Lesser Goldfinch, and other birds

Post date: Apr 20, 2016 7:25:40 PM

We get a varied assortment of birds...I've posted photos of the ring-necked or collared doves before but here are a couple photos of an almost-white one. I understand that these are an introduced species and are displacing the native mourning doves. We still have mourning doves in our canyons but they are indeed not as numerous as these collared doves. The latter seem to stay in the more open areas. It is tempting to believe that some ancestor or parent of this one was a domestic dove. Hard to imagine a white dove would survive in the wild, with hawks, owls, and other predators.

In the photo just above, the peach tree was beginning to bloom and if you look close, you can see a couple grayish-colored sparrows, I believe they are white crowned sparrows.

Domestic birds too - here's a couple photos of our five old chickens - our good old girls, two Americauna and three cuckoo marans. Of course we also have the new chicks, more on them another time.

Finally, it was just luck that I had the camera with me and was able to photograph this lesser goldfinch, which landed in a small oak tree right in front of me and stayed long enough for a few photos.

We have lots and lots of birds, both year-round and migratory. We just noticed on Monday that the swifts are coming back, to the open areas near the livestock - last week - Monday we saw one, Tuesday three, Wednesday about five, flying around catching insects, and picking up nesting material - straw and maybe bits of wool off the ground. They are so quick and so small, it's near impossible to get a photo or video that shows them, but they are very fun to watch. Of course we have house finches, hummingbirds, barn owls and other species of owls (been hearing the screech owls at night, but can't see them), the ravens are still with us, several kinds of hawks...lots of other song birds too. The phoebes are back. Quail. Wild turkeys (we still have the Narragansett turkeys too). Lots of birds.