Wednesday, May 6, 2015

AN UNIDENTIFIED VISITOR

The bird bath just outside my window attracts a wide variety of avians. Many house finches, including some newborns. An occasional bluejay. Mourning doves. Warblers. And this character which I have yet to be able to identify. Some type of oriole, perhaps? The photo of him up in the tree shows the most color.






There must be some birdwatchers out there in the blogosphere who can give this bird a name.

6 comments:

  1. The tea kettle bird! It's song is "drink-your-tea, 7-12/min, the last note trilled. It is loud! A great, easily recognizable bird by it's song. It's a rufous-sided towhee - Western Race. In the West, the back is spotted with white. If you feed suet cakes, it will be on the ground hopping around picking up what the other birds drop. Love their long tail.

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    1. Wow! That's amazing and absolutely correct according to our Roger Tory Peterson bird guide. One hour and 10 minutes and I got an identification. Well done, L Lewis!

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    2. I was grading, but yes, towhee. the "drink-your-tea" bird. I saw one in NC when we visited our fathers.

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  2. I only know the names of a handful of birds so I wouldn't venture to guess.

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  3. There are so many birds out there that I've never heard of. I've never heard of the rufous-sided towhee.

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  4. New one on me, but I'm not surprised it was identified so quickly, true birders are amazing.

    Way to go L Lewis, you even identified the call!

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