2017: For the Birds and Bird lovers CAUTION LARGE PHOTOS

Should I relax the Image Rules for this Thread

  • Yes, with a warning about large images

    Votes: 5 100.0%
  • Yes, but in the way I will explain in a post

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No; standard AW image rules are fine

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    5
  • Poll closed .

Roxxsmom

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When I lived out east for a couple of years, I was absolutely thrilled to see Cardinals and Eastern Blue jays at my feeder. They're common birds out there, but very pretty, and we don't have them in CA at all (we do have scrub jays and Steller's Jays).
 

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I've got limited Internet, but I will post with pictures, promise!
 

Alessandra Kelley

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When I lived out east for a couple of years, I was absolutely thrilled to see Cardinals and Eastern Blue jays at my feeder. They're common birds out there, but very pretty, and we don't have them in CA at all (we do have scrub jays and Steller's Jays).

Many years ago a young couple sublet a house backing ours for a summer. We had a toddler the same age as theirs so we had some interaction. I believe they were a German and an Australian, or something like that (regrettably I lost the contact information they gave me). I can remember one day talking while the children played, the woman asking me what the striking red birds she kept seeing were. None of them had seen a cardinal before.

Their child had a birthday while they were here. One of the things we gave her was a coloring book of Audubon's Birds of America.
 

mrsmig

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Today is National Bird Day in the U.S., and as if in celebration, the Dark-Eyed Juncos are back at my feeders after being MIA throughout December. Representatives of my usual visitors are also present: White-Breasted Nuthatch, Mourning Dove, Black-Capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Downy Woodpecker and House Finch.
 

ElaineA

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I stepped outside to try to snap the hummingbirds and shrieked when one buzzed me from behind. That alerted the other to come and attack. They battled around my head, I ducked, and the bully posed, victorious, in front of my face. Needless to say, the only photo I got was an upside down shot of my back yard. *sigh*
 

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I stepped outside to try to snap the hummingbirds and shrieked when one buzzed me from behind. That alerted the other to come and attack. They battled around my head, I ducked, and the bully posed, victorious, in front of my face. Needless to say, the only photo I got was an upside down shot of my back yard. *sigh*

If you can sit very still, and absolutely not flinch when they dive-bomb you, hummingbirds are very hand-tameable.
 

ElaineA

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I don't have trouble staying still and quiet in the summer, but it's so cold outside it's hard to stand there for long, and this one is super-aggressive (I assume because I have the only sweet food in a 3-house radius and because it's nesting somewhere in my yard). The hard freeze seems to be making them a bit more desperate than they are in the summer. (Plus, I obviously have a bit of wimpy going on.) :D

---------------------
And this afternoon's flock contained the juncos, chickadees, robins, Northern flickers and the first sighting this winter of a red-breasted nuthatch. (Not my photo as they move around too much for my skills.)
Red%20Breasted%20Nuthatch%202.jpg
 
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Helix

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Those nuthatches -- both the red-breasted and white-breasted -- are lovely!

I picked up three more species today on the way to Yungaburra: dollarbird, white ibis (aka bin chicken in SE Australia, but ours are more dignified) and blue-faced honeyeaters. Still no birds of prey, which is unusual, but they might have shifted west to avoid the rain.

ETA: A neighbour just emailed to say that there were wompoo pigeons and fig-parrots in one of the trees on the edge of my property today, so I'll see if they come back tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
 
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mrsmig

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I'm so enjoying these photos of birds outside my usual range.

Last night I fell in love with the kakapo of New Zealand. I stumbled across a NatGeo documentary on this species, which still exists at the brink of extinction in spite of mighty efforts to save it. I think I know where my next charity dollars are going.
 

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I've been seeing Juncos in Maine. This is a Dark-eyed Junco (my brother is the photographer) from New Hampshire, just next door to Maine in the U.S.

This is the same species, but it's a Dark-Eyed Junco I photographed in Puget Sound, WA:

small_dark_eyed_junco.png

Juncos are a member of the Sparrow family, and there are noticeable coloration differences in different areas. The ones in New England are very dark, and may look like the body and head are entirely black, and they have very pink beaks and feet. The Pacific Northwest ones are subtler in coloring, with a different colored head and body.

I've also seen my first Cardinal of the year, this one was a female. Here's a picture of the male from last year:

sjs_cropped_cardinal_250x188.jpg
 

Brightdreamer

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None of us look elegant when we're eating, unfortunately.

I think the Aussies are winning this race. What's going on? I wanna see more Eurasian birds.

Well, the Southern Hemisphere's summery, and Northern's wintery... may have something to do with why the Aussie birds are dominating at the moment.

If you can sit very still, and absolutely not flinch when they dive-bomb you, hummingbirds are very hand-tameable.

I read this, and in my mind I see "If you can sit very still, and absolutely not flinch when they attack, hyper-caffeinated airborne rabid mini-tigers are very hand-tameable." ;) Seriously, though, their boldness does seem to make them fairly "tameable"/photo-friendly under good conditions. (I've even seen pictures of people feeding them out of their mouths... taking the whole "communing" thing a little too far into the creepy zone, IMHO.) Only managed to get a couple decent shots of them myself over the years, though, admittedly due to not having a lot of time to sit out patiently as one needs to do for most any wildlife photography. Most of the time, they simply mock me for not having a camera - or, like a couple days ago, for having a dead battery.

As for birds I've seen since the first: "spotted" (formerly "rufous-sided") towhees, some manner of wren (Bewick's, I believe), a little vireo, a small woodpecker (downy or hairy - can never tell them apart on sight), American robins, and - of course - the Anna's mini-tigers hummingbirds. (About a week ago, I saw one at very close range - less than a foot, while I was changing a feeder and naturally had no camera 'cause they always know - that appeared to have damaged the tip of its beak... the upper part, not the whole thing through. Nothing to do for it, unfortunately - it seemed able to feed at the feeder, so it'll survive or it won't.) On the way to and from work I've seen red-tailed hawks, crows, and a couple of ravens.
 

Helix

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Oh, that cardinal! I'd love to see one in the wild. *adds to travel list*

Today's new bird is a wompoo pigeon/fruit-dove. They are wonderful birds. Not only do they look as if they were caught in an explosion in a paint factory, they enunciate their names like a hammy actor. Wom-POO ah wom-POO
 

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Oh, that cardinal! I'd love to see one in the wild. *adds to travel list*

Today's new bird is a wompoo pigeon/fruit-dove. They are wonderful birds. Not only do they look as if they were caught in an explosion in a paint factory, they enunciate their names like a hammy actor. Wom-POO ah wom-POO

You can save yourself a little time and money off flying clear to the mainland and just go as far as Hawaii to see cardinals: they're an introduced species doing reasonably well there. (Northern, red-crested, and yellow-billed are all listed as introduced species there, according to Wikipedia: I know the northern cardinals are there because I get a yearly calendar from an amateur photographer friend, and last year's calendar included shots of a Hawaiian northern cardinal.)

And that bird... if I'd seen a painting of that, I'd smile and shake my head at whatever kid was messing around with nonsensical colors, because real animals couldn't possibly look that random. One wonders what the evolutionary rationale behind it is.
 

Helix

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You can save yourself a little time and money off flying clear to the mainland and just go as far as Hawaii to see cardinals: they're an introduced species doing reasonably well there. (Northern, red-crested, and yellow-billed are all listed as introduced species there, according to Wikipedia: I know the northern cardinals are there because I get a yearly calendar from an amateur photographer friend, and last year's calendar included shots of a Hawaiian northern cardinal.)

Yeah, but seeing them in their natural habitat is just so cool.

And that bird... if I'd seen a painting of that, I'd smile and shake my head at whatever kid was messing around with nonsensical colors, because real animals couldn't possibly look that random. One wonders what the evolutionary rationale behind it is.

So bright in the sunlight, but very difficult to spot in the rainforest. Those colours look quite different under green and patchy light.
 

mrsmig

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My first bird photo of the season. We got just under an inch of snow overnight, and the birds are swarming my feeders this morning. This is a Downy Woodpecker on the left and a young-ish Red-Bellied Woodpecker on the right.

0e2cf5d1-24bd-4b01-ac58-7ec57e635e78.jpg


Incidentally, I use the free version of Photobucket to re-size and upload photos to AW. It's gotten extraordinarily cumbersome over the past few months - pages are crammed with commercial content, slow to load or don't load at all. Does anyone use Photobucket Pro? Is it worth the money, or is it just as logy and irritating as the free version?
 

forbirdsandtea

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Birds and birding are some of my true loves! I have feeders outside and this year bought a heated bird bath that they seem to love. I see sparrows, finches, collared doves, blue jays, starlings, a couple of different woodpeckers, crows and ravens on the regular. Depending on the season I also get a lot nuthatches and juncos.

In addition to the two parrots that I share my home with, of course!



 

mrsmig

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Welcome, forbirdsandtea! Those are lovely photos (and I like your name, too)!
 

Roxxsmom

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We're having a series of large storms coming in from the Pacific this week (an atmospheric river), and the birds are swarming our feeder between waves of rain. The poor things probably need more calories to stay warm right now. I think we established a new record for the number of lesser goldfinches hanging on the surface of the nyjer seed sack. And there are juncos (the Oregon variety of the Dark Eyed) all over my patio. A couple of Anna's Hummingbirds have been fighting over the nectar station all day also (it's not like there isn't plenty for both of them, the territorial little snots).

I don't have a lot of luck with bird picts, so I'll link a picture of a lesser goldfinch for anyone who isn't from the US (they're pretty common in most places here). They're pretty little things, and they seem to stick around here for most of the year. They love nyjer thistle seed.

I just read a fun fact about Juncos--they tend to return to the same place at the same time each year, so it's very likely the flock pecking around on my patio right now has many of the same individuals who were here last year (they do show up in late Dec each year and hang out until Spring).

One bird that is kind of "special" that we have here in the Central Valley of CA is the yellow-billed magpie. They're not uncommon sights here or anything, but they are a unique species that is found nowhere else. Naturalists are worried about what climate change will do to this bird, and to other species with limited ranges.
 
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jennontheisland

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The crows have taken to sitting on the streetlamp and tree outside my balcony. They peer in the window until we come out and feed them. I picked up some blueberries today because according to the internet, crows like blueberries (the ravens that lived with me on Vancouver Island loved watermelon rinds and would sift through the compost pile for them).

One sat out on the lamp post today and watched me toss Shreddies down for all the other birds, then nodded and flew off.
 

ajaye

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Driving home from work today I thought I saw brown tree foliage on the road in the distance, till it started shifting and morphing. I slowed down to work out what the hell it was and had time to stop for the ten (not so small) ducklings scuttling across the road to catch up with ma. I'd never have gotten over it if I'd ploughed into them.

Not sure what species they were, but they were perhaps a sandier colour than black duck youngsters. Maybe grey or chestnut teals? Only farm dams in the immediate area, no permanent creeks or rivers.
 

mrsmig

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Today's visitor to the yard: a Sharp-Shinned Hawk.

dec73a9c-92cb-4b07-92a3-15345d6bb1cc.jpg


It's about the size of a large Blue Jay or a small American Crow. It was chasing the songbirds who tried to visit the feeders, but without success as near as I can tell. Finally it sat in my dogwood tree for about half an hour. Eventually the Tufted Titmouses and Black-Capped Chickadees started venturing close to it, scolding like mad. I finally opened the deck door and shooed it away, because it was keeping the small birds from the feeders.

I don't object if it takes one (a hawk's gotta eat, too), but I hope it takes one of the pesky non-native English Sparrrows.
 
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