Cassin’s Finch

A little bit blurry, taken from behind my home office window this morning, but this beautiful male Cassin’s finch made a quick visit to my backyard.  Click on the photo to get a better view of the rosy red head, throat, and rump. He’s a stunner!

House Sparrows,Taking a Dirt Bath!

It’s true! Three lovely adult female house sparrows were taking dirt baths in my backyard! It seems that their process is to make rounded indentations in the ground first, in essence creating a “tub.” Once the tub is created, each bird then moves around and shakes its body and feathers to dust up the dirt and [...]

Mourning Doves, Trio of Visitors!

Too sweet! I don’t often get to photograph multiple birds at one time in my yard, so this is a very lucky shot. Click on the photo for a better view. Notice the black spots on their wings. One challenge for birders is identifying birds when they are at different angles, oftentimes obscuring their faces and more [...]

Mourning Dove, Visiting

Amidst the chaos of my fading weeds is this beautiful mourning dove.  I took this photo from behind a bedroom window and its been here for at least 30 minutes, enjoying my garden. Mourning doves are regular visitors to my garden.
Though this bird may seem common, it is a most welcome visitor to my garden. Its soft cooing [...]

Rufous Hummingbird at Dusk!

I happened to be lucky enough to have my camera at the ready when a rufous hummingbird swooped in to get to my dwarf salvia! A light supper? It’s a bit hard to see but the hummer is in front of my black plastic flower container in the back. Click on the photo and you’ll [...]

Northern Mockingbird

I enjoy northern mockingbirds tremendously. Their beautiful and often-changing songs are a perfect way to end the day on the patio after a long day of work! They’re very territorial and will confront and attack birds may times its size. The one the right was singing the entire time I was taking photographs. They’re also [...]

Follow Up on Tree Bark “Lawn”

It’s been a few days since installing the tree bark “lawn,” for lack of a better word. It looks great, but it seems also to have drawn interest from birds, primarily house sparrows. I’m not sure if they’re thinking that the bark may be hiding places for insects, insect larvae, seeds, or any or none [...]

Hummingbird

I was having dinner in my backyard, enjoying the spring breeze and the close of a nice weekend when I saw a rufous hummingbird fly rather low and feed on my lantana! It was quite a site – I hadn’t imagined lantana as being the type of plant that hummers enjoy, but apparently this one [...]

A Beautiful Spring Day

My plants are thriving, which is always a blessing. I had to remove 3 ill-looking rose plants today, but I was able to replace them with 3 new roses: Hybrid (1), which is mauve-colored and Helmut Schmidt (2), yellow. I took a photo of my garden today. What has been a tremendous relief for me is [...]