Travel Tips

I have many wild birds that stop in my backyard for a drink and maybe a meal.
Some stay around all year and some are only here for a visit on their journey farther north or south.
Since I started keeping a record, in 1997, I have recorded over 50 different species of birds here.
Not bad for living in a city.
The Rufous Hummingbird comes by for a few days in Oct. on his way south. I am always on the lookout for him. He has a flaming bright orange-red gorget.
One year we had an immature rufous hummingbird spend the winter in our evergreen tree. I would get up every morning and put out warm food for him. Several from the Audubon Society came by to see it.

The Goldfinches are here from late Dec to mid-May eating niger seeds from the feeders.
Around the 5th of May, every year, the Painted buntings show up to eat with them.
They only stay for a couple of days and then they are gone until next year.
The males are multi colored like the one in the pictures but the female is a light green and hard to see.

This little bird flew a long way to get to my yard or maybe not.
I believe this bird to be a Red Bishop from the weaver family in Africa.
He stayed around for several weeks and then he left.
I suspect that he was someones pet but who knows?

This Ruby-crowned Kinglet is looking in my kitchen window as if to say "Hey, I'm back."
He is one of the tiniest of our birds, right in there with the hummingbirds and smallest wrens.
They have a wide eyed look because of their large eye ring.
They come by in the fall, flit from tree to tree looking for bugs, stay a few days and go farther south until spring when they return to Canada and Alaska..

Flocks of Cedar Waxwings come through here in the spring on their way north when the crops are ready there.
They stop to eat some berries and small fruit here and there on their way.
They are beautiful birds with their black mask and eyes and yellow tip on their tail.
I just saw a large flock here last week (Jan) which is the earliest I have ever seen them.
I am sure they will be back when the Mulberries get ripe.

Every summer a pair of Downy Woodpeckers have one or two babies.
After they are out of the next, the male brings them to our surt feeder.
After they master that, he shows them the nut feeders.
This is a picture of Daddy feeding his offspring.

This beautiful Common Yellow-throat is not common here. We have only seen it one time. He was in our scrubbery.
It is a North American Warbler and is abundunt in marshes and thickets.
Its bright yellow underparts and dashing black mask make him look much different than other warblers.

Yes, we do have the Green Parakeets in South Texas and the Monk Parakeet around Fort Worth and Dallas but blue and yellow parakeets?
This pair showed up at our feeder one spring day and they came to feed all summer. When it became fall, they left.
The next spring I sawe the blue one for one day and then never again.
I often wonder what happened to them. I really enjoyed having them here.