Backyard birds seen in 2010

I have been meaning to post a list of the birds I saw through 2010, mostly for my own records.  As with most things these days, it kinda fell by the wayside.  Since I find myself with a few minutes to spare, and since working on photographs isn't going too well with these old glasses of mine, I thought I'd get started on that bird list instead.


There were of course all the usual suspects:


Blue jays
Black capped chickadees
American goldfinches
European Starlings
Downy woodpeckers


But a few of  these birds also made visits to our backyard last year:


Dark eyed Junco
Northern flicker
White-breasted nuthatch
Purple finch


But probably the most interesting bird to visit was a lone female ring-necked pheasant.  If my dad had not been there with me to witness it, I might have not believed it myself.  I thought it was a cat lurking in the brush waiting to ambush some unsuspecting bird, but then it popped out into the yard and it was most definitely not a cat.


In 2009, we saw a lot of common grackles, but they all but disappeared from our yard in 2010.  Looking forward to what we'll see this year.