A Male Painted Bunting feeding on Texas Dandelion seeds. This picture was taken behind my garage. They seem to be a very shy and solitary bird but they occasionally visit our feeders and get close to the house. My best chance for seeing them has been early in the morning. The dimension of the fence wire square is 6 inches so you can get an idea of the size of this bird.

There are a lot of migratory birds either passing through on their way north or coming back to north Texas for the summer. One of my favorites is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology it is eastern North America’s only breeding hummingbird and has the largest breeding range of any North American Hummingbird. We have a lot of coral trumpet honeysuckle and trumpet vines in our area. Since the Ruby Throat likes red or orange tubular flowers we have a lot of these birds around our place. They also like to eat small insects such as gnats, fruit flies and mosquitoes.

I saw the first Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher of the year this morning. These birds are usually only seen in several states in the south central US. It is the state bird of Oklahoma. You can’t mistake these birds with their long forked tail and salmon colored flanks. You usually see them perched on fences or power lines. They catch most of their insect diet on the fly.

Sampson, a Classic Champagne quarter horse stallion, has been turned loose from a conformation photo session and is in a hurry to get back to his mares. In this picture you can clearly see the reverse dappling that is found on some champagne horses. Reverse dappling is dark spots surrounded by lighter lacing. On Sampson the dappling effect is best seen when he sheds his winter coat.

Bluebirds have started building their nests in preparation for a new breeding season. They are facing fierce competition from house sparrows for their nest boxes. We  had to remove one nest box within 3 days of putting it up after house sparrows took it over.