"B" is for Birds

I am joining Jenny Matlock's fun "Alphabe Thursday" event and the letter for this week is the letter "B"   I know it's not very original, but I couldn't resist sharing some photographs of local birds that I took in the past few weeks.   After looking at my photos I think the letter "B" is also well  represented by the color blue, as the winter skies were uncharacteristically bright the days I took some of the photos.  I was even  able to add a third "B" to this  post as you'll read towards the end.

One afternoon I sighted this group of starlings  resting high up in a tree.  They have a  beautiful iridescent shine about their plumage and are very "chatty," so they are hard to miss.  ( all photos will enlarge when clicked on)

These two young gulls were standing in the water of the Gerritsen Beach inlet.on a very cold day. They stood motionless for so long that I suspected that they were sleeping.

I saw this flock of pigeons in a local park taking turns using a puddle as a birdbath.  If you enlarge the photo you can see the water droplets being flung around as the bird in the water shook the water over his wings,   He's a little blurry but if you look closely to the top left of the puddle in this photo you can also see one of the wild parrots of Brooklyn watching the spectacle!

Mainly sparrows frequent my bird feeder every day.  I even caught one in flight!  They are the most common type of birds that I see in my area, and so prolific in number that they will empty this feeder in a few hours.  I buy bird seed in large quantities to feed the little fellows.

To see some spectacular bird photos drop by Betsy from Tennessee's blog Joyful Reflections  Many different types of birds come to her bird feeders and she often captures beautiful close up photographs of them for her wonderful blog.

If you enjoy watching the birds please join  "The Great Backyard Bird Count"  which is a joint effort by the Cornell  Lab of Ornithology and The Audubon Society that will take place February 12- 15, 2010

Some information from the web site:

"The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent and in Hawaii.

Participants count birds anywhere for as little or as long as they wish during the four-day period. They tally the highest number of birds of each species seen together at any one time. To report their counts, they fill out an online checklist at the Great Backyard Bird Count web site."

This information is used to determine if the health and well being of native and migratory birds are normal and the effects of disease, cold temperatures and invader species might be having on the bird population.

Just for fun I wanted to mention that I was "grilled" yesterday by Lisa from the blog called "Grandma's Briefs"! Her blog header made me laugh so much when I first saw it! Please click on the blog link to read my interview and say hello to Lisa and read about all her wonderful  grandma experiences.