There are american robin, northern mockingbird, house finch, cardinal, blue jay, swallow, sparrow, crow and raven. I wrote about them in my previous blogs such as "See who my neighbors are", "Spring Time Stories" and "Spring is Coming".
We frequently see Robins wandering on my front yards, Northern Mocking birds chasing crows away from their trees, or perching on the tree tops. House Finches have daily presence as well, these small song birds are lovely. Swallows, Sparrows fly by from time to time, occasionally, cardinals pay a visit, crows congregate on a big tree across street, blue jays make piercing sound from neighbor's yard.
Now I could tell from their chirpings or calls what birds they are.
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| American Robin on the Curbside |
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| Northern Mocking Bird |
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| A male house finch |
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| A female house finch |
The elegant and graceful grand egrets and blue heron, are further away from our house, they usually visit the pond at the community park about a mile away. Earlier this week we saw blue heron caught a fish and swallowed it whole!
At this time of the year, a common scene is the cute, lovely ducklings lined up marching forward with mom and rarely dad in tow,
What excited us the most is the sightings of new types of birds,
Last Sunday, on the way home from the pond, we took a shortcut, and saw a few birds by a puddle. I aimed sony alpha at them, and clicked away. Looking carefully they don't look like any bird we saw before, It turned out that they are sandpipers.
Last Tuesday, we left the house a bit later than usual, around 7:30pm - the busiest time at the park.
We walked across a soccer field, and I spotted the elegant bird with white head and breast, yellowish leg, and super long tail! It jumped around a bit, and then posed for me for a few seconds and flew away! It is a scissor-tailed flycatcher.
We avoided the crowd at the pound and went to the back of baseball field. I heard a unique bird chirping, and was sure it was from a bird I had never saw, and spotted two birds, walking along the drainage channel, they have alternating black and white rings on their necks! They behave strangely to us, I believe that the female bird was laying eggs, male bird was patrolling. These were killdeers! Checking "All about birds" website, I knew that killdeers stay in the same general area during hatching period, so we went to check on them yesterday evening - the female killdeer was hatching eggs quietly in the rocks by the drainage - it camouflages so well we would not see it if we were not looking for it.
There are many birds around, but we don't expect see these rarities every time we walk around or go to the park. It takes patience and luck to spot them.
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| A red bellied woodpecker |
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| A grand egret in mid fly |
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| A blue heron, which caught and swallowed a fish a few minutes ago |
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| A duck family |
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| Sandpipers by a puddle |
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| Killdeer |
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| Scissor-tailed fly catcher |
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