Cactus Kate

There have been so many new birds around this spring!  I can’t remember this variety, or this number of birds.  I have added new birds to my life list, and taken some decent photos of them.  I wanted to share the latest backyard birds with you all!

Black-Headed Grosbeak (seen May 24, 2010 at my parents’ house).  I liked his personality:

My trees have been full of Bullock’s Orioles.  I have a bunch of mulberry trees in my yard which are almost in full fruit.  The orioles come around for the berries, and I have seen them picking up things to make nests, so I am hoping that they are making nests in one of my trees.  Below are Mr. & Mrs. Oriole, and a young male by himself.

Here is a very handsome Pinyon Jay.  I hadn’t ever seen one of these before.  I think he’s lovely.  He’s smaller than the scrub jays, and bluer.   He was in my parents’ side yard on a windy afternoon.  You can see the wind ruffling his feathers in the third photo:

My yard has also been flooded with Western Tanagers lately.  I have seen one of these before, but there have been at least five in the trees.  They are not very mellow – they hop all over the place, and are hard to photograph.  However, when they do hold still, they are beautiful!

Thanks for checking out my latest birds!

Hi, folks.

I have been doing a little birding, along with just enjoying the nice weather.  Here are some recent bird sightings:

A Downy Woodpecker, a Western Scrub Jay – thinking he’s funny (actually, I think he was looking under that rock), and a pair of Mountain Bluebirds (why does the male always get to be the flashy, fancy one?!):

A Lazuli bunting, and a Say’s Phoebe:

Seems to be a lot of blue in the bird world right now.  …guess ‘blue is the new gray’, eh?

Also, there was an American Goldfinch in one of my trees the other day.

Enjoy your birds!

Hi, folks!  I think spring may finally be coming to southeastern Utah.  Flowers are coming up, birds are changing colors and singing (rather than the sad chirping I have heard all winter), and the temperatures outside have been tolerable.  Thank GOD it’s finally happening!  I wasn’t sure I was going to survive.

A few days ago, there were several lesser goldfinches in our trees.  They are turning a lovely shade of daffodil yellow, probably to attract a domestic partner for the season.  I don’t think these guys mate for life.  This one was very cooperative.

My flowers are starting to bloom, too.  They are later than usual, but hey – what can you expect after the longest, coldest winter EVER?!  *I may be exaggerating a little here…but not much*  I have lots of daffodils right now, and the grape hyacinths (which usually come along quite a bit before the daffodils) are just getting started.  There are literally thousands of grape hyacinths pushing their little heads up through the foliage.  I can’t wait until they all bloom!

Since we had extra moisture over the winter (more than 40 inches of snow, overall – VERY unusual), I have many, many tulips pushing up buds, too.  I can’t wait for all of them to bloom!  Here is my first REAL Hyacinth, which doesn’t look all that happy, but at least it tried:

Flowers always make me happy.  Happy Spring!