Birdwatching

One of our family's favorite pastimes is birdwatching.  Birds, no matter their size, color, or type, are fascinating creatures to me.  Over the years, we've become quite familiar with the personalites of several species and have made favorites. 

Goldfinches are one of those favorites. They are beautiful, friendly, and easy to please.  This is a picture I took of a male in my garden in Virginia. Unfortunately, we only have goldfinches in South Georgia in the wintertime when they are not nearly as colorful. Their personalities are the same though, and I've enjoyed keeping an eye on them the past several weeks.We try to get out to state and local parks as often as we can with the boys. Here they are on a Birding Trail in Smokemont Park in Cherokee, North Carolina, last June.

And, here they are at the lodge in Amicolola Falls State Park near my parents' house.  We happened to go there for lunch on the day of an owl exhibit.

I never knew about killdeers until I moved into my house in South Georgia.  They are in the gull family and lay their clutch of eggs on the ground. They have a fascinating way of protecting them. If a perceived predator gets too close, they will pretend to be wounded and lure it away from the nest.  Here's a picture of a nest in my front yard.

Of course, we have a bluebird box.  They love it, but have had horrible luck hatching out babies. Maybe they'll do a better job this year. This morning, I saw a pair taking nesting materials into the box. Here's a picture of four beautiful, but doomed, eggs from last spring.  Our cat killed the male, and the female's new mate threw out these eggs and started over.

I wish I had a better picture of our hummingbirds, but they are just too fast for me.

This is a pine warbler that stunned itself when it flew into one of our large windows. He eventually made a complete recovery.