Tuesday, January 27, 2009

New Bird


I have been a fan of Mountain Ash trees since I was in elementary school when I was collecting Red Rose Tea Cards. They came out in different nature-themed series and the books to glue them into only cost 25 cents! The tree series cards had beautiful little paintings of the various types to North American trees. I was particularly attracted to the picture and name of the Mountain Ash. I do not believe that I actually saw one in real life until I moved west in my early 20's. As a gardener I had heard that they were "messy" trees because of the small leaves and berries but they attract birds like crazy in the dead of winter. Robins, waxwings and nuthatches love to feast on the large red meaty packets of energy. This Saturday I spotted a group of medium sized birds and suspected that they were waxwings but upon a closer inspection they were entirely different with thick, slightly crossed bills. It was my fist sighting of the Pine Grosbeak (# 229 on my Life List)! The males plumage in winter is rather muted but the females plumage looks just like in the bird guides. They were literally outside my front living room window in the Mountain Ash tree. They were pretty tame when I went out onto the front porch to leave. Here is an interesting fact...I did not even plant the tree. It was a volunteer from some bird who made a deposit one day and grew up by the downspout from the eves.

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