"Tails" of a New Birder's Journey

There has been so much bird activity around the yard that today I spent hours observing the yard birds and all of their antics. Here are my notes for the day.

A female House Finch brought nesting material to the big, round blob of tangled branches in the Mesquite tree. If there’s a nest in there somewhere, it’s very well hidden.

Two House Finch males got in a kerfuffle, chasing each other around the yard. Territorial defense display?

Little Verdin made its rounds through the Salvia like a busy doctor trying to make his/her hospital rounds as quickly as possible. The House Finches seem to like the Salvia too!

Cactus Wren carrying nesting material! It looks like white downy fluff. Flew off too far for me to see where its nest might be.

The Grackle is back but thank goodness it flew off.

A Cactus Wren flew near the House Sparrow nest and the male and female ganged up on it in a fierce territorial defense display.

Two White-winged Doves have splooted in the seed tray and seem unlikely to leave any time soon.

Two Flickers are checking out a telephone pole. I’d love it if they are Gilded but a friend says that would be unusual. Gonna guess they’re Northern Flickers. Still so beautiful!

I heard a strange song and it was coming from a Lark Sparrow!! What a funky song–like a sci-fi movie soundtrack.

Two notable birds made their debut at Wingsong today.

The first is a Sage Thrasher! I saw a bird that looked like a streaky Northern Mockingbird. It was a ways off so I couldn’t get a picture of it. Then I thought, maybe it’s a female Cactus Wren because it has the streaky breast and a faint eyebrow. But I checked and there’s no sexual dimorphism in Cactus Wrens. Then, I used the “compare similar species” feature in my Sibley app and Sage Thrasher came up. It was a real ta-da moment. What a beauty!

The second bird to be added to the Wingsong lifelist was the Northern Cardinal. Now, I’ve heard this bird many times but haven’t seen it yet. Today, one was sitting in the tree in the back, right by one of the windows! It checked out the water basin and then the tube feeder, but didn’t bother to eat or drink. Then, it flew up into a tree, perched, and started singing away!! After that, it went to the front and decided to have a nibble from the front yard feeder. Because of the muted colors, I think it’s a female.