Juncos

Yesterday, a flock of juncos moved through my yard. I startled a couple of them as I stepped off the deck.

Another sure sign of fall. I have seen a few here and there over the past few weeks, but this was a small flock.

They are so small. Their beaks are impossibly tiny. And these were more sooty colored than black and white. I had to look closely to see where the grey ended, and the black began.

Birds

Yesterday, I went outside to do a few sketches of the nuthatches. I ended up with seven pages of bird sketches in my sketchbook. It was a cool, but sunny day, and the birds were very active. I had to refill the birdbath twice, because it was in constant use.

Many of the sketches show preening behaviors. I love the way birds open out their wings to preen. The angles their wings and heads make, in relation to their legs, are just beautiful. This is something that seems to come out better in my sketches than in finished paintings. The behavior is so transient, and it is something you can recognize in a sketch, but it somehow, to me, seems too temporary a pose for a painting. Time spent sketching is never wasted time, though, because it all becomes visual knowledge that informs later paintings.  But I suspect I may end up doing a painting someday of the preening baby robins that visited yesterday. Five of them were jockeying for position at the birdbath.

Bird list, so far!

We have not been in Nebraska very long, but here are the species of birds I have seen or heard, so far:

Canada Goose (of course!!!)
Bobwhite (voice only)
Great Blue Heron
(Cooper's Hawk) (likely)
Killdeer
Mourning Dove (yes, Mom and Dad, they are here, too! My parents call them suburban pigeons.)
Yellow-billed Cuckoo (voice only)
Great Horned Owl
Common Nighthawk (voice only)
Belted Kingfisher
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Northern Flicker
Blue Jay
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
American Robin
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
(a yellow warbler... id???)
Chipping Sparrow
(Vesper Sparrow... not certain)
Northern Cardinal
Dickcissel (voice only)
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Brewer's blackbird
House Finch
House Sparrow

Well, that's a good start!!! I am not going to attempt to identify that beautiful yellow warbler. And the ones I am just not sure about, like the Vesper Sparrow, and the Cooper's Hawk, I have placed in parenthesis.

 My family members have seen others, like a hummingbird and an oriole, and I was exasperated by the fact that by the time I ran to see them, they were gone. Why does this always seem to happen?