Those are a group of awfully pretty birds you have! Love them. I hope I eventually get some Goldfinches here.

I think the female Cardinals are almost as pretty as the males and yes, they don't stay in one place too long. I find they do stay long when scrunging for seed on the ground, rather than at the feeders are the nearby tree branches. I know my digital is not quick enough for them.

Isn't it nice to have a kitchen window?

Susan

Those are beautiful pictures! That female cardinal would be a good candidate for a caption contest.

What wonderful photos! Personally, I hate birds (unless I'm eating them) so refuse to put up feeders. I think I saw that Hitchcock bird movie one too many times. LOL But they can be beautiful!

You're right about captioning the lady Cardinal, Ilene - something to the effect of, "...a seed in beak is worth two in the feeder".

From the range map I was looking at for the Carolina Chickadee and the Black-Capped Chickadee, you would definitely be in the BCCs range, Gldno. I may eventually see some Carolina Chickadees here in OKC, but I am too far south for the BCCs. Their overlapping range is very small so not likely I will see them here, But I hope you get a photo to show us!!

I am keeping my eyes peeled for the Downies, too.

Susan

Glenda, Nice Photos!

Susan, I ignore those range maps because we often have all kinds of birds here that aren't supposed to be here.

My all-time favorite bird, and I only see them once or twice a year, is painted buntings. They are just so gorgeous.

I also love seeing the roadrunners. They normally eat bugs and small animals/reptiles, but in a really, really hot dry summer, like we had in southern OK in 2008, they come to our yard and eat wild bird seed or henscratch. The baby roadrunners are especially adorable. I just saw a roadrunner running alongside our road last Wednesday.

Dawn

We have never seen the painted buntings but did have a small flock of the blue buntings. They were such beauties.

I got an accidental shot of the BCC and didn't realize it until I downloaded the picture, but it wasn't a very good quality.

Glenda,

I've never seen the blue buntings.

The painted buntings appear to live here, but they don't hang out around the house and yard like a lot of birds do.

I usually see them sitting in a tree, on a fence or flying across a pasture or road when I'm out walking a dog. Once I saw one dead in the road, having been hit and run over by a vehicle. That was so sad. I have only seen them in our own yard a couple of times (both times during the drought summer of 2008), and we're in our 11th year here.

Two of the birds we see and hear most during the summer months are bobwhite quail and scissortail flycatchers.

I am amazed by the variety of birds we have here. Two birds we occasionally hear but never see are the whippoorwill and chuckwalla's widow.

Dawn

I had Bobwhites strolling through the hummingbird bed last spring. The flower bed is right outside the kitchen window. I was really surprised.
We have the scissor tails too even though my bird book says we shouldn't!

Here is a picture (not very good) of the blue buntings. I should have called them Indigo Buntings.They seemed to be eating the tiny seed heads on what I call annual bluegrass (poa annua).

Glenda,

It is good to know I'm not the only one who sees birds that shouldn't be here according to the books.

What a beautiful bird the Indigo Bunting is!

We have poa annua here too. In Fort Worth, people considered it a grassy weed and used chemicals to rid their lawns of it. From living here, though, I've gained an appreciation of poa annua because so many birds eat the seeds. I'd rather have a yard and pastures full of native plants that feed the birds instead of a perfectly manicured green lawn that basically is there only for appearance.

Dawn

Well, Dawn, you are right as usual! I think I now have a Black-Capped Chickadee at the feeder this morning, but need to further observe for ID.

This bird doesn't fly to and from the feeder like the White-Breasted Nuthatch does, though. It stays right on the feeder, completely ignoring the other birds, not ruffled at all that there is constant activity around it. It does have a black head and black throat, which a wide white line under the eye from front of head to past just a bit. It appears more gray than the White Breasted Nuthatch, which is more blue-gray. The WBN also does not have the black throat.

Gotta get back to the window!

Susan

Dawn, We had a painted bunting that came to our feeder in Lone Grove. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a pet that had gotten away from someone. The colors looked like a parrot but of course it is much smaller than that. He continued to come to the feeder all summer and I think he returned the following year also. I only fed regular bird seed but there was a bird bath next to it and I think the water was the attraction because the birds didn't have a natural source of water anywhere near. I don't think they are listed as coming into Oklahoma either.

Susan - If we hang a thistle feeder here in the spring, we have dozens of American Gold Finch. They are cute little birds. I never see a blue bird here, but I live in a lot of trees and I think they like wide open spaces best.

A couple of years ago I could hear something banging on the house. At first I thought it was a woodpecker because they will peck holes in your house and they really love my neighbors cedar siding. I followed the sound to the other side of my house and it became extremely loud. I went outside to look around and it stopped. Later it started again, and I went outside again. After several days of this, I was outside and I heard it start. It was a big black bird sitting on top of the chimmney. Our chimmney has a metal cover that is solid on top and has mesh on the sides. He was sitting on top and banging his beak against the metal. I guess the noise was really bouncing around in that chimney because inside it sounded like someone hitting the house with a basketball -- repeatedly. After about a week, he moved on.