…Brings new birds!

Yesterday, I was visiting my parents, and a strange bird landed in a back yard tree. It turned out to be a Townsend’s Solitaire. I saw the first one of these I had ever seen this past spring, but this time I was able to get some good pictures of the cute little guy. I love the little white rings around his eyes!

This morning, when I went outside to scatter some birdseed on the front lawn, I heard strange birds singing in the tree above my head. Before even looking, I went inside to get the camera. **I have learned that this is the best way to do it…if you look, and locate the birds, and they are something rare or unusual, the disappointment is MUCH greater when they fly away before you can take pictures if you know what they were.**

When I returned with my camera, I took this shot up into the tree where I could see them moving, just to see what they were.

That photo wasn’t great, but I could tell that they were Cedar Waxwings! I didn’t see them at all last winter, so I am glad to see that they are back in town! I did manage to get some fairly good pictures of them, though the light was wrong for perfection. Here they are, denuding a tree of juniper berries:

There were a few young Waxwings with them. The young ones look so awkward and mangy next to the sleek adults! Here is one next to an adult, and one in awkward flight:

This afternoon, I parted the curtains a crack to look out and see all the Juncos that my seed-spreading this morning had attracted, and there was a Spotted Towhee (another of our wintertime birds) amongst the Juncos (AKA ‘junkers’ around our house). He is not such a cooperative photographic subject. I only got a couple of decent photos of him.

I like it when new birds come through!