Today's birds

The striped birds are female redwinged blackbirds. You can just make out the bit of rose on their throats. Quite a contrast to the jet-black males with their beautiful red and yellow epaulets. The birds surrounding them are grackles. I tried to get a male and female together in the same shot but it was chaos out there with everyone moving around.

This handsome fellow is an Eastern Towhee. We had quite an assortment around the feeder these last few days. No huge surprise, I guess, given the weather.

Black-capped Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

Downy Woodpecker

Golden Flicker. Their main diet is insects - this one seemed to be attracted to the first bare patches of grass and dirt that started showing up next to the house as all of our snow and ice started to melt today. It wasn't at all interested in the seed or suet.

Eastern Meadowlark. I usually see these at the edges of un-mown fields. I've never seen one in our yard before. Like the Flicker, it zeroed in on the newly exposed ground.

It came right up close to the window before splitting the scene.