Geek Journal Update

For the last month or two, I have noticed some little birds in my yard that I could not identify. They are small--smaller than sparrows--and most noticeable about them are their wing bars. They have very prominent black and white wing bars. I can see those wing bars a mile away! They are also faintly yellow-colored over the face and part of the chest.
Every time I thought I had gotten a good look at one, I would rush to my field guides and go through each one. None of the birds looked like a match. It was a mystery.
Yesterday, Little Momma and I got a really good look at 4 of them for quite a few minutes, and again, I was frantically going through field guides, and when they failed me, I googled "sparrow sized black and white wing bars yellow face," and still I couldn't find anything. This was driving me crazy.
This morning, I resumed my google search, and when I found no picture matches, I started looking on text pages. I found one page that described the winter plumage for a certain bird, and when I googled the name of that bird and winter plumage, I found pictures of my little ones!

So, welcome to the little Goldfinches!! The reason they weren't in any of my field guides was because the pictures in the guides only show the summer plumage, which looks like this:


Won't they be fun to see this summer as well?

Also yesterday, I was able to witness the arrival of over 20 Red-Winged Blackbirds. Now these guys kinda fall into the same category as Starlings and Grackles; meaning they show up in huge flocks, butt all of the other birds out of the way, and devour all of the food, but I like them a little better, only because they're prettier.

I've got about 50 of them in my yard right now. I've also seen the little Goldfinches again today, and it makes me happy to see them and think, "Oh, there's my little Goldfinches." instead of having to think, "BLACK AND WHITE WING BARS! IT'S KILLING ME!"

Cheers.