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She's the female of the mating pair of Western Scrub Jays that owns my yard and my neighbor's. I've got her trained to take peanuts from the palm of my hand. The male is much more wary -- I have to put the peanuts on the fence for him before he'll take them.
I'm a fan of the corvids in general -- Scrub Jays, Steller's Jays, magpies. Crows? Not so much. I respect them, but I don't *like* them.
I also like pheasants, because they're so incredibly gaudy, but when you spot them, they do their very best to look nonchalant.
Juncos and white-crowned sparrows are the winter birds here. They show up in early fall, leave at the end of spring. All that would be fine, except that they are voracious eaters of my winter garden. They eat lettuce and pea sprouts to the ground.
Every year I try to plant my winter garden before the arrival of the migratory birds. Last year, that was early October. They came in the 2nd week of October.
This year, I was going to plant them late September. The sparrows showed up on the 22nd.
Raptors: Hawks, eagles, falcons....My brother had a Dalmatian bitch he named Buzz Aldrin Jr. II; when he screamed at me to stop saying Buzzard I said " Topa Topa (the California condor who had been recently rescued) is a buzzard".
I love most birds. I was on my bike the other day and a huge, beautiful hawk was sitting on the ground and flew right past me. I mostly missed it because I was listening to my iPod in a trance.
My most favorite bird is the cardinal. It was my elementary school mascot. I'm a sucker for anything with wintry scenes with cardinals. Last year I bought Christmas paper plates and napkins with a cardinal scene. A long time ago my grandmother gave me a snow globe with a wintry cardinal scene that sung, "Oh What a Beautiful Morning." I have Christmas cardinal fabric waiting to be sewn into an apron. I buy cardinal Christmas wrapping paper. I better slow down. The next thing you know I'll be buying matching cardinal T-shirts.
I love hummingbirds, chickadees, tufted titmice, and warblers. Heck, I like most birds. I keep checklists during the winter to count the number of species that come to my feeders. One winter day, I had 17 different types of birds in one day!
Hummiebirds, no doubt. I have two feeders just outside my home office window. I watch them all spring and summer while using the computer. Unfortunately, they all left about a week ago for their southern migration.
The cedar waxwings, even though they are voracious noisy birds, are my favorite looking bird because of their smooth creamy color. I swear I can almost hear the color they are even though I;m not synaesthetic normally. I got a new dorky birdfeeder this week and I've been enjoying the up-close birdtime.
While I wouldn't necessarily say mourning doves are my *favorite* bird, their song is one of my favorite sounds ever, and achingly evocative of the long, soft, fragrant, glowing summer dusks of my youth.
Jessamyn that is a great shot! What a cute bird, too. I'd love to set up a birdfeeder by my window but I've got stupid dorm room windows. :(
I love birds in general. But my favorite standard bird would have to be the Goldfinch, probably because they were the most colorful birds I saw when growing up, and they always stood out from the other brown finches.
It's funny, finches are so common, but I don't have a single good photograph of a goldfinch.
Yet.
(Also, Kat, I had always thought it was "morning dove," which sounded rather cheery to me. You learn something new every day.)
I'm a fan of pretty much all birds, but I get a real thrill from seeing herons strutting around at the edge of a lake, or the salt marshes when we're down near the coast.
I am a fan of warblers. They're small and less well-known than backyard birds. They're also a challenge to identify, as the females and juveniles (as well as the non-breeding males) are barely distinguishable from species to species most of the time.
I could seriously go on and on. I've had dreams in the last couple weeks about both the Cerulean Warbler and the Painted Bunting. The Kirtland's is near-extinct, and only lives in one small habitat in the north-central portion of Michigan's lower peninsula. Some May I'll have to hire a guide.
I didn't get out to bird enough this fall migration. Sigh.
Oh YAYYY what a lovely thread and such great photographs. I love knowing what birds you love.
Yes, the soft purring coo of the mourning dove is one of my favorites too. Something so tenderly gentle about it.
And my god netbros, that is more hummingbirds in one place than I've ever seen in my entire life. Incredible! wow.
Yes, cardinals are awesome in their scarlet redness. That color seems so exotic next to the other birds they hang with, like junkos and sparrows. When cardinals and blue jays come together it's such a great visual combo.
I love cardinals on autumn leaves, greenyrust is a nice background for them.
Is that painted bunting for real? It really looks painted. What an outfit for a wee little bird.
Nothing like the thrush's song for me though, such extraordinary trilling, fluid and lyrical, makes me feel high on the beauty of it.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
