Outside Aviary

Master of the house. A pair of jays are never far from the action.
I put food out, turn my head, and one or both of them are there.
Behind the jay is a nandina, a monotypic evergreen that bears
nonedible red berries in the winter.

Another regular who hasn't been around a lot this winter.
He ignores the squirrel feeder in favor of the $6 a pop
woodpecker blocks.

I put bird seed out every day, and the more I put out, the more birds I get. I didn't have any starlings for a while, then I hung out a couple of suet cakes. Now I have murmurations of starlings every day. Many murmurations. It bugs me a little that they are chowing down on the food meant for native birds, but I guess they are hungry, too.

I put about 2 pounds of black oil sunflower seeds and white millet on the ground every day, and fill a couple of hanging feeders with a mix of millet, thistle seed, and wild bird seed.

I have 10 to 12 pairs of mourning doves and two pairs of collared doves that are regulars to the backyard. They are not foul weather friends like the starlings. The mourning doves have been hanging around for two years. The collared doves have been here since this past summer. It originally was one pair, but they must have told their friends about food funland. Collared doves are a Eurasian species that was introduced to the Bahamas in the 1970s. They migrated to Florida and, eventually, across North America. They made it to Oregon by 1988. They are quite a bit bigger than mourning doves and likely compete for habitat and food. 

Below is a list of birds I have identified in my backyard in the past day:

• Mourning dove
• Collared dove
• Scrub jay
• Northern Flicker
• Robin
• Starling
• Bushtit
• American goldfinch
• Dark-eyed junco
• White-breasted nuthatch
• Black-capped chickadee
• Rufous-sided towhee
• Red-winged blackbird
• Brewer's blackbird
• Golden-crowned sparrow
• White-crowned sparrow

The bushtit is the American variety. It is the only bushtit in the Western Hemisphere, and the only member of the genus Psaltriparus. They like the suet cakes.

A group of bushtits appeared a week or so ago and have stayed around
during the recent cold snap. They like the hanging food, especially
the suet cakes. This photo looks like I added some fill flash, but it is
just the light from the setting sun hitting it at the right angle. 

A cloud covered the sun a minute or two after this shot, and when
it finally cleared, the sun was already below the horizon.

The flickers are the red-shafted variety. They hang out here in the winter, then summer somewhere else. I saw the rufous-sided towhee for the first time yesterday. It is odd because I was just thinking a few days ago how I wished a towhee would pay a visit. The juncos are the "Oregon" variety. The males have black heads. They are an unusual color variation for the species, but they are so ubiquitous in this region, it isn't a big deal. 

Life is good around here if you are a male red-winged blackbird. There are as many as 20-30 females that visit at one time, but I've seen only one or two adult males. There are some juvenile males mixed with the females, but they look similar unless they flash some wing. The blackbirds are quite aggressive, arriving in large clusters and outcompeting even the starlings. The doves fidget around the edge of the seed until the blackbirds leave. The doves spend a lot of time chasing each other away from the seed, only to have the blackbirds come and gobble it up. The blackbirds started to visit when the weather turned cold and likely will leave when it warms up again.

Two female Brewer's blackbirds. A cluster of Brewer's arrived today.

Three female red-winged blackbirds. Soft focus through a window,
but shows a good comparison with the other species of blackbird.

I have a green space behind my backyard. A creek runs behind that. When the creek overflows, it often leaves standing water in the flood plain. Mallard ducks and Canada geese will puddle in it. When the field is dry, northern harriers and red-tailed hawks do regular flybys. I had a juvenile red-tail sitting in my big-A maple tree a few weeks ago during a windstorm.

The one bird I have never seen in my backyard or even in close proximity is a crow. There is plenty of crow habitat nearby, but for some reason, they stay away.

Update

Some other birds I've identified in my backyard this winter:

• House finch (yellow headband, chin, and throat)
• House sparrow
• Downy woodpecker (male and female)