Great topic! I grew up on a game bird farm(yes, they were raised for release for hunting, but I didn't know that at the time...
!)--I am passing fond of birds, now. Am not great on all of the names, but those hanging around here include: flycatchers(we call them "kingbirds", great little birds!), barn swallows(a barnful-they've been coming to nest for about all of the 26 years I've lived here...), several species of sparrows and finches, mockingbirds and thrashers,towhees(who like to come into the barn and scratch like chickens along the edge of the stacked hay!). I am also blessed with some scaled('blue')quail(I really love quail; they are probably my favorite(and NO, I don't eat them...!). I no longer have a cat, so I put out a quail block, in addition to the standard bird seed I put out(can't use sunflower seed here, as the raucous jays immediately appear out of nowhere(I am not in the timber, so they normally aren't nearby), and run off all the other birds....). Last year and this, I've had some wonderful doves show up--both the little mourning doves(which
were still being hunted right here when we moved out here, and are only now 'showing back up'...)-and some I looked up that are 'rock pigeons'-who look like a larger version of the mourning doves, and are just gorgeous!.
Unfortunately, I also have several BIG ravens-one in particular, this year, who is always around. I admire their intellect, but am not happy with their murderous and nasty habits....I have had to place a water bucket, and shallow water pan, out by the arena, to help keep them from fouling my horses' waters with either their poop, OR their meals-which often consist of baby cottontails(I have found parts of, and entire, baby rabbits in the water, along with other distasteful items-last time I emptied my large oval trough, there was a piece of LUNCH MEAT on the bottom of it-had to have been dropped in by the you-know-who!!!)I have also caught them stealing baby kingbirds right out of their nests, which really upsets me. I threaten them with the pellet gun on occasion, but they are so smart, I swear they KNOW it's a threat, and fly off before I can get close enough for an effective shot(I am a good shot, because I used to shoot a BB gun as a kid-not at animals, though--never that--I just liked to target shoot, and got pretty good at it.)
Recently, I've seen a turkey vulture or two! Used to see them when I lived further south, but haven't seen them around here until this year?? We've generally had a few hummers, but haven't seen a single one this year-the drought, maybe? There's surely nothing blooming....
OT, but I also have a veritable HERD of cottontails who live here. In some ways, I guess I have to thank the ravens for some degree of rabbit population control...and last week, there was a HUGE jackrabbit just at the front corner of my acreage-though they are around, they generally stay on the other side of the highway from me(don't know why that is, it just always has been that way-when I used to ride over there, before all the subdivisions, I saw them often-but only on THAT side of the highway???????) On this side, it's cottontails.....ODD!!