16-AUG-2010
Rufous Hummingbird #0879
I have not seen an adult male Rufous Hummingbird in more than a week. There are still some of these hanging around, which I assume are either females or immature males. I am convinced the males have moved south, and that the females will follow shortly.
14-AUG-2010
Canyon Towhee #0806
Canyon Towhees have also been scarce. There must be a bit of fall in the air now, because there are definitely changes in the mix of birds we are seeing, and their behavior. We see very few adult male hummingbirds, only females or immature males. There are lots of Pine Siskins visiting. Birds (still mostly House Finches) are congregating at the feeder, instead of arriving one or two at a time. The birds are frequently going to the pond for a drink, whereas before they stayed hidden in the trees most of the time. We are seeing more House Sparrows, and their young are doing a lot more chattering.
13-AUG-2010
Pine Siskin (Green-morph?) #0752
After taking a break from visiting the back yard, Pine Siskins have been around again in the last few days. I have been surprised at how deep yellow the feathers are for many of the birds we see. It's normal to see the yellow in the wing bars and tail feathers, but I have not noticed yellow in the general body to the extent we see them. Are these young? Males? I need to do some research.
Note added on 8/16/2010: Apparently there is a fairly rare form of the Pine Siskin (1% of them) called a "Green-Morph". Now I don't see anything that looks like green here, just a yellow bird. But if you look around at other web sites, check out what people are calling a "Green-morph" Pine Siskin.
09-AUG-2010
Rufous Hummingbird (Female) #0534
Where did all the male Rufous Hummingbirds go? In the last couple of days they have become scarce, and I am beginning to think they have moved on in their long yearly migration.
In the meantime, the female Rufous Hummingbirds have claimed the feeders. With the male Rufous Hummingbirds out of the picture, we have heard a few Broad-tailed Hummingbirds again. The Broad-tailed males have a distinctive wing whistle, but not the female Broad-tailed. I think I have seen some female Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, but they lack the wing whistle of the males.
07-AUG-2010
Black-chinned Hummingbird (Female) #0357
The Black-chinned Hummingbirds are the least aggressive of the three we see (Rufous, Broad-tailed,
and Black-chinned). The manage to sneak on the feeder only when the more aggressive ones are off
chasing someone else away. The females are far more common visitors than the males, which I have
only seen infrequently and very early in the morning.
06-AUG-2010
Rufous Hummingbird #0265
We returned from our trip to Colorado, happy to see that the birds in the back yard did not seem to miss us very much. We often get two or three hummingbirds buzzing around our yard, chasing each other away from three little feeders, but we visited an amazing place in Ridgway, CO where the lady of the house maintains some thirty feeders and a wonderfully beautiful flower garden. There must have been a thousand hummingbirds buzzing all around. We stayed there for an hour, I took a few pictures, and so now I am trying to figure out how to get more to visit our back yard without having to go through many pounds of sugar every day.
This male Rufous (in our back yard) has claimed a perch atop a hibiscus bush (Rose of Sharon), where he launches his attacks on anything hummingbird-like that moves. The bush should start flowering soon, and I am curious to see if that makes the little birds less aggressive, when there's more nectar to go around....
03-AUG-2010
Ash-throated Flycatcher #0074
Later in our vacation to visit friends in Colorado, we ventured to Ridgway (about 10 miles N of Ouray). Our friends have a great deck at the front of their house, which looks out onto a hillside covered with pines. There I saw this bird flying from tree to tree. It held still long enough for this picture.
Apparently, flycatchers are a bit hard to distinguish, and I have never seen this particular bird before, and so I settled on calling this one an Ash-throated Flycatcher based on its external appearance and the location where we observed it (SW Colorado). Other close flycatcher calls are typically found too far east or too far south to be very probable sightings.
31-JUL-2010
Red-tailed Hawk #9932
We took a short vacation to visit friends in Colorado, and went to the Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge in Arvada. These are a couple of lakes that were originally built by someone who wanted to raise frogs there. It is now one of the smallest sites in the National Wildlife Refuge system. It consists of a few paths that encircle a couple of small ponds. We did not see much wildlife -- a few ducks, some Barn Swallows, and this ragged-looking Red-tailed Hawk flying over.
29-JUL-2010
House Finch #9860
It's time to clean the seed feeder. In the last couple of days, I have seen a few females with inflamed eyes. It's a strain of the bacteria Mycoplasma gallisepticum, and causes the conjunctive tissue around their eyes to swell. Their eyes can swell enough that they cannot open them at all (rendering them vulnerable to starvation and predators). Normally, they go through the feeder in about two days, and when it gets close to empty, I bring it in and clean it with dilute bleach. I doubt it helps much to prevent the spread of the eye disease, but it has to be better than nothing.
In the early spring, I was seeing perhaps 30% of the House Finches affected, although I am sure the statistics are inflated towards infected birds, which tend to congregate around the feeder because it's easy picking. In the late spring and early summer, the problem seemed to disappear, so I was disappointed to see this poor bird affected.
28-JUL-2010
Rufous Hummingbird #0025
The Rufous Hummingbirds are about the only interesting ones to photograph lately. Here I tried to catch this male while he was hovering near the feeder. We have been hearing the wing whistle of Broad-tailed Hummingbirds flying around, but the Rufous keeps them away from the feeder. Black-chinned Hummingbird females will sometimes sneak onto the feeder when no one else is looking!