Bobcat in the Backyard

I saw this little guy in our backyard today.

Backyard Birds

I thought it would be fun to keep an ongoing list of which species of birds visit our backyard. I am only counting birds I get an image of on our property and if the birds are sexually dimorphic I will count each sex as a different bird. Here are the first four. 

1. Lesser Goldfinch Carduelis psaltria

 2. Spotted Towhee Pipilo maculatus

3. Western Scrub-Jay Aphelocoma californica

4. Band-tailed Pigeon Columba fascicata 

Rose-Ringed Parakeet

Most days I am home, I see parrots around our house. Today however, I spotted a different parrot species outside. This Rose-Ringed Parakeet is the third species of parrot I have found near our home. The parrot only stuck around for a few minutes so the shots below were the best I could get. The long turquoise tail is amazing on these birds.

Here are my photos of the other more common species I see around our house: 

Parrots Visit Our Trees

For the first time (that we noticed) parrots were eating from our fruit trees. While we see parrots nearly everyday, this is the first time we have seen them come down to our tree. These parrots have blue heads, while we normally see red headed parrots.

Here is a photo of the normal parrots we see (with red heads):