Sunday, February 27, 2011

Mystery bird



When the snow came earlier this week we saw an enormous increase in the birds at our feeder. Here are the usual sparrows and juncos, and below the larger towhee nudging his way in.











Of course there's our resident Anna's hummingbird trying to avoid getting snowballs on his beak while feeding.










But then there was this one, new to me and quite a bit bigger than the others.  I couldn't find it in my  bird book, even with its beautiful plumage. Any idea what it is? 

When we lived in the city we never paid much attention to birds but up here on the hill we're captivated.

4 comments:

  1. Glad I could help with the varied thrush...it's a cousin of the American robin and we have them around almost the whole year. Now, the Anna's hummingbird we rarely see. And to have over-wintering hummers - of any kind - is impossible. Isn't it fun to watch the 'regulars' come each day?

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  2. We both posted about birds this morning on our blog ... Fabulous.

    Such a handsome little fellow. I thought he might be a Evening Grosbeak but as I really only know the birds around Arizona that was just my guess.

    We had some snow for Sunday morning but by the afternoon it was all gone in the valley but still on the mountains today !

    cheers, parsnip

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  3. Hi all, yes I believe it is a female varied thrush--and a very fat one at that. Tonight in spite of a little more snow this morning, it's pretty well all gone. The birds say hooray and so do I.

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