So I saw this cheeky chappie today..thought he was a sparrow, but then noticed the green tinge in his breast. He seemed quite involved in something and allowed me to get quite close. I saw that he was eating what seemed to be one of my wasps. Crunch, crunch...
I've never seen a sparrow do that so I googled a bit and think it was this guy. The Yellow Bellied Flycatcher.

We get a much wider variety of birds in our yard than we ever used to in the UK. Everything from humming birds to geese!

It's amazing...it's my second career...
Like a jungle when I wake up in the morning.

I always stop to watch the humming birds. They seem so exotic.

I saw a bee at the hummingbird feeder.
The hummingbird flew in and butted it out the way with disdain.

Looks like one I caught a photo of a couple years ago at my sisters in San Diego.

Other then Canada Geese, Crows and Bald Eagles, I can't say what other birds we have around here, this time of year a lot of sparrow sized birds, hummingbirds, owls, hawks, some sort of vulture, wood peckers.

We even had some hummingbirds winter over this year instead of leaving, usually we don't see any from around October to Feb.

Argh !

Photos people. Photos.

I love to read about the behaviours , where they were seen and all that stuff.

I think I might be a bit of a twitcher.

Here in New Zealand I am hoping to finally get down our West Coast this coming Spring to visit a Kotuku / white heron reserve. I always know when Autumn has arrived and Winter is almost with us as individual white herons and spoonbills start to appear around the coastline and estuary. Then each Spring they are back to the reserve to mate.

We've been invited to stay with some American pals of ours when they return to the States for good shortly. That would be Lake City Minnesota & they have been carrot dangling with the thought of the assorted birds to be seen, including hummingbirds , eagles and the like . So very very tempting.

Bevs...it's tough if you don't have a suitable camera. I'm sorry.
But I will be getting one at some point.

My old job used to involve me studying birds. That was only to know which distress call to play to try to scare me off before I had to shoot them mind

I don't find as much time as I'd like to watch them, but we get quite a variety of birds, including two species of woodpecker and a tree creeper. We had a couple of large oaks die a few years ago, one in the woods in front of the house, and one in the woods behind the house. Because they were well back from the house, lawn, and any road or driveway (so will do no harm when they fall, as the one at the back did a few weeks ago), we left them for the woodpeckers to rip apart, and both of them have been ripped to pieces, so they seem to have served the birds well.

Found two halves of an egg rolling about the front yard the other day. So small and delicate. Looking online it was probably a sparrow egg.

I tried to show it to Young Sir bit he was pretending to be a dog.

Some photos

and some more!

Great photos. We have a cardinal and his missus that sit on my porch every morning around 7am and then have breakfast at the feeder and then go away. A woodpecker has been known to attempt to feed at it too and I am surprised it hasn't pulled it off. There is one bird that just seems to yell. It is so bloody loud! A couple egrets wander around late in the day and something that looks like a kestrel has been spotted in the neighborhood too. I do love sitting on my porch and watching them. A bird did lay eggs in an old christmas tree stand in our backyard a couple years ago but they never hatched.

I even spotted a bald eagle on the way to my husbands work. It was just sitting there minding its own business. I think I scared my kids when I yelled, "look, a bald eagle!" at the top of my voice in our small car!

Our "cartoon ducks" - that's what the kids christened them a few years back. I think they are black bellied whistlers, but the kids name works for me.