Monday, October 9, 2006

The Big Bust


Hi there!
Originally uploaded by egret's nest.
Well, our Big Sit was a big bust. The main reason . . . I had let the feeders go empty this week (terrible week, remember?) and the birds were still punishing me. This, despite my making up Julie Zickefoose's Bird Suet Dough . . . couldn't they smell it? Man, it smelled good to me!

So, we saw (or heard and could identify) 3 species. We sat out there all afternoon -- well, I did, the kids finally left to go do other things.

Dark-Eyed Junco
Anna's Hummingbird
Common Raven

Didn't see or hear a single Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Western Scrub Jay, or Stellar's Jay whom we normally are beating off with sticks. Normally we'd have three to four Anna's visiting and at this time of year, we'll start seeing Allen's Hummers too. Sheesh! I bet tomorrow it's bird city here. Sigh.

Still, I did get to sit out on my back deck on a gorgeous day and relax.

I tried to get some pictures of the amazing beauty of my yard but it's hard to capture through a camera lens. I got one nice shot of the setting sun coming through one of the redwoods (I have 21) in my hard.

Redwoods over my house

Here's a shot of the first winged creature of the day . . .

Well, it has wings!

And last, just because it's so pretty . . .

Geraniums

PS. They are mocking me! I came home from work just now (Monday at noon) and there were three Chickadees and an Anna's hummer on my feeders. They saw me, stuck their little tongues out and went, "Nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh" and flew off. Naughty little birds!

4 comments:

LauraHinNJ said...

Hate it when the birds disappear on count day!

Unknown said...

Yea, especially when they are so overt about it the next day. It's not as if I get a huge ton of species in my backyard. Still, it was a nice day!

Susan Gets Native said...

Oh, well. At least you got outside. We all need to soak up this weather before winter hits.
I love the juncos. They show up in late November in huge flocks and I adore every little feather on them! They are some of the most feminine birds, with the slate gray and the little pink feet. Know what I mean?

Unknown said...

Yes, Juncos are totally cheerful little birds. I adore them. Ours are the more strongly colored ones the "Oregon" Junco variety. You can see pictures (way better than MY sad attempts)here.
The different varieties are really interesting.

We have a few Juncos here year round but in the winter I get TONS at my feeders (well, under them -- they rarely come up and eat off the feeder itself).