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I was at " Wild Birds Unlimited" yesterday on Bee Caves Rd and spoke to the guy at the counter about the bird I had seen over the weekend. I had explained all of its characteristics, color, markings, size, social grouping and in a few minutes of looking through his field guide for this area, he narrowed it down to 2 birds. He pointed to a few pictures in his book and asked me if that was what I saw, and sure enough it appears to have been several, female red-winged black birds.

Even though my office isn't on the edge of the building, there is a glass partition between my desk and an office that is on the edge of the building. So, I have a virtually unobstructed view outside through the windows in that office. Through those windows I can see several species of trees that are always filled with birds of one type or another. Mostly I see smallish birds like sparrows, mockingbirds, cedar waxwings, etc. But occasionally I'll see a solitary blue jay or a bunch of grackles.

This weekend in my backyard, I spotted several birds up high in our oak trees. There were 7 or 8 similar birds together. The bird had heavy, brown stripes with a buff color on both its breast and back. The bird appeared to be between 6 to 8 1/2 inches. It also had a longer, pointed beak and very strong buff-colored eye stripe.

We were elated a few weeks ago to see a mother cardinal sitting in her nest outside of our patio door. We had hoped to be treated to a nest sighting when the previous homeowner visited and told us that the pair nested annually in a sharp pointed holly bush. When I saw the female swoop in a couple of times to the holly, I thought we might be onto her.

A user-contributed compilation of all birds seen or residing in North America.