Catching Up Time

Got some catching up to do.   Nothing spectacular seen, mostly the changes of the seasons and slight shift in bird life.

I did see a clay-colored sparrow in the backyard back in September.   Will add a photo or two here when I have the time.   I did get some photos, mostly not sharp because it was an active little sparrow hopping along in the shrubs.  

Couple of weeks ago saw a white crowned sparrow, white quite vivid to the unaided eye from 25 feet, and the black stripes also were vividly black.   Saw the same bird twice, once hopping among low shrub branches and then again within an hour or so at my low platform feeder.

From my backyard near downtown on Nov. 16, I saw two geese, presumably canada geese but might have been another variety.    Haven't been to the playa lakes and so am dependent on what appears overhead at the house and yards.

Saw the first junco of the season today in the buddleia branches in the front yard this morning.   Saw a male purple finch and a male house finch too, both eyeing a feeder and wary of the watching cats.

Since late spring finches have been rare.   I don't think I saw one the whole summer.

I said nothing spectacular.   Not quite true.   One morning in October I was out after 9 a.m. looking at birds and started in, when over distant trees to the SW there was the outline of a huge bird.   It flew almost directly at me and over, pretty low, I'd guess at under a hundred feet.    With my 1985 Swift Audubons I clearly saw the red naked head.    Not at all unusual out in the country, but a rare sight inside city limits.

Which brings up another buzzard sighting.   I was driving to the dentist when at the lip of the canyon opposite the Windmill museum there were 7 vultures circling.  Something dead obviously.    Some hours later a human body was found at the east end of Jim Bartram/Dunbar Lake about a mile away as the buzzard flies.   Unrelated presumably, but not a common occurrence in the city.

Back in October I saw 3 strange birds at the Wearever gallon stewer I keep on the platform for watering birds in relative safety.   I put the glass on them and saw a strange broken white eye ring.  Excited at finding a new and possibly very rare bird I went to my copy of the Natl Geographic guide.  Robins.   I never looked a robin through binoculars before.   Red face.