This is a beautiful bird. Unfortunately I neither saw it nor took the photo, but because the bird was seen about ten feet from my house and the photo was taken with my camera I feel comfortable about posting the picture here. I just can't add it to my life list.
It is, of course, a Varied Thrush. A bird that according to our bird book isn't supposed to be any closer to Lucky Lake than the Rocky Mountains.
Birds I did see yesterday include a flock of Lapland Longspurs which are just passing through on their way to their nesting grounds in the Arctic. Generally Longspurs crouch in the grass and practically disappear from view. I noticed these because some of them chose to sit on a fence wire.
Others dropped to the ground close to the wire where the ground had been worked. They were only twenty feet or so from my car so I was able to see them. Further back they seemed to fade into the background.
The female hides even better with her muted colours.
While I watched, about thirty of the birds flew up into the air at the same time and landed again further away.
This one stayed though, along with a few others.
My other bird of the day were these two American Golden-Plovers. Or that's what I'll call them till someone tells me differently.
The only thing making me uncertain is the white on the underside of the bird on the right. Here are a couple more photos showing different views of the same birds.
Click on photos to make them larger.
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