Beautiful Birds in Your Backyard

This year we’ve enjoyed watching the variety of birds that visit our backyard. There is the familiar mournful cooing of the mourning doves – a very common bird sound.

We also have a regular visitor – the Eurasian Collared Dove – much larger than the mourning dove wearing a “collar” which is a black band that runs from one side of the neck, along the back, to the other side of the neck – like a collar. Just like the mourning doves, their diet is mostly seed and they are also ground foragers.

Blue Jays are beautiful birds, plentiful and easily recognizable in South Florida. They are not picky eaters but I’ve noticed that if I mix peanuts to my bird mix, they stay and eat till the feeder is empty.

My backyard is alive and the bird feeders have become a stopover for many birds that I’ve not noticed before.

Jim Robellard, a neighbor and a nature photographer, also set up several feeders in his backyard. With his patience and long lens, he shared photos of the “beautiful camera-shy birds” that visit our backyards.

Shy and colorful backyard visitors:

Cape May Warbler is a regular visitor to South Florida on its way to someplace else. And no, its home is not Cape May, New Jersey. According to bird experts, its home is in the conifer forests of Canada and Maine.

Scarlet Tanagers are members of the Cardinal family. They are medium size and during breeding season, the male Scarlet Tanager is covered in a rich shade of crimson red with black wings and tails. The female is drab with olive upperparts and pale-yellow underparts. The male was smaller than I expected and redder than a cardinal with his jet black wings. It is a color combination that you are not likely to forget.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are another one to add to the list of backyard visitors and some experts say that they are not supposed to be seen in our area. At first glance, you think it is a sparrow. They are very shy and skittish and always in motion but Jim was able to take a still photo of this rare visitor. This is a male and as they say, the female can’t be far behind.

Black and White Warbler is looking very distinctive with its striped appearance. According to my bird book they are migratory birds traveling long distances. They visit Florida in the spring and again in the winter. The male has a bigger black eye patch across the eye and cheek and is darker than females. This looks like a male Black and White Warbler.

Bird Bath Essentials: The best part of my backyard birding experience is watching the birds take a dip and do a bit of wing and beak washing, preening and even frolicking. According to the Audubon Society, a good rule of thumb to follow is for the bird bath to be two inches deep for the larger species like Cardinals and Blue Jays; about one inch deep for smaller songbirds.

For my own experience, I added a small rock in the deep part of one the birdbaths but I don’t think it matters much to the birds. They love water and enjoy getting their feathers wet. I’ve seen smaller birds just jump right into a deep bowl, dip their entire body; swirl around a couple of times and then get out looking very pleased with themselves.

Thanks to nature photographer Jim Robellard for sharing these amazing photos from your backyard- please keep them coming!