More Birds of a Feather

Earlier this year I posted photos of the golden-cheeked warblers that nest on the cedar-covered “mountain” on the east side of the farm.  But they’re not the only feathered friends that visit here.  In addition, each summer we see and hear the painted buntings.  From the number of calls, there are many of them, but they are so tiny and quick that we usually get only a glimpse.  They do visit our feeders, however, and with the drought here so severe, we have seen more than usual.  They are shy, though, and ordinarily feed from the back side of the feeder.  This handsome male gave me a pretty good view for a few seconds.  

His mate, and at least one other pair are frequent visitors, and a bit later they should bring the family as well.  

A special treat this year has been seeing this amazing blue grosbeak.  He has only visited a couple of times that I know of, but he is breath-taking.  

The grosbeak is 6 to 7.5 inches long, with a very thick bill and wide buff or cinnamon wing-bars.  They are said to be common through Texas and much of the southeast during breeding season, but this is the first year we have seen them.  

Grosbeaks forage mostly on the ground on a diet of insects and seeds.  This one and his mate picked up seeds under our feeders.

Another summer visitor that we hear and see often is the summer tanager.  Like our native northern cardinals, he is red, but a little more orange than the cardinal.   This year we have seen tanagers flitting among the trees, but I haven’t had a good opportunity to photograph one.  This photo is from a couple of years ago.

Not nearly so colorful, but just as interesting are our Bewick’s (pronounced like “Buick”) wrens.  This species is common here, but east of the Great Plains it is uncommon and declining.  We are fortunate to have these busy little birds as neighbors.  They are year-round residents, and raise a number of babies in our nest boxes each year.  This mom (or dad…they look alike to me) has a tasty grasshopper for the babies. 

 

In looking for images of our less frequent feathered friends, I realized that I take few pictures of some of our other residents, like the cardinals, tufted titmouse and Carolina chickadees.  I’ll try to add some photos of those in the future.