Three pictures from this week

A willow oak tree against the blue sky

Two white-tailed deer running across the front yard

A pine siskin and I check each other out.

Here are a few pictures from the GBBC weekend.

There is a pileated woodpecker in there--can you see him?

I don't blame you--he kept inside the twigs mostly.

But once he looked right at me as if I were the paparazzi!

Look how much yellow the pine siskins are getting. I had more of them today too because it's cold tonight.

This red-bellied woodpecker can't get into the cage for the peanuts, but can stick its head through far enough to reach one.

I hadn't seen the hooded mergansers for over a week, so I was thrilled when three of them came up the creek at high tide.

Chipping sparrows were the only species I had good numbers of, but still only 63. Half of what I had last year.

And only one bluejay--he looked kind of sad.

Now it's off to put my GBBC report onto the site. I hope you all had great bird counts too. It's always fun! I added a couple of species to my February yard list too.

Today's birds

The first is an immature male purple finch. You can tell he's not a female because he's beginning to get a little color--see the yellow under the tip of his wings.

White-throated sparrow--even though you can hardly see the white throat.

The other day when the bird bath was frozen till about mid morning, this little pine siskin wanted a drink.

So he worked his way down the hose which fills the tub that the dog drinks from

And tried two ways of getting a drink in the little space where the water wasn't frozen.


All the male cardinals are sporting brand new plumage for spring and they look really good!


There were eight in this bush at one point. You can see four here if you enlarge.

Suspicious

January 2009

I know I've been very remiss and have taken three months off, but I'm going to post a whole month's worth of pictures now. These were all taken around the house this month.