Do Mind The Bullocks

I saw a flash of orange outside my window as I was making tea this morning.  Sprinting to get my camera, I was able to snap these images  through the window & screen:

and

and

and then I checked Cornell's site (all about birds) and it Looks Like this is probably a juvenile male Bullocks Oriole.  It strongly resembles an Altamira Oriole, but those are only in Eastern Coastal Mexico, more than a 1000 miles away.  Many many photos on Cornell's site from California posters show Bullocks Orioles...   and one juvenile even looks somewhat like the body coloring, though the wing striping is more Altamira.

Had you told me 7 or 8 years ago that I would have ANY interest in birds whatsoever - other than eating them - I would have laughed and told you that you're insane.  But put a few Anna's, Costa's, Blackchinned, Rufous, and Allen's hummingbirds in my yard, a road runner or two, a few Gila Woodpeckers, some raucous Mocking Birds, some Phoebes, Robins, Warblers, Wrens, Sparrows, Tit Mice, Chickadees, Red Tailed and Red Breasted Hawks, Finches, Fly Catchers, Bee Catchers, an Oriole or two, and a Peregrine Falcon feasting in my street; pelicans, spoonbills, sand pipers, oyster catchers, cormorants, osprey, cooper's hawks, and even sea gulls at the beach, and then add in a 24X zoom lens that can capture them digitally and well...   I find them beautiful, fascinating, alluring, elusive, and fleeting.

I recall my good friend and co-worker Gary (Xiaobin) that he said to me in China when his daughter was just a toddler:  "I want my daughter to grow up where there are birds, and know what birds are".  His daughter will be going to college soon...  he told me that so many years ago.  He's a company  executive and a vice president now...   and I'm still just an engineer... but I sure do have my fair share of birds, and the pictures to remember them by and share with my friends.