cliftoncat said:Wonderful photos, Becky and Lin At first I had a little fantasy that the same bird had visited both of you, but then I noticed that Lin's does seem to have a patch of yellow above his tail, some little dark spots on his wings and perhaps a slightly longer tail? I'm sure one of you experts will identify them both, and look forward to discovering what they are.

The birds are different.

plantladylin said:I spotted this lone White Ibis feeding in the lawn behind the deck a few minutes ago:

What a neat bird. Never seen one before. Friend or foe?

mcash70 said:Strange about the suet, I have never seen them at any of the 3 cakes I have out, and not in the seed feeder too often, I throw some seeds under the spruce tree and they prefer to eat there.

Margaret, I guess there are too many goodies in the suet for the sparrows to resist. With seeds and chopped peanuts, no wonder they eat it. I wonder what would happen if I just went to the butcher and got some plain beef suet if they would eat that. May have to try a little experiment and see what would happen.

I see the White Ibis all the time here. Usually in groupings of 2 or more. They are amazingly "white" in color and always get my attention right away because of the bright white color! Beautiful photos, Lin.

Lin - My warbler does look quite identical to yours. Wished someone could ID it for us.

My son and DIL got me an ipad mini for Christmas. I use my computer all the time, so didn't know how much I would use the ipad. At first I just set it up and played around with it. I ordered a protective case for it as it looks rather fragile. So ... it's great for checking my email and other things, but that was it ..... until .... I discovered that it was a great way to "call" the birds! I go to the Cornell website and they list bird calls for most all the birds listed in their database. I started using it to call the Painted Buntings, Blue Jay, Warblers, Indigo Buntings, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Cardinals, and the Gray Catbird. I hadn't seen the Catbird in about 2 weeks. Used the bird call and within 10 minutes I saw the Gray Catbird fly into the Cassia tree in my backyard! So cool!!!

So needless to say .... I now LOVE this little mini ipad!

Here are some photos I managed to snap this morning. Sorry that it seems to always be the same species of birds. I haven't seen an Indigo in a few days. But the Painted Buntings are out in full force. As are the Cardinals. You would never know it was Winter here. It is overcast and rainy today, much to my dismay ... I wanted to work outside in the garden. Hopefully, it clears up and I can spend the rest of my time off from work getting some things done in the back and front yard.

3 Painted Buntings. Only the one was banded:



Painted Buntings and Cardinal:



Pine Warbler (not banded). He came over after I used the bird call.:



And finally, my favorite bird species .... Ruby-throated Hummingbird. It's amazing that the Firespike is still in full bloom in December. THAT is a rarity!!!:

DavidLMO said:What a neat bird. Never seen one before. Friend or foe?

David, I've never heard anyone call the White Ibis a foe or bad bird. I guess they could be a nuisance if they always hung around and made a mess (like Pigeons!) but I haven't found that to be so in my yard. I sometimes see large flocks of them at local parks, while at other times it may be just a few together in my yard or at other times, a single bird feeding along the waters edge or walking through the yard. They dig through the muck along the waters edge as well as in the lawn for snails and insects: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/b...

White Ibises


Juvenile White Ibis:


Adult White Ibis:

Lin, yours does look like a female yellow-rumped warbler to me. It has all the right markings, although the yellow just to the front of the wing is mostly washed out by the lighting. You can just make it out though. The yellow rump marking is much more obvious, also it has the right pattern of streaking and wing bars. Unless.... I am missing something being that it is in Florida. I do see them sometimes here in winter too. The other one I think is trickier, at least for me. There is a reason there is that special section in the guide book "confusing fall warblers." I bet if you put it up on iNaturalist there would be five people with an id within a day though. There are a lot of experienced birders there. I put up some very poor quality far away duck pictures and almost immediately got ids on them.

Becky, that is so cool that you are getting so many Buntings lately ... I just love those rainbow birds! I have a difficult time deciphering one warbler from another at times. I only know for sure the Palm Warbler because it is constantly flicking it's tail. We get so many little warblers during the winter months and I briefly saw a few yesterday as well as little sparrows that may have been the Chipping Sparrow. My Firespike plants still have a few blooms too but no more sightings of Hummingbirds here; I think they've moved on south. This weather has really been strange, we've been breaking records for high's every day this month but a cold front is finally supposed to move through this weekend to cool us down a bit. It's amazing to have high's in the mid 80's and lows in the upper 60's to 70º at night this time of year. Our lows at night of right around 70º is normally our daytime high at this time of year! It was very foggy here early this morning but it finally burned off and we have clear, sunny skies and 80º. Mowed the lawn day before yesterday so I'm headed out to the porch to re-pot a couple of plants and play in the dirt for awhile. Have a great day everyone!

Morgan, Thanks ... I'm pretty sure mine is the Yellow-rumped Warbler. I'm wondering if Becky's bird could be a juvenile American Goldfinch? They have those white wing bars like some of the Warblers.

This photo is from December 2012 and someone on another forum identified it a juvenile or non breeding plumage American Goldfinch:

Morgan - I had never heard of the inaturalist website. Thank you! I posted the photo over there, too, hoping someone can ID the bird for me. I appreciate the heads-up on that website. Thank you! I've added it to my favorites!

Very innovative Becky!
I think a couple of your Ibix pics Lin could go beyond 'flock' designation and qualify as a 'herd'!

Seeing the word 'Flock' brought back as associative memory...once upon a time there was a rock group featuring an electric violin player, they were named 'The Flock'; several decades past.

I forgot to say Thank You for mentioning that site too; and for anyone who'd like to take a look: http://www.inaturalist.org/

Hmmm .... Lin .... we crossed in our posts. I wonder if mine is a Goldfinch? I can't tell, to be honest. I'll see if I get any IDs on the iNaturalist website. I'll let you know the results.

I was playing various bird songs (birds that normally come to my yard) and all the sudden I saw birds flying back and forth. Almost every bird song I played, had at least one species of that bird show up in my backyard. No Indigo Buntings though. The real birds got really noisy and were going back and forth to the feeders. Must be territorial rights they are protecting from the "foreign" bird who was singing the songs they were hearing! I could not believe how many birds those songs attracted. Amazing! I don't want to harass the birds though, but it was fun to see that the bird songs do attract real birds.

LOL J ... at the University where my husband teaches there's a group of students that call themselves the Flock: http://www.embryriddlesports.c... Though NCAA rules don't allow artificial noisemakers anymore (I took a cowbell to basketball games for many years) ... we fans still make a lot of noise!

Becky, that IPad mini will really come in handy! How fun to play the bird calls and have them come to the garden, I never would have thought of doing something like that and it's a great idea! I'd love an IPad Mini and might ask my hubby for one for my next birthday. It would be nice to have something lightweight and easy to handle/carry. He has an IPad (I'm pretty sure it's the Mini) that the University supplied for him and it's really nice.

Keep us posted if you get an ID on that bird!

Wow, they too might qualify for my 'herd' size. That they include a lot of aviators does indeed make their designation apt. My father was an aviator but, alas, when in less than jet size planes, my stomach knows no bounds.

I added 2 more photos to iNaturalist website and will post them here too. It might be a Goldfinch with its winter color feathers.

Mystery bird:

Becky, something does say "Goldfinch" about that cutie and I will be watching for an ID on that one.

J, my husband has been teaching in the Aviation field for 40 years and I'm still a tad bit leery of small planes. The first time I ever got in an airplane was at the age of 22, when we lived in St. Petersburg, Fl. My husbands uncle was a pilot and had his own plane and took us up one time and I LOVED it! My second experience wasn't so fun! My husband worked as an aircraft mechanic at a small airport in St. Pete and we were at the airport one weekend and a guy he knew (he worked on this man's plane) came in and said he was taking his plane out for a spin and asked if we'd like to go. My husband told him that I'd only been up once and loved it so he knew that I'd love to go! Well ... let me tell you, I was never so scared in my life! I was in the back seat but that guy went out over the Gulf of Mexico and was doing all sorts of twists and turns and dives ... my husband told him he thought it was probably scaring me since it was only the second time I'd been in the air. The pilot looked back and said "You okay back there?" I was so quiet and shy back in those days and I just said "Yeah, I'm okay" but I think I kissed the ground when we finally landed and it was a very long time before I got on a plane again.

Nowadays, flying is the only way I want to travel and although I've been on some smaller regional jets for short flights, I do prefer the larger planes. Another scary flying experience for me was when were on vacation in the Smokey Mountains one year and on a whim decided to take a helicopter tour ... something I'll never forget. My husband put the camera around my neck and had me get in the front seat with the pilot and he sat in back with three other tourists. Well ... talk about scared silly!!! The entire front of the helicopter was all glass winshield and when we took off, it looked as if we were flying right into the side of the mountain ahead!! I wanted to brace myself and began to push my feet forward when I saw a sign on the floor that read: "DO NOT PLACE FEET HERE" or something of that sort ... apparently it was a foot lever or something to steer the aircraft! I mean to tell you, it was scary! I tried holding on to the edges of that tiny seat because I was so scared and needless to say I never got one picture; the camera remained hanging around my neck until we landed! One of these days I hope to be able to fly in a seaplane but no more real small planes or helicopters for this old gal.

LOL...I can relate to your experiences, either of them would have resulted in an embarrassing scenario for me, or more directly, all over me...
I imagine your husband and my father would have hit it off. My dad was an instructor as well. Also, a crop duster. He and his best friend, named Jack (who I was named after) built the airport in the community I grew up in. He was so mechanically inclined he built a small two seater plane and a one seat helicopter from scratch. His tool collection was awesome.
My mother, who lived on a rural farm related a story about how, when they were dating, he flew over the farm and threw out a canister with a love note inside, it landed in the front yard.

J, I bet your father and my husband would have hit it off! My husband was an auto mechanic before being drafted in 1968 and when he went into the Navy he attended school and became certified as an aircraft mechanic. For many years he was in the department that teaches students the mechanical stuff about airplanes and how to maintain the aircraft engines but about 25 years ago he transferred to the Aeronautical Science Dept. where he now teaches students who are studying to become pilots in the general aviation as well as commercial aviation fields ... apparently pilots have to know something about the mechanical aspects of the aircraft they fly. :biggrin:

I was outside a few minutes ago taking pictures of Otters in the waterway, I enjoy watching them frolic and play. They were catching and eating fish ... and one Otter was feeding another.


Ok, back on topic .... a couple of bird photos I managed to get while outside too.

Mourning Dove


Female Northern Cardinal

Otters seem to have a good familial bond.
Always like your bird pics.