Birds in the Backyard

A colorful assortment of birds stopped by the feeder today. It started with a tom turkey guarding his small flock of females.

Tom Turkeys are real show stoppers this time of year

The turkeys displaced the wood ducks from feeding below the hopper feeder.

Not a problem for a couple of the wood ducks who have learned to fly up to feed directly from the food source.

Wood ducks are able to perch in trees thus are very agile to balance on top of the feeder.

Striking breeding colors on a female Red-bellied Woodpecker

The highlight of the afternoon’s photo session was getting good looks at a first year juvenile Cooper’s Hawk. Coopers are a year-long resident in my backyard, preying on songbirds at the feeder and have nested in past summers in our woods. They don’t stay in one place for too long but today I was able to get some good images of this juvenile perched in a large boxelder.