Monday birds

The big birds are easiest to identify: the egret, the Canada geese, the gannets and various gulls. And the brightly-coloured birds too: there's the red-winged blackbirds that perch on the reeds, and a set of amazingly red cardinals that are fiercly protective of "their" trees (and which have been chasing Mystery Blue Bird around the garden since daybreak). There are swallows, and an owl (heard but not seen), and one mute swan. And the northern mockingbird that makes me reach for my phone...

The mystery birds: the one that sounds like a mini fog-horn in the marshes (must be a heron or bittern); the one that's building a nest under my bedroom; the one that did a huge poop on the deck walkway (that might well have been the gannet though we haven't seen him in action), and Mystery Blue Bird. Mystery Blue Bird is larger than the cardinals but smaller than a Californian bluejay (though he looks like a bluejay with more eyeliner). He has a two-note song and bobs up-and-down with each note. I don't know why the cardinals dislike him so much but they absolutly do not want him in their trees. (I'm guessing that he's a Long Island Bluejay and that he wants to steal their eggs.)

Here's some help with identification (and with knowing what birds to look out for): http://www.libirding.com/Identification.html