Hoary Redpolls!

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Yay!  A new yard bird, and a new life bird!  We've had lots of the Common Redpolls in past years, but this spring was the first time hosting the Hoaries!  So much variety in these birds!  The numbers fluctuated, we only had about a dozen redpolls at any time, but most of the time, the Hoaries seemed to be in the majority!  Very cool little birds!  Whereas the Commons look tannish or greyish, the Hoaries are so bright white, they shine!

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Drawing - Hairy Woodpecker

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Hairy Woodpecker - Graphite on Paper

Copyright 2011, Nicole MacPherson

Nope, couldn't resist drawing that preening Hairy!
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Spring cleaning!

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Well, spring has finally arrived!  It's hard to not be jealous of those bloggers who live south of me (which is almost everyone) in the spring, as all their yards become alive with birds well before mine!

But we are (almost) out of snow, and our juncos and robins are back!  Yay!

That said, I want to talk about a year-round bird, the Hairy Woodpecker.  Or one in particular, anyways.  I don't have a lot of good photos of Hairies.  Most of my photos show them tap-tap-tapping along.  Typical behavior, but not so interesting! 

I'd spied a male Hairy on one of the trees out back, he was tap-tap-tapping away, hanging upside down.  I took photos anyways.  Just because.  Then a trunk rumbled by, and started him.  Dang!  But instead of flying off, he jumped onto the top of the branch.  Must have found a sunny spot, he soon started fluffing his feathers out, sunning and preening. 

My photos aren't the greatest, but I got a kick out of his poses!

Looks kind of like a sleeping Ruddy Duck!

That's a LOT of fluff! 

Now what is that expression?  I suppose we'll call that blissed out.  Gotta love that spring sunshine!

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Drawing - Tennessee Warbler

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Tennessee Warbler - Graphite on Paper

Copyright 2011, Nicole MacPherson

I complain alot about living in the city.  There is one big advantage to where we live though - warblers!!  We live pretty close to the middle of this pretty big city, with a pretty small yard, but quite close to the river and among a lot of big, old trees.  So we actually have a pretty cool yard list, all things considered. 

We've had Tennessee Warblers, Yellow Warblers, Yellow-Rumped Warblers, Wilsons Warblers, Canada Warblers, Mourning Warblers, Nashville Warblers, Black and White Warblers, Blackpoll Warblers, Bay Breasted Warblers, Chestnut Sided Warblers, Blackburnian Warblers, Cape May Warblers, Palm Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, Ovenbirds, Orange Crowned Warblers and a lone Northern Waterthrush. 

Hoping for a Black-Throated Green Warbler for this year!  The only other two I think I could even hope for would be Pine Warbler and Northern Parula, but probably very slim chances there!

They don't stay long at all, and nearly all of my pictures I've taken of warblers SUCK, but May is a pretty fun month around here! 
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Oak Hammock Marsh!

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Finally had a chance to get out of the city over the weekend!  Only had time for a brief trip, so we headed up to Oak Hammock Marsh.  Not a whole lot of birds to see yet, but it's always great to leave town!  Blue skies and warm temps, what could be better...



There was even some open water!  Yay! 

Lone tree and distant, colorful clouds

The sky was so pretty

We only saw Canada Geese there, but returned to town by Blackdale Road, and saw a distant hawk!  Picture kind of sucks, but looks like a Rough-Legged Hawk to me!

What a great day.

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