. Sibley says it's a summer resident, but near the edge of the year-round zone...

brown thrasher

Here's an eastern bluebird.



Back on the rainy day, here's a female towhee ...
female towhee

... and here's her mate, out of focus, accompanied by one of our Canadian transients - a white-throated sparrow.
towhee and white-throated sparrow

More white-throated sparrows, in the Japanese maple.
white-throated sparrow

white-throated sparrow

And another winter visitor, one of a number of golden-crowned kinglets (I believe that if you use a standard 12-point font, that name is actually longer than the bird!) who were going though along with the chickadees and titmice.

golden-crowned kinglet

golden-crowned kinglet

And finally, three woodpeckers. First up, a downy:

downy woodpecker

then a yellow-bellied sapsucker:

yellow-bellied sapsucker

and finally, one of the pair of pileated woodpeckers that lives on the ridge:
pileated woodpecker

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1 Comments:

At 11:54 PM, December 18, 2010 Blogger Larry had this to say...

What a great collection of birds at your Dad's place! I think my favorite shot is of the Northern Mockingbird.

 

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