Whew!  Evan’s Eurasian Collared Dove is still alive! (More Than Just A Name) It’s been absent from the yard for nearly two weeks after being a regular since summer, and we were getting worried that it had died.  After all, we had a pair of them for several months, which turned into one bird in the last two months.  This morning we are in the midst of a blizzard.  In fact, we are spending the day  holed up in the house as all church services in Willmar were canceled.  It’s a good day for drinking coffee and monitoring the birds. Can you tell that it’s cold and windy outside?

To give you a sense of this bird’s size, here is a shot where I am not zoomed in.  Do you see it in the middle of the picture and how its size compares to the Common Redpolls on the feeder?

Here’s a shot of the feeding frenzy that happens here daily – blizzard or not.

And add a splash of color in this whiteout, and you have a good bird-watching day! (From reading the blog, can you identify all three species in this shot?)

Answers: Male Northern Cardinal, Male Dark-Eyed Junco (Slate-Colored), and two House Sparrows