Sunday, November 30, 2014

Almost December

Official Winter is just three weeks away, we may be 2 days away from our first good rain of the winter season in Southern California - let's hope the forecasts are correct!

This time of year it's all about the hummers, the orioles are long gone of course. The winter population is about 1/3 of the summer crowd, a bit easier on my wallet ;-)

Most commonly seen now are the Anna's hummers, then a few Allen's and Blackchinned. Today, I am only sure of seeing Anna's, some of the males head and neck (gorget) feathers are quite showy - though today's overcast weather is not very conducive to showing off!

A couple of Anna's males

Lookouts! One male and three females perched over the feeders as if to keep an eye out for danger.

 One male coming in to join three already feeding
 The gorget on this guy is quite dark from this angle - like black velvet!
 Here's one putting on a rainbow effect!


We still have a couple of scrub jays making regular visits, seems like he is looking for something.
Oh yes, a peanut!!





We get a pretty good breakfast crowd of doves, mostly mourning doves with a couple of much smaller common ground doves for good measure. And plenty of lesser finches still giving the finch sock a workout. Mr Sharpie, the sharp shinned hawk is also coming around occasionally - what can you do?

4 comments:

  1. The scrub jays are anything but scrubby. I think they are quite handsome and especially like their white eyebrow over the dark cheek. They are so smart, too.

    The rainbow effect you managed to catch on that one Anna is spectacular. I don't think I have ever seen such a wide range of colors on one tiny gorget. The one next to him at the feeder is how they usually are seen -- just a hint of red on the edge of black velvet.

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    1. Hi BC! I see you got the comment to work this time ;-)

      I don't recall ever seeing such a range of color on one of them either, and of course, I didn't know it would turn out that way while I was taking the photo - nice luck!

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  2. Do you have peanuts in your feeders or just scatter them around?.... Carolyn

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    1. Hi Carolyn! Generally I keep the peanuts in two bowls a couple feet off the ground. Trying to avoid feeding the squirrels or bunnies!

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