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You're seeing several great birds but here many birds are leaving for warmer wintering grounds. With colder weather descending, only the tough and the rugged choose to stay.

Yes Debbie, bird migration is one of the "amazing" wonders of the natural world. Interestingly, the birds do not migrate to warmer climes because their bodies can't survive the cold weather but rather due to the fact that their means of substance cannot. Hence, they migrate to places where there is a ready food supply.

With the sun about to set on my usual birding "patch" yesterday, in a little less than an hour of birding, here in the abbreviated notation way that I record are what species I was fortunate enough to have witnessed:

CGD
MHB
TV
LGF
VFC
HF
BGG
AC
CMH
SFC
GE
GH
GFWP
BVO
SBO
VCHB
BO

What no GBA or AK or LHS?

Quite a list, Edward! I look forward to time for birding.

There's been a lot of crows around here lately, pretty much the only bird I've seen these days due to my busy schedule.

"Crow calls to awaken you to your true soul purpose.....to remind you to follow your heart."

~Native American quote

A WILD TURKEY'S THANKSGIVING

I am thankful for all the Toms and Hens in my life
I am thankful for my 5,000-6,000 feathers
I am thankful for the 7 million birds of the same feathers in the USA
I am thankful for the forests, pastures, orchards and fields that provide a home to us
I am thankful for the seeds, berries, roots and insects that are our primary sustenance
I am most thankful for when Thanksgiving is over and the human hunters go home
I am gizzardly thankful that I did not end up in someone's oven, stuffed or not!!!
Gobble Gobble Gobble

This is great, and a little funny!

"What is sauce for the goose may be sauce for the gander, but is not necessarily sauce for the chicken, the duck, the turkey or the guinea hen."

~Alice B. Toklas

Hi Debbie, Francine and all,

Here in my neck of the nopal and blue agave, there aren't any geese; perhaps their closest relatives that I see daily at Cemetery Pond are over 50 American Coots of various ages as the adults are breeding there in the high marshy grasses and a few Common Moorhens and Pied-Billed Grebes.

Like those other "oven birds," turkeys, geese don't get much respect. Otherwise why does gander not only mean a male goose but also a simpleton or silly person?

Then again, gander also means in a Big Bopper stretching of one's neck sort of way ("make me feel real loose like a long necked goose") a look or glance.

So, let's be positive about geese , whether they are greasy or not or whether they lay golden eggs or not.

Thus, yesterday just before sunset, sans any geese-although there was one Great Egret in a nearby puddle that I startled upon my approach, on Oriole Tree here is what I joyfully was able with my eyes (with help of my trusty binoculars) to ganderize: at least 15 Streak-Backed Orioles-including males, females and juveniles, more than a dozen each of Lesser Goldfinch and House Finch, a quartet of hyper Blue-Grey Gnatcatchers, Violet-Crowned and Magnificent Hummingbirds, Western Kingbirds, male and female Blue Grosbeaks and male "Vermies." Stretching my neck, on a nearby tree I was able to take a gander at a cuter than cute Black Phoebe.

I wonder what I will be able to ganderize today when I go to Double Lake? No matter what,"oh baby, that's a-what I like."

I love and respect geese. My favorites are the Snow Goose, the Canada Goose, the Greater White Fronted Goose, the Bar-Headed Goose, and the French Toulouse.

Good for you edwardd1 for seeing all of those wonderful birds. I hope today will be just as fruitful for you.