Tales from the Bird Sanctuary: Look at all the colors!

This spring and summer have been exceptional for the bird sanctuary, in that I have had a variety large variety of birds, including several which have not visited in years past. I always love spotting new birds, and trying to identify them with the help of my Field Guide to Birds: Western Region, put out by the National Audobon Society. Over the years, I’ve had several editions of this book because it can be very helpful in figuring out who my avian guests are.

What is different about this year is the variety of colorful birds that adorn my yard. I’ve got red-breasted Robins, orange and black Evening Grosbeaks, black and white of Nutall’s Ladderback Woodpeckers with splashes of red, pink-splashed Cassin’s Finches, and Rufus-sided Towhees, and Blue Jays of varying shades.

At the time of this writing, I’m trying to identify a black and white bird with a huge patchof red on it’s chest, which might well be a Painted Redstart, and of course I always get the brilliant luminescent colors of my Rufus and Allen’s Hummingbirds. And, this year, I have an abundance of the brighest, most colorful bird I have ever seen in the wild, the Western Tananger – a bright yellow and black bird with a vividly bright orange head. I have had an onslaught of these birds this spring, when, in previous years, they have been scarce and I was lucky to have maybe one or two sightings.