Happy New Year

January is here and with it the new year. 2015 started out with very clear skies and a cold snap. Still fairly clear skies and now a warm up - mid 70s for the coming three days.

I have not see anything but Anna's hummers lately (that I could be sure of). I would expect to see an Allen's or maybe Blackchin every once and a while. Not sure which these are! Most likely female Anna's.

Here is a male Anna's at an angle showing off a little gorget color that makes them easy to ID.

This photo shows the full over the head color that Anna's males have - the light angle has to be right!

I caught one male Anna's doing a couple display gestures while sitting at a feeder, usually the displays are while aerial and hard to catch.

 Not very impressive from this angle, but the male (center in photo) is fanning out his gorget (colorful neck feathers) for the female (lower right of photo).

Below, the same male fans out his tail feathers - not sure she is taking note ;-)

 

I took a quick survey of birds noted during lunch today - house finches, lesser finches, spotted towhee, California towhees, mourning doves, hummingbirds, red tail hawk, red shoulder hawk, scrub jay, dark eyed juncos, common ground dove. Unexpectedly missing - crow, raven, turkey vulture.

A first time sighting from a couple days ago - two Acorn woodpeckers! I think they close to a nearby park that has several old large oak trees. The one near the top of the photo is either playing or lost his grip - he hanging upside down!

 A different angle to help in my IDing of bird online.

Somewhere in the water is a lesser finch taking a swim!

Here's one of the two scrub jays making regular visits to the backyard. They have stashed over five pounds of peanuts somewhere around the neighborhood!