Two Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks Visit the Feeder

I saw two of these birds for the first time yesterday. The picture on the left doesn't do justice to the brilliant beauty of these birds. The name says "rose-breasted," but the two male birds I saw yesterday had bright red splashes on their breasts. Much redder and brighter than the bird in the picture.

The first time I saw it yesterday, I caught only a flash of red, white, and black out of the side of my eye as I passed the window. We've been having a woodpecker show up at the bird feeder, and so I thought that's what it it was.

An hour or so later, we were eating dinner, and the bird returned. So we oohed and awed. Then a few minutes later, a second male showed up at the feeder as well.

So that was a real treat, especially since I'd never seen that type of bird before.

Some other cool birds I've seen recently (besides the regular visitors at the feeder): A few weeks ago, a turkey buzzard perched on our back fence. I caught that out of the side of my eye and at first thought it must be a cat or something. It surprised me to see such a large bird perched on our fence. We also used to have a couple of owls who would sit on our fence at night. But I haven't seen them for at least a year. We also often have hawks perching on the fence. One day last year I watched a hawk on the fence from the bedroom window. So it was maybe 20 feet away. I was peeking through the blinds, so the hawk didn't see me (or didn't mind me watching if it did see me). All of a sudden it jumped down on the other side of the fence and then immediately flew back up facing me -- with a field mouse in its beak. One swallow and the mouse was halfway down the hawk's throat, its tail hanging out of the hawk's beak like a strand of spaghetti. Another swallow and the tail disappeared down the hawk's throat. I imagined I could almost hear the slurping.