Some really terrific shots Palo, thanks for sharing them. Your 2nd Brown Thrasher photo is very nice. Thrashers are excellent at staying hidden and out of sight. Unfortunately your photos of the Fox Sparrow are actually a female Red-winged Blackbird. They're just starting to return in to Ontario...the males have been here for a couple of weeks now claiming their territories. Don't feel bad though as I think this is probably the most confusing bird to identify. Many of the so called 'guide' books don't even show the female RWBB because the males are so striking looking colour-wise.
Walter 
Thanks very much Walter for your kind words and correcting my mistake with the female RWBB... it's welcomed and very appreciated!
Birding is a huge learning curve for me and you're right with some of those guide books, in my case it's an iPad app. I've dusted of the hard cover field manual once again.
Cheers
The female is very beautiful too. The first time I saw a female RWBB, it took me a bit to figure out it was a female RWBB and not some other species but the whole time before I knew, I was happily snapping away pics of a beautiful bird
They are gorgeous bird! But I had no idea that they would look so different from the males... I couldn't have even guessed it.
beautiful shots!
tks
Egret
Thx for the kind words Egret! Cheers
I love the Flicker and Loon shots!
The Loon popped up right next to me while I was photographing a Horned Grebe. Every time he dove, he pops up about 20-30 meters away along the shore line, so I had to keep jogging quite a distance each time to stay ahead of him. However, I was alway on the wrong side of the sun and was unable to capture it's red eyes properly.
I love the yellow under the wings on the flicker
Yes, I had no idea that it had that much yellow under there, until that day.
Great pics, Palo. And wonderful new species. I think I finally got the RC Kinglet today.
Thanks Rotarren! And congrats on the Kinglets, they are very difficult to photograph... Perpetual motion machines.
