Sunday, January 29, 2012

1_29_2012 Miscellaneous Backyard Birds

A few additional backyard bird shots. Highlighted are photos of "Curly Bill". He's a Flicker who visits and has an out-of-alignment bill. Because of this, the bill grow in an improper fashion, and they grow long. We've not seen him in the last week and are hoping he's doing well.

We recently had a Cooper's Hawk in the backyard. We watched him for 30 minutes or so as he eyed our "pet" rats that live below our lower deck. The rats have been there since the deck was remodeled.

As we thought may happened, the hawk in the flash of an eye, swooped down and pulled one of the rats from a tiny squeeze spot and dined. We've not seen the other rat since (though he was there that day). Not sure if he moved on or the hawk returned later for a snack.

The next bird is just a big fluffy Eurasian Collared Dove. They are standard backyard visitors. Quiet and pretty. They are starting to call more signaling the return of Spring.

And finally, a pretty Kestrel that was hanging around out back recently. These birds have always reminded me of parakeets on steroids.






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2 comments:

nancy said...

Great shots of the 'locals'! those ducks are something else, very 'friendly'?! I also heard about the snowy owl irruption on ebird.org--have you seen that site? Hope curly Bill has made a return!

daveandcallie said...

Thanks for the head's up on ebirds. Haven't checked it out. Been using this one: http://coloradobirdingsociety.net16.net/#Front%20Range%20and%20Northern%20Colorado. Still no luck on the Snowy Owl though according to the site, the juvenile continues to be seen daily. Curly Bill has not returned. I hope nothing bad happened to him. Even with the bill, he was eating and drinking fine.