Give us this day our daily Birds

Just because Dudley asked so nicely...

These are just a few of the birds that show up daily here at the Aerie.

Blue Jay

Blue Jays are, of course, quite common anywhere there is free food to plunder and smaller birds to intimidate. If no smaller birds dare come to the feeders, they will argue amongst themselves. They are also one of the few winter birds with lots of color.

Mourning Dove

The mourning doves seem to travel in flocks of ten or more. Seldom is there a solitary bird in the yard. They are large enough to give the jays a bit of what-for on the deck. The doves will also take advantage of the sparse amount of gravel exposed int he driveway when I move the truck or, on rare occasions, when the sun shines and opens a patch for them to peck at. They use the gravel by storing it in their crop. When they swallow a sunflower seed shell and all, the gravel in the crop grinds it into a paste they can digest. What's left they deposit all over my deck. The dirty birds!

Red-bellied Woodpecker

We've only got one red-bellied woodpecker in the area as far as we can tell. We call her Winnie and she's a moocher, too. Rather than go look for insects in the many snags (dead trees) in the area, she'll show up at the feeder and eat, and eat, and eat. Sometimes she'll take a seed and head for the trees but usually she encamps and eats her fill before leaving. Like the doves, she's large enough to challenge the jays. She usually wins, too.

So there's three birds I photographed about two weeks ago on the front deck.