Even though the Great Backyard Bird Count is over, I have a few interesting birds I have not yet posted. Like those Eurasian collared doves, a new species for my life list. They showed up for the first time during the count, but it sounds like they are sticking around. Every day since then I have heard their mournful “Hooo…hooo…” echoing from nearby trees. Such a ghostly sound–appropriate for these pale birds, I suppose. They finally settled in under the feeder long enough for me to take their pictures.
And then there was another odd junco. Thanks to Birding Bunch, I now know that this junco is leucistic. That means it has feathers that should have pigment, but don’t. In this case, tail feathers. Only the very outer ones should be white, but this little guy’s tail is mostly white. I got this neat picture by accident. 🙂
And today’s last visitor to the feeder is quite an odd duck… one with soft fur and a fluffy white tail, in fact. This was the first time I ever saw it grazing under the feeder.
Isn’t nature fun? Always something new and exciting!
Sparrow Thoughts 
Very nice Dove. We had one a year ago. It didn’t stay long, though. I am eagerly awaiting the return of our Mourning Doves. We’ve seen handfuls in the area, but none are feeding here yet.
I really enjoy those by accident photos. Usually I am trying to get a bird sitting still, but with the digital delay, I occasionally get something else altogether.
Now and again we get a rabbit under the feeder, but we’ve only had it happen when snow was on the ground.
Thank you so much for linking to my site. 🙂
God bless you.
Thank you! It was fun to discover that my photo of a junco happened to be THAT junco. I had seen him around, but had never actually tried to get his picture–and then he happens to fly in at just the right moment. How thoughtful of him. 🙂
Sorry I’m slow to reply. We were gone to the beach to celebrate our anniversary–and had a lovely time!
Um, Susan. I hestitated to mention this, but can’t hold back. That bottom photo is not any sort of duck. It is in fact a rabbit. Yes, j’accuse! I hope you got the nasty, evil little continent-destroying vermin and knocked it on the head.
Ken, what would I do without your wise counsel? No wonder the thing never quacked! And here I thought it was just a mute duck… oh, wait, those are swans… Never mind.
Those are swans? Just check. Are they black? I have heard that over there in foreign parts there are many albino swans, so you probably can’t tell.
Interesting how animals mean different things in different places. Rabbits were introduced to Australia for sport and to make it more “home like” to the British settlers. They rapidly got out of hand and became a destructive pest. Now they are just targets of biological warfare.
The European settlers also introduced some of those albino swans. The poor pale, washed out, colourless things even managed to breed. Sad, because everyone knows that swans should really be black.
I cannot believe this… I had to delete what I wrote, because as I was working on this a child saw a rabbit! Bummer. I thought our red-tailed hawk took care of the one we saw this winter.
I like our Swans. We finally saw some wild ones last month. Tundra and Trumpeter.
Certainly we live in different places, and various words have different meanings to us. I like swans, whether black or white. And I like rabbits, except when they get in my garden. So yes, they can be pests… but cute ones…