A rose-breasted grosbeak was recently seen at Bok Tower Gardens, so this morning Rich and I went to bird-watch at Bok.  We didn’t see a grosbeak, but we did see some fun songbirds.

The first bird we saw this morning was a male Eastern Towhee.  He was on the ground, rooting through the grass, digging for worms.   His call really does sound like the “Drink your tea!” mnemonic on our bird CD.  Then he took the worms over to his baby and started to feed it.  A few minutes later, the birds flew into the tree right over my head, and I was able to snap a few pretty clear shots of the baby.

Up by the tower, the swans were happy to pose for me (and beg for food!)

There were tons of blue jays and cardinals out today.  I think I heard a bunch of baby cardinals, but I didn’t see any.

I heard tons of great-crested flycatchers today.   I followed them from tree to tree, but I wasn’t able to get any decent close-ups.  Rich noticed this bird nesting box by the Exedra outlook area, and we realized that the flycatchers were flying in and out of it, carrying nesting material.

We didn’t see any hummingbirds, or warblers, or painted buntings.  Most of the winter songbirds have left already.  I did see this gray catbird near the visitor’s center as we left.