birds

I saw a few birds in our yard yesterday that hadn't noticed before. The first flew away quickly, so I didn't get a good look at it, but it was brown with a speckled belly. I think it was a flicker or maybe some kind of thrush. Could have been an immature robin- don't they have speckled tummies?

The second bird was sitting on the fence, so I got a good long look at it with binoculars from the window. It was reddish, with dusty-colored wing feathers, that looked kinda tatty. It looked to me like a bunting, only with red feathers instead of blue. Maybe it was a scarlet tanager? but the wing bars weren't so strikingly black. My other thought was the cardinal moulting, do they loose their fancy crest and grow it back? (also I haven't seen the cardinal pair lately, so perhaps they were moulting and hiding for a while?) No other birds in my identification book match this guy on the fence, but my book is limited, so I really have no idea.

I heard the woodpecker again, today. And saw a pair of mourning doves pecking about among the strawberries and zucchini. Small flocks of birds that look like starlings or grackles (probably both) pick their way across the lawn and garden, some are this year's young, as I see them shadowing another bird begging with fluttering wings (not finding any food for themselves!). I don't like the starlings because I know they push out native birds, but I have to appreciate they eat slugs and caterpillars out of my garden! too bad they go after the good bugs like spiders, too ha ha.

As usual with birds, I didn't get any good photos of my own.