Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: birds

(+10 insets!) The days are more and more lovely with blue skies dotted with clouds and warm sunshine that greets me every morning. The explosion of greenery is a wonder to behold and the flowers are popping up everywhere. The transformation is such a wonderful sight. As much as I love the glory of autumn's incredible show, there isn't any way to compete with spring. What a special time. With springtime comes more and more birdies! Our property is home to many species and they really get busy when breeding season arrives. We've recently filled our three bird feeders to give them an easy supply to care for their babies and every day they get more popular. About two weeks ago I made my own suet cakes using the bacon and sausage grease we'd been saving in containers and it's been such fun to see the birds gobbling them up. It is a favorite pastime now to look out the back window to see who's at the feeders. Such personalities they have! Acorn Woodpeckers zoom in singly but sometimes in twos and threes and assume a very defiant, "YOU TALKIN' TO ME?!" attitude. They squawk and posture, letting everyone know they are in charge! Oregon Juncos usually fly in as a small flock of 5-10 and we call them "The Crew". They are equally happy to eat from the feeders or bounce around on the ground picking up fallen goodies. Fairly shy, they will fly away if challenged any other birds. We adore these smartly-attired cutie pies and love to hear their darling twitters. The tiny "Skateboard Punks" are a favorite too, darling mouse-grey Pewees. With adorable triangular wedges of feathers which stick up on top of their heads, they are similar enough to tiny mohawks that we gave them a fitting nickname. Hopelessly cute, they fly in, grab a sunflower seed and disappear. A moment later, it will return for another one! Back and forth, what a fun sighting! If the coast is clear they will grab a sunflower seed, place it between their feet and stand on it. Then they'll hammer away at the seed, gobble the treat within and repeat the process until they're sufficiently full or scared off by another bird. There are many other visitors too--California and Spotted Towees, Scrub and Steller's Jays, Lark Sparrows and just yesterday we began seeing White-Breasted Nuthatches and a Starling too! There should be a number of others as time goes on. We are quite surprised that we haven't seen any finches yet because they were always a common sight at our feeders. Hopefully they will catch wind of the tasty goodies and come to visit! Since today is when I post my Happy Fence Friday picture I'm sharing an image that I photographed through fencing on our back deck and shows an adorable pewee (with its fancy hair lowered) enjoying some suet! You will find insets that show all the different birds that we've seen at our feeders so far this year. (Archive images :) Pam, it was great fun to look for just the right birdy picture to talk about! After much deliberation the prize today goes to your awesome Easter Phoebe Collage , which is just perfect for this wonderful springtime mood! What a grand collection of fantastic pictures that showcase the journey of egg to fledging of these cutie pies. What a show. I loved it!! I hope you are doing well today on this lovely SPRING day!! :) Explored on 3/22/19, highest placement, #4.

1 more picture in a note above! :) I went out today looking around for different kinds of wheels for the Bokeh Thursday theme this week, and while I was checking out the bulldozer to see if there were any posibilities there (nope!), I heard geese in the distance. I stopped to see if they might come by. What are the odds, but they flew right towards me in a beautiful V formation and against the lovely clouds in the sky, I got my Picture of the Day! Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, in the Catalonia region of Spain. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media. Wikipedia: Salvador Dali Explored on September 27, 2013. Highest placement, page 3.

This beautiful bird flew from one side of the pond to the other, and allowed me to photograph this pretty reflection! :D This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

I'm not sure what the difference is between a heron and an egret, so I'll just call this beauty an egret for now. What a stunning bird!! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011. Thanks to my friend rjadamas55 for properly identifying this beautiful bird! :)

(for those of you who are interested in seeing my San Francisco trip images, I have uploaded 10 pictures in this batch [158 in the past few weeks]. Thanks everyone for your comments and your visits to my photostream! I hope you enjoy the show!) (Oh, and yes, I know there are really too many pictures to be uploading at one time but I have too many images I want to put into my Flickr stream so it just can't be helped!) One of the places Laura and I walked to was the Arboretum, which is a wonderful, enormous collection of plants from all over the world. There are many ponds and water features throughout the Arboretum and they attract lots of water fowl, including ducks, geese, and egrets! This is the first mallard I've ever photographed! :) Isn't he spectacular?! By the way, for those of you who may not know, there is a very fun, free Flickr competition site which you might like to take part in. It's called FlickrDuel and features dozens of ongoing competitions, or duels every day. You can enter your pictures into many different categories and vote on contests too. It's another way to enjoy your photography! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

She was with the male in the previous photograph. What a lovely little hen! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This photo was taken during the MeetUp hike around one edge of Howard Prairie Lake on August 11, 2011

This photo was taken during the MeetUp hike around one edge of Howard Prairie Lake on August 11, 2011

Outside our kitchen window we have our bird feeders and a bunch of plastic trays which we keep full with water for the birds. Every day we get to watch them drinking taking baths too, and it's one of the cutest things to watch! :D This is a male and female house finch (the male is the one with red on it)

I'm in San Francisco for the week, visiting my dad, and this is Day 6! I am so sorry that I don't have time to leave comments while I'm gone, but I really appreciate every one of your visits and comments! They mean the world to me. *hugs* Miss you guys!!! Ever since I got this Canon SX30 and have been to visit my father two previous times since I got it, I've been dreaming of going to the zoo...that's nearly 3 YEARS of wishing!! On each occasion, time or weather got in the way. This trip, I didn't want to get my hopes up, but one of the reasons I made my trip for 7 days instead of my usual 5 is that I hoped my father and I could get our chosen project out of the way before I had to leave. To my delight, our quilt photographing project was finished last night, and that left today free for something fun! Hooray!!! Though I offered to do something with him instead, my father wanted me to spend the day at the zoo without having to worry about him, so I could just relax and have fun. So I did!!!! The San Francisco Zoo has changed SO MUCH since I was a child. I am 48.5 yrs old now and when I was a tiny kid, this zoo was the historical type of barbaric monstrosity with barred cages and cement everywhere. I didn't understand how awful it was as a wee child, but as I grew older, I didn't like to go to the zoo so much because I'd fallen madly in love with animals, and I really hated all the awful cages and cement areas for the animals to stand, either inside or out. The animals looked miserable in many cases, and furthermore, I wanted to murder everyone around me for hooting, hollering, teasing, and taunting the animals, and throwing things at them. It made me crazy. In the past 20 years, I've visited the zoo perhaps 3-4 times. But a miraculous thing happened as time went on. Each time I visited, some horror of the past would disappear, replaced by a wonderful, open air, natural habitat with native plants and hidden/disguised barriers. What a wonder. Today I was just FLOORED by my visit. I hardly recognize the zoo I went to as a child, as nearly all of it has been turned into lovely, spacious habitats where the animals can relax and enjoy themselves as much as that can be possible in a captive setting. Whenever possible, animals are fed in a way where they must forage to get their food. It's wonderful to see. The feeling I get from the animals is still not truly happy, but finally, I get a real sense that many are much more content here, for what that's worth. One of the best things about the zoo now are all the signs plastered EVERYWHERE for people to Be Quiet. The signs say that people must not tease or taunt the animals, yell at them, throw things at them, or try to feed them. The animals must be treated with great respect. (!!! LOVE !!!) And, if anyone sees someone doing these things, to call the posted number and the matter will be attended to immediately. AMEN!!!!!!!!!!! *backflips across the room* So, for the first time in my life, I experienced a zoo without the usual desire to kill everyone around me!! I watched children make some racket, and parents telling them they must not do that! Once in a while a person would try to get an animal's attention, but it wasn't full of disrespect like I've always witnessed in the past. The only time I ever heard yelling and screaming was away from the animals, when kids were playing with one another. It was fantastic. What a change from the feeling of heartbreak I would get before. Naturally, I wish these animals were all free, but here's another thing: MANY of the animals have injuries or situations that would make it impossible for them to be free anyway, because they would not be able to hunt. The zoos of today are such a far cry from the zoos of my childhood, it's just fantastic that they are much less about exploitation and much more about conservation and preservation than they were before. So there you have it. I had an AMAZING day!!! And, 375 pictures later, father picked me up, tired and content, my wish fulfilled! I had to work fast to get this collage done but I think it shows some of the amazing animals that I got to see!! Afterwards, we went out to dinner to top off a GREAT DAY!! Enjoy the pictures!! :) Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1942) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Simon's fame, influence, and commercial success began as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, formed in 1964 with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached No. 1 on the U.S. singles charts: "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson", and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". The duo split up in 1970 at the height of their popularity, and Simon began a successful solo career as a guitarist and singer-songwriter, recording three highly acclaimed albums over the next five years. In 1986, he released Graceland, an album inspired by South African township music. Simon also wrote and starred in the film One-Trick Pony (1980) and co-wrote the Broadway musical The Capeman (1998) with the poet Derek Walcott. Wikipedia: Paul Simon