I was out in the backyard a little while ago and got some photos. The feeders have been very busy; I guess our feathered friends are filling up for the cold nights ahead, it's predicted to be 32ºF here tonight and 30ºF tomorrow night!

Boat-tailed Grackles, they have the funniest expressions sometimes:


Mourning Doves:


Red-shoulded Hawk. This one was perched in a Sycamore tree down the waterway aways in a neighbors yard so the photos aren't real clear. It must not have been hungry because it just sat in that tree for @ an hour and at one point I saw Grackles and Blackbirds perched in the same tree with the hawk.


Red-bellied Woodpeckers, first is a female and the last two are males:

A couple more from a few minutes ago.

A female Cardinal was finding morsels in the grass beneath a feeder, A male Red-winged Blackbird perched in the Cypress tree and a Pied-billed Grebe swimming by:


And, just for fun ... a bird of another type. It happens to be speed weeks here in Daytona Beach, the Daytona 500 Nascar race is this coming weekend so the Goodyear Blimp is a common sight this time of year. The first photo is from today and a photo from last year:

@plantladylin I just noticed your tag. These are Scrub Jays...but I don't know if the ones in California are the same as the ones in Florida. I would be truly surprised if these jays are endangered. We have a lot of them...and when they are being aggressive with the other birds or screaming racously I sometimes wish we didn't have quite so many!!

Here are some of the other cute photos from the birdbath party yesterday!

Lovely shots!

@Moiris Marilyn, The Western and Florida Scrub Jays are the same genus but different species. The Florida Scrub Jay is a threatened species found only in a small area of the central part of the state.

Western Scrub Jay: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/g...

Florida Scrub Jay: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/g...

Marilyn: Lovely bathing beauties! Is that the European Starling in photos 3 & 4? Many don't like the Starlings because of their invasive tendencies but they sure are pretty birds!

Linda, I'm was not sure what it was...but seeing your question decided to look it up. I didn't recall ever seeing it before, and it turns out that is because it only has the yellow beak and irridescent feathers during mating season. Well, not I know what a starling looks like during breeding! I don't like what I have read about their aggressive nature (killing the threatened Western Blue Bird babies in order to take over the nesting site) but I must admit that the colors were beautiful!

Lin, the dome over that bird feeder is from a very old Droll Yankees feeder I was given when a friend moved. The original feeder got knawed by squirrels and couldn't be used. So I re-purposed the dome to cover the hummer feeder in summer and this "squirrel proof" one in winter. My brother in law thought it was a chandelier. LOL

We lost power again yesterday for 3 hours. At least it was in the middle of the day, so the house stayed warm. We are all electric with a heat pump. There is still some ice up in the trees glittering in the sun this morning. And it is 13 degrees with wind chill about 5. That is rare for here near Atlanta. Some pics from this morning.

Becky, my youngest sister lived in the Kennesaw/Marietta area for 35+ years but moved a year ago to South Carolina to be near her only child. I know it was rare for your area to get snow and ice in winter but this winter has been pretty chilly for a lot of the country. It's currently 1:30 in the afternoon and we are still at 48º here in my part of Florida!! It is very rare for us to have the 40's for our high temps! We're supposed to drop to 31º with a freeze lasting @ two hours. The feeders in my yard have been very busy with the birds filling up for the cold night ahead. Weird weather ... it's going to be warming back to the mid and upper 70's by the weekend! Even though it's very windy and chilly here I went out and took some photos a little while ago.

Baltimore Oriole (they only pass through Florida during migration) and Female Cardinal:


Mourning Doves:


Red-bellied Woodpeckers:


Red-winged Blackbird, Tufted Titmouse and Warbler:


I put oranges out in hopes that the Orioles stay around a day or two!

A couple more from a few minutes ago

Great Egret:


There was a pair of Bald Eagles flying overhead and I was shooting into the bright light and was only able to get a photo of one of them; I zoomed and cropped the photo:

Lin, you take some great bird photos!

Margaret, Thank you. I certainly appreciate the compliment coming from someone like you who takes really awesome photos! I still haven't learned much about my camera (hubby got me the Canon SX60HS) for Christmas. I keep it on the P setting and sometimes my pictures come out okay, sometimes not so good ... but I still enjoy taking photos of birds and flowers.

Lin, I am much like you, I keep it on automatic and keep shooting.

Oh my -- I just had a bald eagle land on top of a 4' board fence about 20' outside my window. Ye gads, those guys are huge! No clue what it was thinking, it was pretty much a touch-and-go. I ran outside to see if my hens were all accounted for, and they were all inside the chicken yard under cover, so the eagle was apparently not after the chickens (other side of the house). There is an open feeder right next to where it landed with cracked corn in it, so perhaps it was after a small bird that was at the feeder. Pretty cool, although I will keep my eye on the open feeder to be sure I'm not just providing a free snack vending machine for the eagles...

Deb, that really must have been awesome to see. I guess they take anything they can get, they have to eat too.

Deb, how awesome to see one so close!!

It was really impressive. I just didn't realize how gigantic they are, I usually see them at the top of a cottonwood or soaring in the skies.

I got a real close up look the other day myself. Just beautiful. The one I saw was out on a road that cuts from the east coast of FL., to Orlando. Its endless swamp land, so Im guessing he eats well. There are also hundreds of wild turkeys out there, and I even saw a heron type bird, with a crest. That was a new one to me. Fun to see. The eagle was actually sitting on one those sad markers that denotes where someone had died, so it was right by the road.

We have been seeing eagles for years, with having so many streams and woodlands, they have repopulated this area pretty well. Lots of bird activity today. It's so cold the poor things probably need to eat constantly.