"birding" fun

[SCEtoAUX]

Colorful starling.
As Don mentioned the European starlings in the USA are quite numerous. Thousands in flocks blanketing trees and the ground, leaving their calling cards on everything.

[whulsey]

Here's one I shot this morning, not sure what it is and this is as close as I've been able to get to.

[SCEtoAUX]

That might be a Brewer's Blackbird.

[whulsey]

Could be, will need to get closer to get a good look. There are a couple of other species hanging around but they're really flighty so haven't been able to get shots.

Unlike the sparrow family that's living in one of the support channels for my front porch room. Makes my black cat just crazy.

[Don Boose]

As I recall from our previous trips across the Southwest, you have some interesting birds in Arizona. This one is definitely a black bird, but it also looks like some kind of grosbeak.

I think I had a grosbeak at the feeder today, but failed to capture a snapshot.

As for blackboards, we have grackles and starlings year round, red winged blackbirds at this time of the year, and sometimes during late spring we get brown-headed cowbirds. Lotsa robins and the occasional oriole now.

Once during a spring visit to Cape May, I sat by a pond and watched thousands of assorted blackbirds teeming in the trees across the way. A mass migration under way.

Don

[birder]

To me it looks like it may be a male Phainopepla...

[whulsey]

Glen, that's interesting id. Haven't noticed the crested feathers. Guess I'm just going to have to drag myself out of bed earlier to head up the hillside and stake out a position were I can get a closer shot when he shows up.

[Don Boose]

Glen -

I am glad to make the acquaintance of the Phainopepla. I never saw one on our few trips across the southwest, and enjoyed seeing Wayne's image.

Now I have a question. This morning, a small flock of vivid little black and bright orange birds with white wing markings settled into the branches of our blooming silverbell tree and began eating the blossoms (or, more probably, eating insects in and around the blossoms). By the time I got my camera, I was only able to take a couple of quick snapshots.

The colors are consistent with rose-breasted grosbeaks in breeding plumage, which often show up in our garden at this time of the year, but the bills seems more slender to my eye. Unfortunately, in my snapshot the bill is not visible.

The only other contenders, I think, are the American Redstart (but they don't have white wing markings), the Eastern Towhee (wing patches are quite different) and the Spotted Towhee (dead ringer, but almost never show up in southeastern Pennsylvania).

I would be grateful for your i.d., or that of any of the other Birding Fun friends.

In other news, our back garden is looking pretty, and our pet catbirds showed up yesterday (the exact same day that they have shown up in previous years). No good image yet, but I anticipate they will be daily visitors in our back garden for the rest of the year.

The northern juncos (which Lil calls the snow birds) are long gone, but the other winter birds, the white-throated sparrows, are in abundance).

Don

[SCEtoAUX]

Don, looks like an oriole to me, maybe a Baltimore Oriole.

[Don Boose]

I would love them to have been orioles! I hope you're right. The colors, markings, and shape are all correct for a Baltimore Oriole, and we do get them here from time to time.

I discounted the oriole identification on the basis of size, but the apparent size may have been deceptive.

Many thanks!

Don (from Baltimore)