We awoke this morning to see this bird at our feeder. This is the first time we have ever seen one of these. We checked our Roger Troy Peterson Field Guide of Birds to learn what kind of bird it is. It would be sweet if it nested in the area whatever it is. I used my 70-200mm with a 2X extender. I need to check my metadata to see what the aperture was with the odd blurring in the upper right corner since I had it on shutter priority.
@mej2011 - Thank you Melissa. I guess we need to do more investigating. I does resemble a Towhee. I Googled Oregon Junco and found some conflicting information. The page is for an Oregon Junco, but in the picture on the upper right it shows a bird that resembles the one we saw, but it is listed as a Dark-eyed Junco. But if you Google Dark-eyed Junco it shows a grey bird with a dark head.
The oregon junco also has a dark head and pinkish sides, but the head is more defined. Peterson's was probably showing the similarities between the two.
@skipt07http://www.whatbird.com/ is a great website for bird identification. The expert tool allows you plug in some features (location, shape, color, size) and gives you what should be in your area within those parameters.
@calm - I can't take credit Cathy. I miss identified it and was corrected by @mej2011 and @lynnb. When my wife got home she told me that she thought it was either a Oregon Junco or a Towhee. I missed the Towhee part and said it was a Oregon Junco.
I have been trying to capture a little one of these in my yard all week! he is so skiddish I can't get him...I think I will plant a chair out there and wait for him next week
@vickisfotos - Our feeder is 15 feet outside of our dining room window so I have the luxury of that. I am thinking that next year I am going to put the feeder on one of those shepherd's hooks to get it even closer. When I first saw it, it was in the Rose of Sharon bush. But it seemed to like it more on the ground eating the seeds the other birds dropped.
@taffy - I remembered later that I ran this through PicMonkey to sharpen it a little. I wonder if sharpening it caused the blur to be more accentuated?
Does it list the Rofus Sided Towhee? Sometimes they get silly and change the names.