Birds & Birding

shakeysix

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I had a good sized raccoon jump out at me one night. We were living in an even smaller town. I went to take a walk on the creek and startled it. It startled me by rearing up and snarling. Their teeth pick up the moonlight. --s6
 

mrsmig

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Shakey, your Aunt Marie sounds wonderful!

She does indeed. I used to feed the squirrels when we first moved into our house, but then they took over the place and nothing was safe. They raided all my bird feeders, dig in all my potted plants, uprooted bulbs and destroyed my tomato plants. I stopped feeding them and baffled all my feeders to keep them out, but every once in a while I'll get a Houdini squirrel which seems to magic its way past all my stopgaps.

This evening I was helping my husband unload his car after a trip out of town and saw three young bucks come out of my neighbor's yard, pause under the streetlamp in silhouette, and then move across the street. Breathtaking. Each had about a four-point rack of antlers. I wish I'd had my camera handy.
 

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I am toying with the idea now that i am retired. Not sure I want to commit so i'd like to hear from others--s6
Great thing about birdwatching is that it's not a commitment, unless you really want to get competitive about it. Find nice outdoors places to walk. Look for birds while you do it. Win-win. All you have to invest in is a pair of binoculars, and a good bird book. Yes, you can spend thousands if you want, but you don't have to.
 

GeorgeK

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Nice! We get pileated woodpeckers on our biggest tree sometimes, but they don't show any interest in the feeder. I often see them in the park I run in--I saw five in one day last spring (three were together--probably a family).

I have a weakness for woodpeckers--the downy family that visits our feeder is adorable. They love the suet cakes. At first, the juveniles would perch on top of the feeder and wait for the adults to feed them. Then one got bold and started pecking tentatively at the suet himself, but not actually eating it. He did that for days before he swallowed some. Just practice, I guess, or having to connect the impulse to peck to the impulse to feed. Now he will hang out on the feeder by the suet cake whether he's eating or not. I think he bonded to it.
If you want to attract woodpeckers some species prefer sunflower seeds and some prefer mealworms. If your local sources don't have mealworms and you don't want to bother with raising them you can order them online. I tend to use http://tastyworms.com/
 

shakeysix

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Took a walk at Quivira Tuesday night. We stayed later than we had planned and so the sun was down before we left. We got to see the ducks coming in for the night and landing on the marsh. Noisy but pretty--s6
 

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I saw the biggest flock of gulls I've ever seen the other day, swooping around in the late afternoon sun, practically glowing white against a stormy sky. Had to pull my car over and just stare at them for a while - absolutely gorgeous.
 

Helix

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The plumed whistling ducks have been flying over at night. They make the most un-ducky sound -- high-pitched twittering like songbirds. They feed on grass and now that we're getting towards the end of the dry season, the juiciest grass is not around the swamps but in the dairy paddocks. They do the night shift, while the magpie-geese do the day shift.
 
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Marlys

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If you want to attract woodpeckers some species prefer sunflower seeds and some prefer mealworms. If your local sources don't have mealworms and you don't want to bother with raising them you can order them online. I tend to use http://tastyworms.com/
I've seen bags of them at our local bird store--will have to see how my woodpeckers like them. Thanks for the tip!
 

mrsmig

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I put out mealworms for my feathered visitors, but usually the sparrows get to them first. The woodpeckers who come to my feeders are all about the suet.
 

Brightdreamer

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Suet sometimes works for woodpeckers and relations, too.

Though I've seen pileated woodpeckers go after apples. I don't know if they're after the apple itself or bugs in the apples, but they regularly peck at apples:

PileateAppleNOV2012jSW_zps1g1eyitw.jpg


(Photo from a few years ago, in November - bits of apple still visible on his beak)
 

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I'm a fan of the Sibley Guide for North American birds, though I grew up using the beloved Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide.

I also sometimes use the Sierra Guides.

I wrote a piece last year or maybe the year before, about bird apps for iOS.

My favorite general North Amrican bird site is this one:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/

It's from the Cornell Ornithology lab.

They help run Project Feeder Watch, which strikes me as a great deal of potential fun:

http://feederwatch.org/

[quote="Project Feederwatch]Project FeederWatch is a winter-long survey of birds that visit feeders at backyards, nature centers, community areas, and other locales in North America. FeederWatchers periodically count the birds they see at their feeders from November through early April and send their counts to Project FeederWatch. FeederWatch data help scientists track broadscale movements of winter bird populations and long-term trends in bird distribution and abundance.

Anyone interested in birds can participate. FeederWatch is conducted by people of all skill levels and backgrounds, including children, families, individuals, classrooms, retired persons, youth groups, nature centers, and bird clubs. Participants watch their feeders as much or as little as they want over two consecutive days as often as every week (less often is fine). They count birds that appear in their count site because of something that they provided (plantings, food, or water).[/quote]

There's Canadian participation too, which I like very much:

http://www.birdscanada.org/

They're the Canadian version of the Cornell site, though quite independent. Up in Western Washington, we have a lot of Canadian species visit.
 

kennyc

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I'm so happy there are other bird people on AW! I wouldn't call myself a serious birder (not on the scale of The Big Year, I mean), but I do keep a Life List, subscribe to a couple of bird sighting alerts and when time allows, take binoculars and camera and go walking to see what I can see. Mostly I just look out my back door at my feeding stations, and when I attract a new species to the yard I get very excited. In early summer I got this one:

pileated.jpg


It's a Pileated Woodpecker, one of the largest and showiest of the woodpecker clan. I've heard them in the neighborhood in the past, and seen them elsewhere, but this was the first time one visited my yard. Because my feeders had been empty for two months I was afraid that June visit would be my one and only sighting, but it showed up again the first week I was back. Success!

NICE!

Wouldn't say I'm a birder, but I spent a couple of years chasing birds and photographing them (see my sig/photo gallery). I have feeders out and it is a constant battle with the squirrels and sparrows. I have blue jays whom I feed peanuts, lots of chickadees and nuthatches this time of year. Downy woodpeckers, bush tits and Red Shafted Flickers which are almost as annoying as the sparrows.

Here's a poem from my collection A Fleeting Existence:



For the Birds


The Siberian Rustic Bunting
brought Neal the Big Year Birder
winging his way 5000 miles
Ft. Lauderdale to Homer, AK
though he himself makes his nest
in Massachusetts U.S.A.

He’d grown up in Oxford
birding there
at the innocent age of 10
and now on his 40[SUP]th[/SUP] birthday
chance was afoot.
The call came in and he was on his way
-- 9[SUP]th[/SUP] time to Alaska this year
in hopes to see the one.

After six hours driving from
Anchorage to Homer with only
a roadside nap, there it was
right downtown on Hoeh street,
a Rustic Bunting beside a Junko
on the feeder at the hipster cafe.

A new world record of 749
species in a single year.
Unfortunately there is
no certification, only bragging rights,
but certainly of course
the annual winner
can crow all he wants.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/2/2014
 
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mrsmig

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I'm a fan of the Sibley Guide for North American birds, though I grew up using the beloved Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide.

I also sometimes use the Sierra Guides.

I wrote a piece last year or maybe the year before, about bird apps for iOS.

My favorite general North Amrican bird site is this one:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/

It's from the Cornell Ornithology lab.

They help run Project Feeder Watch, which strikes me as a great deal of potential fun:

http://feederwatch.org/



There's Canadian participation too, which I like very much:

http://www.birdscanada.org/

They're the Canadian version of the Cornell site, though quite independent. Up in Western Washington, we have a lot of Canadian species visit.

I've used Cornell's eBird site to log my sightings for some years, and a couple years back I participated in Project Feederwatch and really enjoyed it.
 

Chumplet

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I love hearing about the birds around your homes! I don't maintain a feeder, but the old crab apple tree in my front yard has a rotating extravaganza of birds.

Every second year, we have juvenile Cooper's hawks (they spend alternate summers across the street in the woods), but every day brings blue jays, chickadees, cardinals, robins, small woodpeckers, crows, goldfinches, cedar waxwings and nuthatches.

An example:
 

Marlys

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Great goldfinch pic! We get most of the same birds you do.

I'm going to miss the cedar waxwings this year--the berry tree they used to throng fell over in a snowstorm. I should replace it just to get them back. Such beautiful birds.
 

Chumplet

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Cedar waxwings love the Cormier tree otherwise known as serviceberry tree. My neighbour has one, and the berries are supposed to make cedar waxwings rather sleepy or drunk...
 

Marlys

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Cedar waxwings love the Cormier tree otherwise known as serviceberry tree. My neighbour has one, and the berries are supposed to make cedar waxwings rather sleepy or drunk...
I'm not sure what sort of berry we had--just looked up serviceberry, and it doesn't quite look right. Whatever it was, if the birds could wait long enough the berries would indeed make them drunk. But some years, they attacked the tree when the berries were still green and they didn't seem to have the same effect. Just couldn't wait, I guess!
 

mrsmig

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Both my neighbor and I have dogwoods in berry right now, and I've got my fingers crossed that some passing Cedar Waxwing will see it and tell all its friends...

I've only seen them in my neighborhood once, nearly ten years ago. There was a flock of them well up in a tree in my yard, and at first I thought they were sparrows but had never seen that many so high up. When I got a look at them in my binoculars I nearly hyperventilated with excitement. My husband drove up while I was watching them and all I could do was point and babble. (The first time the Pileated showed up at my feeders I burst in on him in the bathroom to show him the picture I posted above. Poor man.)

By the way, Chumplet, that's a lovely photo. Thanks for sharing it.
 

ElaineA

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I love seeing all your photos! I don't have a camera good enough (or always handy enough) to get such nice shots, even when the birds are within 10 feet of my windows.

Today I had a mother blue jay and two juveniles, and separately, 4 Pileated woodpeckers stop by the Japanese Maple tree outside my back door, even though I don't have feeders. I do have an unoccupied bird house that swings from a branch, which the young birds love to investigate. It was obvious one of the woodpeckers was a juvenile, but I suspect at least 2 were. I've lived here almost 20 years and never seen so much activity in one day from the larger birds (discounting crows, they're constants). And I've never seen an adult Pileated woodpecker with juveniles come here. I thought nesting was well past--our small songbirds and crows were done months ago--but I have noticed hummingbirds with their babies (including a mother with two, which must make for a crowded nest), so maybe it's normal to have youngsters around this late? I've just never noticed so much of it.

I just got back from driving from Colorado to Seattle and stopped along the Palisades Reservoir (so big it starts in WY and ends in ID :D). There are many, many osprey nests on top of power poles along the highway. Stopped under one with two nestlings inside. Noisy things. Their mom flew in empty-taloned and they sure did a lot of squawking. She didn't bother to hang around and listen, smart mom. One nestling hopped out of the nest and flapped onto an adjacent post, so they're ready to fly, but maybe not ready to hunt. It was pretty incredible to see so many nests in one concentrated spot.

My dogwood berries are almost all gone...fallen, or taken by crows and squirrels. I know we have cedar waxwings in this area, but I've never seen them. I wish they'd come to my tree. *sigh*
 

Twick

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Just don't get discouraged like Ogden Nash, and end up as he did:

I sometimes visualize in my gin
the Audubon that I audubin.
 

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I put out the first suet block of the year a couple days ago and the woodpeckers discovered it today! Lots of furious activity.

And a lot of blue jays in the yard as well. I haven't put any peanuts out yet, so I'm not sure what they're after.. but they're certainly welcome to it.
 

mrsmig

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After an extremely mild holiday season, it's turned blustery and cold here in Metro DC. The juncos had arrived a month prior but left again, replaced by flocks of robins; now the juncos are back, the robins are gone and this rather disgruntled-looking Northern Flicker was sitting in the dogwood about an hour ago:

a927dfde-1067-4fb7-afdb-1f254403cc83.jpg


Flickers tend to be "in-between" visitors to my yard, showing up in the fall and spring. This one might have been hanging around because of the feeders, or maybe it was just surprised by the sudden cold. In any case, it motivated me to go out and refill all my feeders.