New feeder visitor today!

[telophase]

I took the day off work as I slept for crap and felt run down (possibly allergies), and instead worked all day doing book covers.

I put the birdcam out and faced it the other direction as the lawn guys came last Thursday, instead of Friday like normal, and I wanted to get it out of the way in case they came this Thursday. So you get to see the attractive gate and the old trash can and broken birdbath the previous owners left here in the background that we haven't got rid of yet.

But! A new visitor!


But first an old standby, a greedy white-winged dove eating one of the choice bits. The doves eat all the large peanuts and the big seeds first, then go for the smaller ones.



And here's the new guy! I think he's a red-winged blackbird. "But telophase," I hear you say. "His wings aren't red!"

No, but (a) often the red flashes on their shoulders are hidden, the internet informs me, or (b) he's a non-breeding male who hasn't developed them yet.



I'm leaning a bit towards option A at the moment, because if you look at the full size of the image...



...you see a flash of red there.

Comments

[yhlee]

Yup, I'd guess red-winged blackbird--they're EVERYWHERE in Palo Alto and Stanford, and you really only see the red flashes of wing marks when they fly, not so much when they have their wings all tucked in like that. :) Caw!

[telophase]

This is only the second I've seen in the wild--the first one I almost hit with a car when I was driving and he swooped dangerously close to the windshield. I mostly remember a blur of black and brilliant red!