Lots of Residents!

.
While much of our attention over the past weeks has been focused on our winter visitors, we certainly haven't ignored our year-round residents. The colder weather this month has brought them to our feeders several times a day every day in January.

Among our favorites are a group of House Finches. One of the females has a growth on the top of her bill but seems otherwise to be healthy.

This male certainly seems to be in good condition.

As usual, our Carolina Wrens divide their time between eating at our feeders and rummaging through our plant containers.

This female Northern Cardinal has been visiting our backyard very frequently, sometimes alone and sometimes with her mate.

I've never seen the female make use of our birdbath but her mate regularly comes down to bathe in it.

While House Sparrows have been a little less of a nuisance lately, they still tend to show up en masse every now and then, scaring away some of our other birds and emptying our seed feeders.

So far this year White-winged Doves have been visiting only in ones and twos, as opposed to descending in their usual hordes. 

A Red-bellied Woodpecker occasionally turns up in our trees and at our feeders but rarely stays long. Our Downy Woodpeckers (below) visit much more often and hang around longer.

Blue Jays disappeared from our yards for several months last year. Luckily, they reappeared in the fall and several now pop in frequently to take peanuts and to drink from the birdbath.

Northern Mockingbirds used to be daily visitors to our yards. Then, like the Blue Jays, they vanished for months.So we are very pleased that two Mockingbirds are now regularly flying in to eat from our suet feeders. 

Apart from the birds above, our most reliable visitors are Carolina Chickadees. Unfortunately, I haven't managed to get any photos of these delightful birds so far this year.Nor have I managed to get a recent picture of the Cooper's Hawk that lives on our block and sometimes flies down to perch on our fences.
.

Other Winter Birds in Our Yards

.
In my previous post, I looked at the warblers and kinglets that are currently visiting our yards in Cypress, Texas. In this post I want to show you some of the other winter residents that we get.

Our area gets a large number of different sparrow species each winter. Unfortunately, though, there is only one sparrow species that normally turns up in our yards and that is the Chipping Sparrow. 

 

Chipping Sparrows are very small, with a proportionally longish tail. In winter plumage they have a brown crown below which is a gray supercilium. In breeding plumage the crown becomes rufous and the supercilium turns white.

Another small bird that we're seeing at our feeders is the American Goldfinch. It seems that every time I look out of our windows, there is at least one American Goldfinch in sight.

Most of our Goldfinches look rather drab because they are in their winter plumage. However, at least one bird is already starting to molt into its breeding plumage.

Significantly larger than either Chipping Sparrows or American Goldfinches are Tufted Titmice.

These lovely birds are year-round residents in our area of Texas but they only ever turn up in our yards during the winter.  Their normal modus operandi is to swoop onto our feeders, grab a seed and fly off into the trees with it.

Sometimes, though, they pose on our fence or visit our birdbath. 

 

Our final winter resident is a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. This medium-sized woodpecker never visits our feeders but it turns up now and then in the oak tree in our front yard or on one of our neighbors' trees.

The white stripe on the wing edge is very distinctive and makes the bird easy to spot from the side. However, when viewed from the back, the bird is superbly well camouflaged.

.

Meanwhile, Back at Home

.
Even though we haven't experienced cold temperatures yet this winter, our backyard feeders have been attracting plenty of birds. These have included several of those that migrate to spend the winter in our area.

The first of these birds to arrive in our yards in the fall, an Orange-crowned Warbler visits our feeders several times each day. 
 

Next to arrive is always a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, one of our favorites. It's very small but what it lacks in size it certainly makes up for in personality.

 

It's one of the birds that seems totally unconcerned when I'm standing just a couple of feet away from it, on the other side of our living-room window.

 
Yellow-rumped Warblers and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker have occasionally popped into the trees in our front yard but they haven't yet discovered our backyard feeders or birdbath. Luckily, several Tufted Titmice have discovered these and they are a delight to watch.

Like Chickadees, the Titmice normally don't stay on our seed-feeders long - they fly in, grab a seed or nut, and fly off into the trees with their prize. Occasionally, though, they misjudge the operation.

Then they hang around a little longer while they find a more suitable morsel.

 
When the feeder is empty, they look to see if we're going to be refilling it soon.

While watching the Titmice on Monday, I was pleased to see an American Goldfinch fly down to the birdbath for a drink. While I've been seeing Goldfinch at work for a couple of weeks, this was the first one to grace our yards with its presence so far this winter.

No doubt more Goldfinch will eventually make their way to our yards. If we're lucky, they may be accompanied by some Pine Siskins, since quite a few of the latter have been appearing in local parks this month.
.

Winter Birds Still Here

.
Other commitments and bad weather stopped us from going out to do any birding over the weekend. However, spending more time at home meant I had a chance to see what winter birds are still around our yards.

The number of American Goldfinches is well down now, with only the occasional visitor. The few birds that do show up are now starting to show brighter plumage.

We continue to have a couple of Orange-crowned Warblers. The first of our winter visitors to show up, they are usually among the last to leave.

Now that the number of birds at our feeders has started to drop, we're seeing more of our Ruby-crowned Kinglet. He generally avoids coming when there are lots of other birds about, and if he shows up when the Orange-crowned Warbler is present, the latter usually chases him off.

There has been a small flock of Cedar Waxwings in our area for weeks, although they rarely come to our yard. However, some 80 settled in our oak tree on Friday along with a few American Robins. I wasn't able to get a photo of the Waxwings but one of the Robins flew down to the roof of our shed for a while.

The most numerous of our winter residents are Chipping Sparrows.

 At least a few of these charming little birds come to our feeders every day, and every so often a flock of a dozen or more turns up.

While we've been disappointed not to see any Brown-headed Nuthatches,  Tufted Titmice of Rufous Hummingbirds at our feeders this year, we have been pleased to see that an Eastern Phoebe has moved onto our street and makes occasional visits to our yards.

We've also been pleased to see that most of our year-round residents are visiting regularly again. But let me leave them until my next post.
.

Still Birdy in our Yards

.
Last weekend we continued to have lots of birds feeding in our yards.

American Goldfinch numbers were up to a dozen or more each day.

Chipping Sparrows were very visible, too. Ten or so kept flying in check out our feeders or the ground beneath them.

We'd seen two different male House Finches so far this year but then we finally had a visit from a female.

Yellow-rumped Warblers come to our backyard to drink from the birdbath. One of them flew into the window. Obviously dazed, it sat in the tree above our shed for ages with its eyes almost completely closed.

Eventually, though, it seemed to recover.

We only have one Northern Mockingbird visiting at present and, unfortunately, it doesn't look at all well. It has what look like avian pox growths around both eyes.

As the growths haven't grown over its eyes, I',m hoping the bird will survive. I'm also hoping it doesn't pass the pox on to our other birds. I believe that House Finches are particularly susceptible to the avian pox.
.