Thanks Gleni. The Osprey photo is a bit grainy because of the distance and my camera's lack of enough zoom.

So many beautiful pictures.

Great shots Lin!

A visitor by my succulent container this morning:

And what a visitor!

tarev: What a beautiful shot of that Robin! Love those succulent containers!

Pictures from my backyard today.

Blue Jay ................................................... Mourning Dove


Grackles


Northern Cardinal .................................. Northern Mockingbird


Palm Warbler


Red-bellied Woodpecker


Pied-billed Grebe


Mallard Duck, female

Nice birds and nice shots!

Thanks Rita!

I snapped this shot of a 'new-to-me' bird at my feeder (western Washington). I think it may be a Eurasian Collared Dove or perhaps a Ringed Turtle Dove. Any thoughts? I noted many of you in this forum are from the SE which is where the Eurasian began its infiltration, but apparently has now spread much like the starling. If this is what it is, are they as much of a nuisance?


On a more positive note, I also snapped this pair of wood ducks down at our pond. I don't see these often, hoping perhaps they will nest down there this season.


Also a pair of Canadian geese. We get these often, but usually just passing through. I have so far, crossing fingers, not had the hordes that other local lakes and ponds experience.

Wow, new birds!

Beautiful shots Deb! The dove appears to be the Eurasian-collared Dove:

http://birdnote.org/show/euras...

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/g...

Forgot to say that I love those Wood Ducks, I spotted a pair here once in August 2012 ... one and only time I've ever seen them! We sometimes see Canadian Geese here during the winter months, they are such beautiful birds.

I also forgot to say that I've never known Doves to be a nuisance ... now their relative pigeons are another story.

Deb, they are the Eurasian Collared Dove, and if I were you I would see to it that it moves on real fast or before you know it you will have 20 to 30, they eat all the food, squabble and chase each other, peck each other to death and scare away the smaller birds, they also take nesting sites uses by the Mourning Doves.

Lin, thanks for the links. I recently (2 months ago) downloaded a bird app created by Audubon but it is apparently a bit out of date. When I first ID'd the dove, I then checked its range and per Audubon it was limited to the southeast part of the U.S. An internet search soon corrected that information and it now appears these guys have made themselves at home all over.

Margaret, I have thus far only seen the one, although it was snacking down at my open feeder and hopefully has not now gone to spread the word to all its buddies. We have tons of starlings that my husband wages annual war with. Hopefully he won't have a new enemy to deal with... We have a fairly healthy population of mourning dove that live in our back woods. I never actually seen one, but I do hear their calls on a regular basis.

Deb, that's how it started here, 1, then 2, and the numbers grew quickly, one count this winter there were 24 of them, they started to roost on my shed, lots of poop on it, now we chase them away.

Our problem one here is Indian Turtledove.

I didn't notice a thread for the month of April so I started one ... come on over and share your bird photo's! The thread "April 2014 Backyard Birds" in Gardening for Butterflies, Birds and Bees forum