Surprising Bird Highlights of My Backyard Wildflower Bed – 2026
Plenty of backyard birders photograph a surprise visitor now and then. What makes this list unusual isn’t any single photo. It’s how many surprises came to one 350-square-foot native wildflower bed, in a single season, starting from bare lawn in March. Every photo below was taken in that bed, almost all of them from my chair.
1. The Three Amigos
A Northern Parula, a Painted Bunting and a White-crowned Sparrow sharing one perch in my wildflower bed: three species from three different bird families in a single frame.
2. Yellow-billed Cuckoo in Plain Sight
A Yellow-billed Cuckoo, a bird known for staying hidden in trees, sat out in the open, moving from perch to perch for over 8 minutes, 25 feet or less from my chair.
3. All Three Mimids on the Tall Perch (10 minute span)
On the morning of November 3, all three of the eastern United States’ regularly occurring mimids (the mockingbird family) took turns on my Tall Perch within about 10 minutes. It was the second time all three were photographed on it in one day. The first was October 26.
Three Cardinal-Family Birds Together
November 4: A Northern Cardinal, an adult male Painted Bunting and a Blue Grosbeak, left to right, three members of the cardinal family together in my wildflower bed.November 5: The very next day, the same three species lined up in the same order, this time with a green Painted Bunting in the middle and all three facing the same way.
Big Dove, Little Dove – A Perfect Pose
October 19: A Mourning Dove and a Common Ground Dove on my log feeder, lined up perfectly to show their size difference. This photo is now on Wikimedia Commons.
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