Winter Birds

I do have a couple of rough pictures of bald eagles, but mostly they are too far for my camera to get detailed shots.

Sitting on the ice.  Adult and juvenile

A Ross's goose pair. Usually I find a few snow geese with the Canadas.

In winter you find some odd looking hawks that kind of look like red tails. Some are rough-legged hawks. 

I had better binocular looks of it. The camera is auto focus so it was much further when I got pictures.

Western meadowlark with a flock of red-winged blackbirds.

Peregrines nest at the state capitol. This was about a mile West of it on an electrical tower.

Birds of Winter

have not found a Pine Siskin for December yet. Will add it if I find one.

Birds of winter are those hardy birds that come from the North and spend some time in the prairie. I found a single Lapland Longspur in Denton, Spring Creek Prairie yesterday.

In mudflats and rocky shores where you find shore birds you can find American Pipits. One photo has some sandpipers as well.

Along highways and in bare farmland...the emptier the better...you can find horned larks. Never found a very good shot from the car along the road. The windshield always messes up my photos. I can't even find the photo right now, just a photo of a photo.

Waterfowl

Sometimes you go for something and find something else. Holmes lake was supposed to have a white-winged scoter, but it was a female Greater Scaup (next to some Redheads) instead, a nice find as well:

In the colder months ducks and geese turn up, until the lake freezes. They stay long at even a partially open lake. Then we have a few lakes nearby with LOTS of geese, snow geese.

Among CANADA geese and cackling geese (a high arctic bird, the smaller goose here) there is one greater white-fronted goose.

 A few snow geese always end up with these geese as well.

Among the gulls, some wandering gulls from the East end up. These are just Franklin's in spring. In the fall we find some left with the regular ring billed. Most are gone by November.

Among the cormorants, one Ross's goose.

Canvasbacks at Holmes Lake.

Sparrows

There are sparrows migrating through in October. Some days are good, some not so many. You never can tell.

White throated sparrows are here all winter. As well as Harris's.

Others are hard to get pictures of, but I was lucky to get close to a LeConte's a few times, They hide in the grass mostly (click the photo) :

Grasshopper sparrows are here all summer, but you see them on the move in October:

A Savannah accidentally posed in front of a bit of sunflower, giving him a crown:

Another Savannah, similar striping to Song Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow and below that a Hermit Thrush I found while looking for the sparrows:

And Clay-colored sparrows from last spring

September and October

Repost of Blog

I went out to Branched Oak lake this week and found Sabine's gull first thing. In flight they are easy to ID with a sort of W shaped pattern on their back. Then I found some in water, but these would not take flight so no pictures of the W. They are tiny, compared to the Ring Billed Gull.

The sparrows will be here soon enough for about a month. This one is Lincoln's:

The second one is also Lincoln's but not as much of the tan color.

Savannah sparrow

Yellow-rumped warblers are numerous. I never capture the yellow rump.

White-throated sparrows eventually come to your feeder (well, not mine, just juncos).

Harris's sparrow. 

Another Harris's sparrow

Looking for Lesser Black-backed Gull, found by several at Branched Oak Lake, finally saw this only slightly bigger than ring-billed gull. I did not get a picture, so this one I took in Iceland will have to do:

More Osprey are seen than all summer