Today I saw:

[turttle]

I assumed it was a female because the colors were dilute. Are the males pale in the winter, too?

Another view of my warbler

Carolina wren

male house finch

three pine siskins drinking from my stream

red bellied woodpecker wants to share!

[turttle]

I clearly have two male red bellied woodpeckers. One's head is clearly wounded. I imagine they have territorial disputes. I watched the juveniles grow up this summer, and I don't know how large a territory they have or how old they are when they leave home.

[disuhan]

I was always under the impression that it's too difficult to tell them apart in winter, so I never really thought about it or tried. To me they all look pale like that in winter though.

Also, very cool shot of the red-bellied showing how red their eyes are! I never realized they were red!

[turttle]

Disuhan, the females have a grey cap, easier to see in a photograph than when the bird is flying around.
The juveniles are kind of salt and pepper and don't have the red cap yet. They lose that plumage and look like adults by their first winter, though.

I see these guys all the time in my woods, both at my feeders and on/in the trees, so I probably have read about them more than most other birds.

female, note the grey cap
Attachment 34588 female, note she has the red as well, but with grey on top of head

male, for comparison

juvenile, from the summer

[disuhan]

Sorry, I should have clarified that I was talking about sexing yellow-rumped warblers in fall/winter, not red-bellied woodpeckers.
You had asked this earlier:

I assumed it was a female because the colors were dilute. Are the males pale in the winter, too?

And I responded

I was always under the impression that it's too difficult to tell them apart in winter, so I never really thought about it or tried. To me they all look pale like that in winter though.

but didn't reference what exactly I was talking about. Oops.

Those are great pictures showing the differences in the red-bellieds though!

[dapjwy]

We had a January thaw and the temps went up to 50 degrees the other day. I saw a tiny grasshopper, two woolly-bear caterpillars, and some small flying insect! Well, the little grasshopper guy was the one that surprised me.

[Sage]

We drove along the Lake Ontario shore today and in some places there were thousands of ducks and gulls, plus some swans. The diving ducks are really beyond my camera's reach, but Roger caught this Goldeneye out his window.

Goldeneye

Long-tailed duck, white-winged scoter

Canvasbacks

[Viceroy]

Here are a few.

[Rebek56]

No pictures, but last weekend was a good one for birds here. Our naturalists group took a river drive on Saturday that brought me four life birds (not that I keep an actual list): an American coot (too cute for words), a male canvasback duck, a flock of hooded mergansers, and three bald eagles. Then a Sunday walk near our neighborhood wildlife preserve brought two pileated woodpeckers, only the second time I had ever seen that species, and never close enough to see the colors.

[dapjwy]

Originally Posted by Viceroy

Here are a few.

GREAT shots, one and all...but I must say that the first one just blew me away! Beautiful!