Pained Bunting and Black-Throated Sparrow

11 May 2014 - wabbaloo

Finally got a picture of the male Painted Bunting.  It's great to have him back; he's the most beautiful bird we have in our menagerie. I think I saw the female today, but I'm not quite sure.  Here's the male:

Also, looks like we have a black-throated sparrow. Most of the sparrows we have are chipping sparrows, I believe.  What struck us right away was the black throat, so I grabbed the camera. Here he is, drinking with the daddy Cardinal:

We also happened to see the hummingbird check out the Mexican Oregano plant we have at the base of our main bird feeders. It has some nice light purple blooms right now. It reminded me to clean and refill our hummingbird feeder :-(

Until next time!

Return of the Painted Bunting?

4/29/2014 -- Wabbaloo

The kids say they saw a painted bunting at our feeder today.  I wasn't able to get a picture, and didn't see it long enough to ID it.  Stay tuned...

Carolina Wren babies arrive

4/14/2014 - Wabbaloo

Looks like the 5 or 6 eggs in the nest that a pair of wrens built in one of our rosebush containers hatched yesterday or today. The kiddies actually discovered them this afternoon after pre-school, so what a momentous discovery for them.

Picture attached, which is actually a snapshot from the 90-second video my wife took with her Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7. This is a _great_ camera! Has 12x optical zoom, lots of settings.  The second picture is a pic of one of the wrens.

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird and unidentified bird call

12 April 2014 - Wabbaloo

Got a good pic of the ruby-throated hummingbird today.  

Wednesday, I got a glimpse of something that first struck my ears, as it was a call I had not heard before in my yard. I recorded the call with my camera, please give it a listen to see if you know what it is:

I was in the backyard when I heard the call, so I followed the sound to near the garage, where I spied the bird on top of a security camera, but then it flew away immediately into the tall tall trees. I was never able to get a picture.  The only thing that I could register before it flew off was that the head looked somewhat pointed (???) and that it was a dark-colored bird.  I continue the hunt...

EGGS! In a plant!

4/5/14- Nicholas

          We have discovered eggs in a Carolina Wren nest that is in a knock-out rose container!!!  There are several in there.  The nest is cleverly built as a roof over the soil, with a "side opening."  

A Carolina Wren nest with eggs.

//UDPATED// Spring 2014 - here's what we have so far this year

4/2/2014 - Wabbaloo

With spring here, I figure I should resurrect our birdwatching blog.

In the backyard bird area, we have a pole with two tube feeders (one with niger, the other with a mix; they bring the finches, titmice, chickadees, and what appears to be a common swift) and a traditional feeder with the sunflower seed mix (cardinals and titmice).  We also have a hummingbird feeder, and saw our first hummingbird this year on 14 March 2014.

Our cardinals:

Our finches:

We have a mealworm feeder which has only seen Carolina wrens visiting it. The wrens have built a next inside a large plant container which houses a knockout rose bush.  If I recall correctly, these are our wrens:

We've been visited by a ladder-backed woodpecker on the other side of the yard a few times, and we occasionally see white winged doves.

The common swift I believe I'm seeing at the feeder coincides with the building of a nest on the other side of the house.  Haven't seen them at our feeders in the past, kind of interesting.  Not 100% sure it's a swift, but it looks pretty close. I've reached out.

Looks like we have male and female brown-headed cowbirds. See http://nature.gardenweb.com/forums/load/bird/msg04195646760.html?2 for my question on Garden Web's Birdwatching Forum. Here are 3 pics:

Also, the chickadees have started using the little birdhouse that's been hanging up on a post for years in the backs.

We have NOT seen the return of the male and female painted buntings that we've had in the past!

Both feeders:

Stay tuned for further updates.  Will get a pic of the swift nest, the wren nest, the chickadees in the bird house, and I think the cardinals are building a nest as well.

New System!

1/3/2014 - Nicholas

         We have a new bird feeder system: a pole with four "arms" to hang bird feeders from and one on top of the pole and a flower-shaped bird feeder. Hopefully there will be ore birds now!

4/18/2013-Nicholas

            I  have just started seeing a variation of birds in the past several weeks ago, and I hope to be posting more posts now!

23 July 2012 -- male Painted Bunting (Daddy)

Looks like I forgot that Nicholas had already posted a picture of a male painted bunting last month.  But here's my post anyway...

After months of trying, I finally got a picture of the male painted bunting at our backyard feeder.  The first time we saw this bird (a few years ago), we weren't really into birding, and we thought that maybe this was someone's in-house bird that happened to get out from its cage or something.  Since then, it is one of our favorite guests at our feeder because of its great colors.  The female, while not having as many colors, is just as nice to look at.

Get Off The Bird feeder!

7/10/12-Nicholas


             At my house I saw a Squirrel upside down on the bird feeder!

 

Painted Buntings

6/20/12-Nicholas

                 We finally got a picture of a Painted Bunting at our bird feeder!  Here are some pictures of them.  

   

A Hummingbird Nest!

6/8/12-Nicholas

    With a new hummingbird feeder, we have spotted a hummingbird nest with two eggs in the nest in a side field

of ours!  We have also seen numerous hummingbirds at the new feeder that we got.

Rattlesnake at our house!!

5/29/12/-Nicholas

  We saw a diamond-back rattlesnake 2 feet from our driveway dead with blood on its stomach on 5/27/12.  There were flies and gnats eating the snake!

A New Bird!

 5/22/12-Nicholas

I just saw this bird at the bird feeder that I haven't seen before.  If you think you know what type of bird this could be, please share it with us.  

Roadrunner! And Finch!

5/18/2012 - Wabbaloo

We have frequently seen roadrunners traipse through the yard with no respect for human presence, flaunting their latest catch of lizards.  Today was no exception.  Right there on the little walkway between the hummingbird/butterfly garden and the sitting area/container garden.  I couldn't get the camera in time to get a good pic, so I went out the front door and anticipated he'd be on the side or back of the house.  Saw him fly up into a cedar tree, make his way to the other side, and hop down into the neighbor's back yard.  I was able to get a pic of it against a fence, but it's just a pic of him from behind.  I was surprised that he didn't just walk through the high grass into the next yard.  Maybe he knew I was following him.  First pic is looking at him (in the neighbor's yard) from my yard:

Next is a crop from the above.  Unfortch, we only have a "beautiful" rear view of him, so you mostly make out the tail and that's it.  The camera will be placed near the window from now on.

As for the finch, no picture, unfortch.  Saw him fly out from a shrub in the front up to a Crepe Myrtle as I was walking by with the Pookaloo.  We do have a feeder out in front, but don't see a lot of traffic.  We've just planted two new Monterey Oaks in the back, though, and may put some feeders there.

As always, comments/suggestions welcome.

Sorry

5/3/12-Nicholas

    Sorry we don't post all our bird sightings, we do have to admit that there are a lot of bird that we should be posting, but we aren't. 

A Titmouse

4/27/12-Nicholas

   We have always seen titmice at our house and this is a picture of a so-called titmouse.  I think titmice are funny, small, and cute.  The picture is not all that great, but the bird is on the right side of the bird feeder.  

White-Winged Doves, Finches, and Butterflies!

4/25/2012 - Nicholas

        Yesterday I saw a white-winged dove in our bird feeder area.  Last year we saw a lot of white-winged doves in our backyard.  This time, the white-winged dove was on the sidewalk in front of our bird feeder just walking and picking on some bits of mulch.  It was the first white-winged dove we saw this year.

                 We also have been seeing several finches at our new finch bird feeder for the first time.  We've had that bird feeder for a couple months but only now have the finches started to come. We'll try to get some pics of the finches and doves.

                This past couple of weeks we have been sighting monarch butterflies at our house.  We have lantanas and butterfly weeds planted to attract the beautiful butterflies to our home.  

This pic is from a website on monarch butterflies.

Barn Swallow in Ozona, TX

4/15/2012 - Nicholas and Wabbaloo

While traveling to Carlsbad, NM, we observed quite a few barn swallows at a rest stop just outside of Ozona, TX.  They were perched under a shade above a back door of the store there.

Been on a Trip!

4/15/12-Nicholas

   Sorry we haven't been posting, we've been in New Mexico!!!