Category Archives: Birds

Here it is, your standard issue, dimestore model male Northern Mockingbird, found year-around almost anywhere in North America except for the very most northern tier of states, Washington to Minnesota.

That jaunty tail, the grey stripes, the flash of white under the wings when it’s in flight… Common and unmistakable.

But most recognizeable of all is its song(s). They have a standard repertoire which is easily recognizeable, but they’re also incredible mimics and can learn to imitate everything from the local stray cats to car alarms.

And the males almost never shut up.

I’ve almost always loved hearing them and they’ve never before bothered me at night, even though they drove my first wife crazy. But now, there’s one in particular that sits outside of our bedroom all freakin’ night long EVERY NIGHT and goes on and on and on and on… This means it’s probably a young male trying to find a mate,  and I can understand the desire. But at this point I wonder what I can do to help move the process along.

Can I hire a mockingbird matchmaker? Can I hire a mockingbird prostitute? I’m open to options!

After seeing the woodpecker earlier and then getting distracted by the sleeping owl, there was another notable visitor at sunset, when I went out looking for the owl again.

Our resident young red-shouldered hawk was sitting just about 20 feet off the end of the back yared, eating something.

Given the feathers hanging from its beak, I’m guessing there was a mourning dove or some other bird that was today’s prey.

Yeah, I got the hairy eyeball after the first couple dozen photos. It’s a gorgeous bird.

Yesterday, before I got distracted by the unknown object (sleeping great horned owl) up in the top of the pine tree down the block, what had I seen just off the end of our yard that had caused me to drop everything, grab the camera, and hustle across the yard to get some closeups?

This gal!

The Cornell University Merlin app can’t quite decide if it’s a female Nuttall’s Woodpecker or a female Ladder-backed Woodpecker…

…but I think it’s more likely a Nuttall’s Woodpecker. If you click on the pictures to blow them up to full sized, you’ll see a tiny patch of yellow by her beak, which isn’t mentioned as an identifying mark but which can be seen in Merlin’s pictures of other Nuttall’s Woodpeckers, but not in any of their pictures of Ladder-backed Woodpeckers.

I know it’s a female because males of both species have red heads, while females are just black and white.

Either way, it was a bad day to be a bug or a termite on that pine tree. Feast away!

It was early afternoon (13:30) and out of the kitchen window I had spotted a rare feathered friend visitor (pictures later). I grabbed the camera and hustled on out, but when the bird I was photographing spooked and bugged out, I started looking around.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up high in one of the pine trees on the hilside below our yard there was a large brown object that I had never seen before.

Brown, some stripes and details, about the size of a backpack. My first thought was that it might be a hornet’s nest or something like that.

It was still there an hour later, and an hour after that. When I finally remembered to grab my binoculars and go out to get a closer look about 18:00, it was gone.

Looking at the couple of pictures that I got, the ears give it away. This would be a sleeping great horned owl.

We hear them almost every night, and I’ve seen a couple close up during the day, but this is the first time I’ve seen one all tucked in to sleep during the daytime.