I have to say staying home for last few months has got me into noticing all the different birds around our house. First and foremost I need to give credit to our pair of resident Oregon Dark Eyed Juncos. From late April up till the second week of July, they had three broods in my flower pots right by our front door. As they starting their third brood we decided to feed them… and that’s how the show starts!
One day as I was walking in the neighborhood I noticed two blue headed birds on the fence, but they quickly disappeared before I could have a good look at them. As the weeks went by I would hear this bird always on the top of cedar trees singing, but if I pointed my binoculars or my camera towards it, it would fly away. And then one day through the living room window we saw this blue headed bird in our big rhododendron bush cross the lawn, as quickly as we could we were able to capture a few images of him before he disappeared again. Now we can identify him.
He is a Lazuli Bunting, which belongs to Cardinals family! Apparently they are pretty common in the east side of the state, and we are fortunate because they also seem to like to hang out in our area!
Always sings on the top of the trees!
First time we saw this Lazuli was a little over a month ago in our big rhododendron bush in the front yard.
Then as we started to put bird food out on the stump to help the juncos to feed their growing family, and then HE the lazuli shows up! From then on we hear him sing and then he comes to the stump to feed! He is always super skittish, and stays on the back side of stump, which blocks the window where we can spot him. We see him a couple times a day, and on rare occasion, he will be fighting with other birds or walking casually to the front of the stump, we thought he just got braver over times…But then we realized that there are MORE than just one lazuli coming to our stump feeding station, they just never show up at the same time! We can tell they are different by their mannerisms and their noticeable white bars on their wings!
Going to hide again…
And this is the most handsome lazuli I think. He is always calm, walks casually around the stump, not nervous at all. His white bars are all the way across his wings, and his tail is always down as he is not on the high alert…
Little fun trick
Alert? Top of the head feathers up, but tail still down.
Raspberries there to attract Tanagers, but Towhees ate them…
Walking right across the front of the stump, no fear…
On the back right side of stump, nonstop watching as he is eating, here is the skittish Lazuli again!
He is ready to take off at any time!
One more bite…
What’s that?
This one is smaller but very feisty! He’s really fun to watch! He might be a youngster, courageous and curious! Notice how short the white bars on his wings are!
Not for the water, just a Little fun
Exploring…
This lazuli is mingling with a house finch (we think)…
Is he interested in her…Or she is a baby of his?
Telling her to watch out…
Alert!
Feeding her…? Probably not
Must noticed me, hiding behind…sneaky!
Time to go!
In general Lazulis are very bashful, and they never seem over stay their welcome because they always feed only for a very short time, average less than a minute! And they are on the look out consistently, kind of stressful life for them, especially out in the open… Maybe they know their beautiful blue plumage attracts too much unwanted attention. Anyways it has been a little over a month since we first saw them, they come to feed a couple of times every day ( not the same one of course!)on the stump, only two times I was able to capture them outside the house, mostly we just watch them through the window! And we have never seen a female, apparently they are very elusive, ha no kidding! It would be really fun to see them and their babies, perhaps, one day!
An expert birder has said one time if you can’t see the bird singing on the top of the trees in your yard, most likely it is a Lazuli!
Always on alert!
They love millet! They like thistle seeds too, but don’t dare venture to compete with finches!
Our resident male Junco is very territorial, you have to be on watch out all the time because you just don’t know when he’ll attack…
Ready to fight…?
Junco is gone…
…still can’t let the guard down.
Even this calm handsome lazuli still keeps his eyes out for a quick take off…
We are having so much fun seeing those interesting birds as we have never seen before! Did not even know some of them exist, so it has been quite an eye opening experience for us in the past several months!
Happy bird watching ya’ll!
Such a pretty bird!
Right? Wish they are not that skittish!