I LOVE IT when I get unusual visitors out front either at the feeders or just hanging out in the redbud tree. This week I had 2 visitors I have not seen for a few years. Doesn't mean they haven't been here, just means I have not noticed them. The first was a 
Rose Breasted Grosbeak. Yeah, I know it is hard to tell from this picture,
but by the time I got my camera, he was ready to move on. If you know your birds, you will recognize his back. If you don't know them, his breast is white with a bright red heart shape just under his neck, not that song birds have much of a neck. The female looks kind of like an over-sized sparrow in color and markings. I have had Evening Grosbeaks in the winter, even a Blue Grosbeak one summer that I thought was a giant Indigo Bunting! Hey, I was new to birding! And they said Blue Grosbeaks did not get this far north, but, as Roger Tory Peterson told my neighbor, "birds have wings!" Imagine!
Then, today a Redheaded woodpecker visited. How beautiful! The female is very plain by comparison, browns and white. Great coloring for sitting on the nest. I often have a good assortment of really cool woodpeckers, my favorite being the Pileated that lives in my woods (or Frank's woods, or in a tree on the line!) I have posted pics of them before on here... And I have posted pictures of the red-bellied, the occasional yellow shafted flicker, and the ubiquitous Hairy and Downy.
Rose Breasted Grosbeak. Yeah, I know it is hard to tell from this picture, but by the time I got my camera, he was ready to move on. If you know your birds, you will recognize his back. If you don't know them, his breast is white with a bright red heart shape just under his neck, not that song birds have much of a neck. The female looks kind of like an over-sized sparrow in color and markings. I have had Evening Grosbeaks in the winter, even a Blue Grosbeak one summer that I thought was a giant Indigo Bunting! Hey, I was new to birding! And they said Blue Grosbeaks did not get this far north, but, as Roger Tory Peterson told my neighbor, "birds have wings!" Imagine! Then, today a Redheaded woodpecker visited. How beautiful! The female is very plain by comparison, browns and white. Great coloring for sitting on the nest. I often have a good assortment of really cool woodpeckers, my favorite being the Pileated that lives in my woods (or Frank's woods, or in a tree on the line!) I have posted pics of them before on here... And I have posted pictures of the red-bellied, the occasional yellow shafted flicker, and the ubiquitous Hairy and Downy.
4 comments:
Hey Possum, can you send that colorful pair to our feeders?
Nice collection of visitors. I'd like to see some of those unusual (for here) grosbeaks.... :) Unfortunately the red headed woodpecks once common have disappeared from our woods in the last ten years.
This week I spied a woodpecker, a large one, flying over, landing in what I believe a young sycamore. He stayed awhile eating something. Three other birds swooped in, one at a time. What this was about, I have no clue. The woodpecker tended to his business, unperturbed. They appear here rarely.
Lucky you ... and I agree, the Pileated woodpecker is awesome. I seem to get them about every other year.
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