Great Backyard Bird Count-Valentines Day

Another great day for the Great Backyard Bird Count. I did most of it out of my yard and spent about 4 hours going to a couple of my favorite places. In total I recorded 21 different species of birds today.

The photo above is of my current favorite backyard bird. I could watch this mocker for hours! He has a real hard time accessing the suet on this feeder, but it doesn't stop him from trying. He flies into the feeder, grabs a chunk of suet and eats it on the ground. If you enlarge the photo, you can see the suet in his beak. You can also see all of the seeds and strawberry spillage the birds have done most recently. I am dreading cleaning this up once the snow melts. Talk about a rake job!

One of 8 cedar waxwings I saw this morning. They were all on one tree eating bittersweet.

My nemeses bird, the great blue heron. This bird does not like getting its photo taken and will do whatever possible to prevent it. This causes me to stalk him the way the paparazzi stalks Brittney. I was able to get this one before it flew away. I wish the tree branch wasn't there, but I couldn't take one more step or it would have flown off and cursed me.

Allright, allright, I know I said in a previous post if I take one more titmouse picture I was going to scream, but have changed my bitter attitude some ;o). This one was just too cute not to take. It is just getting ready to fly off the branch. I love the look of intense concentration on its face.

These last two photos are of house finches. For some weird reason, the house finches have not been frequent visitors of my yard for about the past 6 weeks or so. I had 4 of them at my feeders today and they were a welcome site to see.

Have a great Saturday all and good luck with your bird count. May the force be with you. ;o)