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The "Standard of Ur" from ancient Mesopotamia

The "Standard of Ur" from ancient Mesopotamia

30 June 2012

Birds in my yard


Living by desert mountains as we do, we do not have the wide variety of bird species in our yard that the typical suburban backyard does. But what we lack in variety we make up for in quantity. Here are a few of the birds we've photographed in our yard recently.

White-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophryus)

Possibly a female Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna)

Male house finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)

Black-headed grosbeak (Pheucticus melanocephalus, a spring visitor) and male house finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)

Male and female house finches; possibly a male house sparrow (Passer domesticus) in breeding plumage

Male (behind) and female California quail (Callipepla californica)

Greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus)

Possibly (left) a female Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna); unknown female hummingbird at right

3 comments:

ninthmuse (roz m) said...

I've never seen a real quail before. Are they frequent visitors?

Shauna Roberts said...

ROZ, in spring the quail start coming to our yard as mated pairs (except for one poor male whose mate died a year or two ago), and now some pairs are here everyday. They don't bring their tiny babies, but they do bring large adolescents.

A week or two ago we had a large group of mostly male quail arrive and hang around together. That's the first time we've ever seen that happen.

Charles Gramlich said...

We've got Grosbeaks here on occassion. So beautiful. Roadrunners always bring a smile too. I remember 'em from childhood. Don't see many in Louisiana in our area though.