We are getting reports in Kentucky of lots of Siskins, Purple Finches, and even a few Crossbills.  There are always a few Purple Finches, and occasional Siskins, but Crossbills are rare, and only seen in irruption years.  The quantity of these unusual finches is unusual, too.

I saw a Golden-crowned Kinglet in the back yard yesterday, which is a first-time-ever yard bird for me, so I'm wondering if winter up North is generally tough this year.

Very cute!

[W]

And W, finally, is for White-bellied Parrot.  I took this photo in Amazonian Peru (enough with the Arizona photos, already), from a canopy tower.  I like the quizzical look!

[W]

W is for White-winged Dove -- again in southeast Arizona...that place was full of birds!

W is for Western Tanager -- one of my favorite reasons to visit the Western states!  This beauty was enjoying the oriole food in southeast Arizona.

[W]

W (I'm behind schedule) is for White-earned Hummingbird -- a fairly rare hummingbird we saw in southeast Arizona.

Happy to see that the Barn Owl is thriving somewhere... but sad to read Donna's earlier post re their difficulties in the Big Freeze in the UK... and probably here as well. We used to see one down the road at what everyone calls "The Bad Bends" - but alas, not in a while now. Another problem for them is that loads of old barns and farm outbuildings are being razed or converted. Thus fewer cavities for nesting. I must check re putting up an owl box in the big old Beech at the end of our piece of ground. Meanwhile, I am not sure there is anything one can do to ease their plight in our freezing conditions... short of a spot of mouse-catching...

We're having trouble in Kentucky (all all across the South, I think) with temperatures that have been well below normal, with ice and/or snow on the ground, so I suspect the rodent-eating raptors aren't doing too well here either.  We've also been having the same problem with old barns and farm building being lost as family farms give way to subdivisions, so much so that our local raptor rehabilitation center has gotten into the business of raising baby barn owls.  They have a non-releasable pair that does the initial business of raising them, so they don't get imprinted on humans, they release live prey into their cages as the birds are growing up to help them learn to hunt, and then I think the rehab center tries to find a willing farmer to put up a nest box and they "hack" the young birds near that property hoping the birds will stay around and eventually nest.  So they're trying to bring the population back up in the state.

[X]

Thanks to Aafke, here is my Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus).  I took the photo in Yellowstone National Park back in 1997 (pre-digital), so this is scanned from a negative.

X is for Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus

I never heard of this bird before but I found him in my Petersond birdbook.
The Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus or Yellow-headed Blackbird is a medium-sized blackbird.

The X is a difficult letter but now I have (for the first time) the opportunity to start a letter.
greetings Aafke

Ha ha!  I actually have a photo I've taken of a Yellow-headed Blackbird that I was saving for the "Y"s, since I hadn't bothered to look up his latin name.  Perhaps I'll go ahead and post it now!

Patti

[W]

W is for White-throated Sparrow.  In Kentucky we only see these birds when they come south for the winter; they're especially reliable feeder birds when there is snow on the ground and they have trouble finding food.  I always throw some bird seed directly on the ground for birds who prefer to eat there!

[W]

W is for Worm-eating Warbler!  I think these guys are really pretty in a more subtle way than many warblers.  I volunteered to help out at a bird banding station in Mammoth Cave National Park, and we managed to catch this young Worm-eating Warbler in the mist net.  In the first photo he appears to be protesting his capture...

[W]

W is for White-crowned Sparrow, who we always run into in the Rocky Mountains.  I took this photo in New Mexico.

[W]

W is for White-winged Snowfinch, a bird who nests high up in the mountains of Europe and Asia.  We took this photo in the Italian Dolomites, near the Austrian border.

[(Click the photo to go to the video)]

My life is full of video experiments these last two months!  Remembering to shoot video at all is unusual for me!

Both videos are from my visit to New Mexico in November; I attended the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.  I already posted a couple of videos from this series; there are two new ones below.  I'm also trying posting them on my photo storage site, which gives me better quality than YouTube.  I'm hoping they work for folks.

The first video is a compilation -- I shot lots of video of the "fly-in" event where the cranes return to their nightly roost in the shallow water -- I pulled out the highlights.
(Click the photo to go to the video)

The second video was another experiment, given the great conditions for digiscoping, I thought it worthwhile to see if I could shoot video through the scope, and it worked (I think)!

(Again, click the photo to view the video)

Veery      (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

MAK reminded me that I wanted to post the song of the Veery, which is one of my favorite bird songs to hear in the woods.  The bird is often so well camoflaged against the leaf litter on the forest floor, that I don't actually see Veerys often, but their song is what makes them special, so it doesn't really matter.  I hear them fairly regularly hiking in the Smoky Mountains in spring.

This is actually a video that shows the bird singing...I think the song gets even nicer toward the end.  It's another example of what Dale mentioned...the bird can produce two sounds at once.
http://www.youtube.com/v/cK1gaTqBRRk&rel=0;autoplay=1

Follow up the Veery song...the original page where I found the video is here: http://www.musicofnature.org/home/veery_thrush/

If you scroll down the page there is another sound recording that is even more wonderful!