Well, hello

Eastern Bluebirds: these guys never come to the feeders. I guess the recent cold has made their usual food hard to find. The four of them chowed down for quite a while. Hope they come back.

The water they come to often. Here with a Mourning Dove and a female Northern Cardinal

A repurposed jelly/fruit feeder. The only birds who ever came for the jelly were migrating Rose-breasted Grosbeaks; the rest of the summer I hang a hummingbird feeder here.

I love how she's holding on with one toetip

Sharing with a Downy Woodpecker and getting stinkeye from an American Goldfinch

The Singing Tree

Looked out the window just now and saw the crab apple full of house finches!

Before the Computer...

Someone posted this on Facebook - Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To ... or rather, Mark Hamill on Skellig Michael, Ireland. All those puffins? They couldn't be displaced, so they were turned into porgs.

Pretty brown bird

Here's a female House Finch. The first and third are the same bird, and probably the second is, too, as a pair breeds in the big box holly a little further down the house, but on the other hand there are several pairs that visit the feeders in the back, so maybe not. Beautiful bird in her patterned coat of brown, regardless.

Blue jay

In the crab apple tree

Mockingbirds

Yes, you saw a couple of these yesterday. So what?

Family outing

A bunch of Blue jays, siblings I think, with a couple of Northern cardinals and a Brown thrasher hurrying off somewhere

More young birds

Here are some more young birds from the back yard.

First, a Blue jay and its parent, who was seriously done feeding him.(Brown thrasher in the background)

From earlier in the month, Northern mockingbirds.

A pair of companionable siblings

Here's one who's learned to hunt bugs in the grass

Frazzled dad Northern cardinal in heavy molt with a kid, I think a male (from the red coming in on his chest). 

And lastly, a young Red-bellied woodpecker working the suet.

Baby birds... well, teenagers

(I'm not making any promises (just as well, I failed the last few) but I'm going to try to post here more often) And to start, herewith some recently fledged birds, mostly with a parent.


This young Downy woodpecker chased its mom around the suet feeder begging before finally settling down to eat on its own.

Here is a young male Northern cardinal - see all the red on his belly and face.

A pair of fledgling Northern cardinals, male (l) and female (r)

This Northern cardinal fledgling has driven her dad to distraction! (But seriously, about 15% of cardinals molt their entire head at once, like this guy.)

Eastern towhee fledgling, most likely female, with dad.

I think this Eastern towhee is male because it's getting black on its back

Brown thrashers

Blue jays

Several shots of this photogenic Northern mockingbird youngster waiting for its dad to show up.

And here dad has arrived.