I love watching birds, sometimes loses track of time! I wanted to share the birds that visit my backyard on permanent daily basis and those who visit during their migration as well!
The most visited bird in my backyard would be the White crowned Sparrow. They are always poking around in the yard looking for seeds by my feeder, bird bath or around the native plants! They are very skittish and fly away at the slightest disturbance.
I always love to watch the House Finches that forage around in my backyard. They always come down in half a dozen frolicking around and taking advantage of my birdbath.
Although a permanent resident of my neighborhood but only seen as an occasional visitor to my backyard would be the Eurasian collared dove. They don’t visit my backyard daily but they always visit in pair and is always so wary and is nearly scared of everything. But they look so elegant and beautiful!
I have seen this bird ever since moving into this house. We have a water channel going in the backyard and I always see Herons standing still trying to catch aquatic insects and fish. They are so patient and then take off ever so quietly and gracefully!
Mourning doves are the familiar faces i have in my backyard for years, I can even individually recognize some pairs. One pair nest on our house awning every year for the past three years without failing! Although I never had the luck of seeing the hatchlings I can see both mom and dad taking turns incubating the eggs and have the peace of mind that they are tucked safely above that awning!
A pair of Black Phoebes have been visiting my backyard for a while now and the pair visit individually for some reason. I always wonder where their nest could be! They fly above the pool picking insects that are squirming about on top. They also takes bath in the pool by taking quick dips although i have 3-4 bird baths all set for them!
This bird is a ferocious little one, the Rufous Hummingbird! He has been drinking from my feeder for years and years! He never migrates, unlike their counterparts, but stays nearby. I have seen it drinking early in the morning as early as 5:30 and as late as 8:00 during the long summer days. He never lets any other hummingbird come any closer to the feeder, always on guard and fighting with others but i have seen him letting some female hummingbirds have a drink at the feeder. He always makes me ponder upon his skills to fly so effortlessly!
I always hear them before i see them, the Ravens. They are the loudest birds around and they come in a flock. They are always bickering and cawing. Still it is fun to watch them and did you know that ravens are extremely smart and can imitate human speech among many other sounds?! Aren’t they amazing!!
This bird is a rare sight and is something to be reckoned with and I had the rare opportunity to handle it one time. One evening an unfortunate Red-tailed Hawk fell into my pool and was unable to fly away. It somehow managed to get out of the pool but was exhausted so I wrapped it in a towel and boxed it in a card box and took it to a rescue center near by that same night and they rescued it and released it back into the wild. I always see these hawks flying low and can see the birds panicking. A soaring hawk can be majestic to see over the yard!!
Mocking bird is a bird which is bolder, smarter and more opportunistic! The way this bird can imitate different sounds is phenomenal!! Whenever my Pomegranate fruit ripens in fall it appears and start making holes in it and we end up with only 2/3 of the fruits in the tree. It also loves my Toyon and the California rose which it gulps without any hesitation!
The Common yellowthroat Warbler appears in a flock and always appears in spring and stay till late fall! They always forage in my Evening Primrose and Elegant Clarika for seeds! They are constantly in motion, darting under leaves and between branches in pursuit of insects!
This would be my favorite bird and they always appear in Spring time and leave around the end of summer. Orioles visit my backyard and have nectar from the hummingbird feeder. I see them visiting the feeder daily in a pair and towards the end of the summer they even bring their fledglings which is striking to watch!!
When we moved to this house the Mallard ducks used to visit us almost every year in springtime looking for a place to lay eggs! We had ducklings two years in a row and it was a pleasure watching them walk out following their mom! We still see them migrating back but they don’t come to lay eggs anymore!
Killdeer is a beautiful bird which i get to watch occasionally! It is always so well camouflaged against the color of the mud that it takes a while to see it when i look for it. It wades using its beak through the silt in the water channel.
I love all the different calls of this Red Shouldered Black bird and I love to watch the birds flying about in big flocks in the old fields which is adjacent to my backyard. They appear around springtime and visit my bird feeder and take bath in my container lily pond! They are always squawking among themselves and visit almost everyday!
Snowy Egret is nothing but a small white heron and I always find it perched either on ours or our neighbor’s chimney facing the water channel looking for potential prey. It is so beautiful and I miss seeing it when it migrates!
We had Barn Swallows nesting on our eaves for years now! One year we had more than one nests and our backyard was always so busy with swallows flying back and forth trying to feed their young chicks! They leave on migration once the chicks mature and return back the following year!
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N.B: I didn’t take any of these pictures, these pictures were taken by talented photographers, I just borrowed their fantastic pictures!
My Backyard Nature 