Our local birds

I've enjoyed the local photos so much that Linda has posted, I wanted to share some of our local birds that I spotted today on my short run. I love to try to spot unusual birds when I run - it's one of those things that I would rarely enjoy if I weren't getting outside most days for a workout. Unfortunately my good camera with the zoom lens is broken, so I'm borrowing some photos of birds that are similar to the ones that I saw today. Thank you! I'm not positive these are the exact varieties that live around here in northern Virginia urban areas, but they're close enough for my purposes. While they're not Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, we enjoy them.

A kingfisher like this was sitting on a branch just above the Four Mile Run creek that I usually run along. As he flew away he made the chattering call that you can hear if you go to the Texas Education Agency site where this photo resides, and click on it. I very rarely see these, but when I do I always think they're blue jays at first since they're just about the same size and close to the same color, but their brilliant white necklaces are unmistakeable. They always hang out near the water and fly along the creek looking for fish.










I've been seeing lots of these little goldfinches lately. Their brilliant color is easy to spot, especially before the tree leaves have filled out this time of year. This photo is from a bird lover's site with gorgeous photos called joannesbackyard. They always fly away from me too quickly to watch them for long, though.