Popmama, I usually see about one orchard oriole a year. Apparently we had one here at the house last spring according my eBird checklists but I honestly don't remember it. This year I got photographic proof! The bullock's are much more common. That thicket they are hanging out in actually gets a really good cast that I never noticed until this year when I have been in there trying to get oriole pictures. We've had the usual characters, like robins, grackles, and downy woodpeckers, but I've also seen brown thrashers and spotted towhees, a clay colored sparrow, warbling vireo, yellow, yellow-rumped, and Tennessee warblers, and a Swainson's thrush hanging out in there. I have always spent more time birding out on the back side of property mostly ignoring what was going on right here next to the house, but I can see now that was mistake. I'm pretty amazed at how much diversity is in that little area.

Hummingbirds are a rare sight out here on the Eastern Plains. I hear a few of them at the refuge every year during spring migration, but I have only ever seen a single one here at the house back in the fall of 2018. Mom gets loads of them where she lives over in Jefferson County. Mostly broad-tailed but a few rufous swing buy on their back south from the Northern Rockies and even a calliope showed up one year. I do miss them out here. Right before the grackles showed up, we had a family of 5-6 blue jays hanging out around the house. I still hear one or two every now and then but otherwise they seem to have moved on.

I don't see very many ospreys. I had one I thought was a ferruginous hawk fly over a few weeks ago until I reviewed the photo. But other than that I haven't seen any. Last year when we went to Oregon, they seemed to be pretty much everywhere. I guess out lack of water makes the "fish hawks" a little scarcer haha. That's cool you've got a nesting pair nearby!

Catherine, Right?! How dare they think of me as a threat! I'm only 1000 times their size! Oh well I guess. Some weeks it seems that NOTHING wants their picture taken and others it seems I get at least one good photo of practically everything. Our grassland migrants have shown up in force, and probably the "tree birds" too I'm just really bad at birding anywhere that isn't open country. The lark buntings have shown up at the refuge I work at in numbers I have never before seen. It's probably just a fluke, but at least a good one. The western kingbirds have shown up in force, but I've seen comparatively fewer eastern kingbirds than I have in the past I feel like. They usually show up later than the westerns, so maybe it's just a bit early yet. the number of grasshopper sparrows seems to have gone down significantly. Our former biologist who comes in as a volunteer and I've been emailing since shes been staying home this spring, thinks it's possibly because our bison herd has reduced the grass height to below what they prefer for nesting. I heard a few buzzing from the roadsides early in the month but haven't heard one in several days. We do have more Brewer's and chipping sparrows than I have seen before though, or I may just be paying closer attention to the "LBJ's" than I typically do. The Swainson's hawks, which fly all the way up here from Argentina, have started to nest.

Lark Bunting. Our state bird that is neither a lark, nor a bunting. Originally it was classified as a finch (called the "prairie finch") but is actually a big, fancy sparrow.