First Goldfinch

Two arrived in our yard earlier this week (May 5). Scouts, I'm guessing, as they didn't stay long.

 Had a sprinkling of rain and our first-of-year rainbow the same day.

Osprey at Gardiner Dam

I had no time to bird yesterday, but when I drove across the dam there were two big birds sitting on the Osprey nest.  What could I do?

The Ospreys have returned!


 I guess the Bald Eagle we saw on April 12 was just house sitting.

And yes, I am seriously thinking about a new camera.  I love this one in many ways, but not when the distance grows.

Common Redpolls

It's been almost 2 years since we had Redpolls, but I'm happy to say that they are back.  They may have been around the yard earlier in the month, but this week they visited my feeders.

Colourful Trogons

More of the exciting birds that never stop in Saskatchewan.

A Citreolene Trogon.  If we had got a better angle, I would have had to put it in with the yellow birds.

and the Mountain Trogon. Very similar to the Elegant Trogon we saw last year near Puerto Vallarta. 

Neither of these were lifers for us, but these were definitely our best views.

Even brown birds are pretty

when they are hummingbirds.

like this Rufous Hummingbird

or a Mexican endemic

like this Sinaloa Wren.  (Sorry about the back view, it was the clearest of my three photos.

Or striking like this Mottled Owl

Or cute in a utilitarian sort of way

like this hen.  (In the poorer areas of Mazatlan and the small villages outside the city, there are chickens running free everywhere.  Our night in Copala was witness to this.  The roosters crowed all night. (And we had windows [if you can call holes with screens over them windows] in our room that did not close.)

The Most Exciting Colour: Green

When do we get to see green birds at home?  Almost never, unless you count the head of the Mallard and the Northern Shoveller.

When we signed up for this trip, I was hoping for colourful birds, beautiful birds.  I was hoping for Parrots and I was hoping for Hummingbirds.

My hopes were realized. 

Last year the closest we got to parrots were Orange-fronted Parakeets. It was great. But this year we got a flock. and then we got two individuals nicely placed down the mountain from us.

They were beautiful.

Last year we had Military Macaws flying over our heads, far up in the sky.  This year a flock had lunch in front of us.

 My only complaint is that he doesn't stand out from the tree very well.

And then there were the hummingbirds.  We saw ten different species. 

I did not photograph ten different varieties.

This is the Beryline Hummingbird.

These birds have shades of blue and black

Our trip into the Sierra Madres took us to the Tufted Jay Reserve.  The lady with us, a birder from Utah, doubted that we would even see the jay for which it was named, but Saturday morning, just an hour or so before we left, a small flock moved into the trees close to our cabins.

 

 These were my first Tufted Jays so I was elated.  Ray had seen one in 2009.  I hate it when he has a bird I don't have.  (Though this time it was the other way, as he missed the Flame-coloured Tanager.)

Another jay, and another blue, black and white bird, The Black-throated Magpie-jay.  We've seen it at least twice before, but this was our best sighting.  Several of them flew into the courtyard of our hotel in Copala, posed, and flew away.

My last blue- and black-coloured bird is not so spectacular, but that is mostly because he did not care to come out and pose. I was a bit too far away when he popped out briefly.  It is a Blue Mockingbird, a bird that does not care to be seen, unlike its cousin the Northern Mockingbird that poses nicely whenever we see it.  I don't have a good ear for bird voices, but both Ray and I easily came to recognize this fellow during our three days.  He was almost always the noisiest thing around.  And almost never visible.