Last night, my daughter spotted what she thought was a Red-Winged Blackbird. I was immediately impressed because (1) she’s 12 and looking for birds and (2) she is pulling from the information I’ve learned and shared to try to identify a bird and (3) she ran inside for her camera! THAT’S MY GIRL!!

While there was this scissor noise coming from a bird on top of a tree, I couldn’t accurately tell her she was correct without zooming in on a photo to check. She’s got a junior version of my camera with a nice big fat viewing screen on the back, it was easy to zoom in and correctly identify this gorgeous male Brown-headed Cowbird.

(Listen here to the Red-Winged Blackbird, so you can hear the similarities)

I left her with her camera to explore the yard and returned inside. I heard a new sound coming from the back of the house, so when I peeked out, I saw a squirrel, sitting angrily in the tree and barking at the cowbird every time he would start his song.

Hilarious! He even went so far as to try to spook the bird off his tree. Catybug got a live video of him yelling, you may be able to see it here (though I’m not sure of her privacy settings).

Well I decided to try to get a few shots of the cowbird from my angle, and went and grabbed my camera. Halfway through shooting, he decides to do this cute little puff and stretch, fanning out his tail feathers and quickly resuming song. I’m not sure if this is part of a mating ritual or just stretching after a long flight home – but I couldn’t resist sharing the shot!

I’m thrilled that Spring has “officially” arrived. It’s been a long winter, and I’m more than ready!! It won’t be long before I’m out back getting dirty moving my plants around. Aaaahhh yes – gardening. It can’t get here soon enough for me!

(ooh nice deal – Spring Hill Nursery has free S&H on orders of $25 or more to celebrate the arrival of Spring! This is not a paid advertisement, I simply buy a lot of bulbs.)