Calling All Bird Nerds

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Chef
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Who else is into birding? It's something I've been doing my whole life, but I put up a couple more feeders in my backyard this spring and I'm pretty sure backyard birding is part of what has kept me sane in quarantine.

My current favorite backyard bird is a downy woodpecker, actually a pair of downy woodpeckers that I think are nesting in the fir trees next door. My all time favorite backyard bird is probably the varied thrush, but unfortunately I haven't seen any this year or last year.

My favorite place to go birding locally is a wildlife refuge with lots of wetlands and a great population of raptors, waterfowl, and migratory species that are unusual to see elsewhere. Last time I was there I saw a Wilson's snipe, which is a ridiculous looking bird with its long bill. The refuge also has a pair of nesting sandhill cranes right now, which is very unusual for this area (usually they just migrate through).

Tell me about your birding adventures and your favorite backyard birds! Photographs or links to learn about different species would be great too. (Psst, @Lailyn, remember when I said we should talk birds?)
they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

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Oh, me! :smiley8: I have a jay that visits my garden 6-7 times a day in the spring/summer, it brought its baby along when it could fly last year. First saw it last year, so don't know if it's the mama, papa or baby that's returned! Whichever one it is, it's eating the fatballs like tomorrow isn't gonna come!

I also have a jackdaw and resident magpie that come along for the fat balls too.

Clearly corvids love my garden, but since I occasionally throw out kitchen scraps (chicken carcasses) too, it's only to be expected. This also brings in the crows and (in my inland town) even gulls, it's amusing to see them skating on the shed with their webbed feet.

Woodpigeons try to eat everything, when not wooing sadly. But I do have some smaller birds too: many many coal tits, great tits, blue tits, a blackbird and his lady, some sparrows for my vast spider collection and a regular robin.

Last year I saw some greenfinches, but none so far this year. I keep hoping!

I also have a bat that patrols my back garden at night, since we have a great deal of insect life. And a hedgehog visitor (but not resident :smiley13: ).
The Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars.

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@Menolly That varied thrush is beautiful! I love our song thrushes with their speckled chests but they're not as colourful as that. And the downy woodpecker has very similar colouring to our spotted woodpecker - had one looking back at me this morning when I opened the curtains.

@Lirimaer You're lucky having a jay around, we very rarely see them round here. Had a baby jackdaw in the garden this morning, it had a grumpy face on it as I put the milk bottles out. I had to stop putting fat balls out as the jackdaws were demolishing them in a day at one point. We also get the woodpigeons, usually flapping in and scaring all the pretty little birds away. 3 baby coal tits at the peanuts earlier with a haggard-looking parent. We used to get a pair of nuthatches which were gorgeous but we haven't noticed them for a year or so, sadly.

A couple of weeks ago we had a sparrowhawk in the garden for a good two hours. Glaring around mostly. The other birds knew it was there and stayed away, sensibly!

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Fea
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Great thread idea! I'm trying to get more into my birds. I had never really been one for bird-watching, but during lockdown I have really begun to enjoy seeing the variety of species we get here - even in our drab little patio/garden space, in the middle of a pretty built up area of the city; I actually find it really fascinating. We get a lot of blue tits and great tits (to my shame, I'm actually not great at distinguishing them). I've also spotted robins and plenty of magpies, blackbirds, and of course pigeons.

We also get lots of parakeets in most of the parks around where I live, which is really nice, and feels strangely exotic for UK birds.

One of the things I miss most living in London are the red kites which we get back where my parents live, just a bit further west. They were reintroduced in the early 1990s and have been a breathtakingly successful conservation project in parts of the country. You can't go a day at my parents' house and not see (and hear - I love their call!) red kites; they are such beautiful birds.

@Elarith - beautiful shot of a Sparrowhawk!

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Ohhh my gosh. Bird nerds!!!! Yes @Menolly thank you for starting this! :smiley8: Birds have become such a big part of my life, I partially owe my current job that I love to my bird hobbies and volunteering. So um yeah, I'm kind of a bird nut.

I loved nature and and all animals as a kid and I had a miniature Golden bird guide that I loved to just sit and look at all the pictures. I certainly watched birds and tried to identify them in my backyard, but I can't say I became a real birdwatcher til about 2014/2015!

Backyard birding is definitely my favourite method of watching birds! Its so peaceful and I found it a really good way to just sit and really study them, their behaviour and flight patterns and such. I only have a patio and small garden now in Oregon, but in BC I had a beautiful backyard maintained by my landlords. My favourite backyard bird there was the Red-breasted Nuthatch. They're definitely still one of my favourites...so small but fierce and clever.

Now, I mostly get House Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos (another fav), House Finches and American Goldfinches. I did have a California Scrub-Jay pop by the other afternoon though! Though not technically "in" my yard, I get lots of Tree and Violet-green Swallows flying in the sky overhead and Turkey Vultures really high up. I really like Turkey Vultures...I find them fascinating and love watching them drift seemingly without effort.

@Menolly - I also love Varied Thrush! I used to see them in my backyard in BC quite often. They're so beautiful and I love walking through the woods, hearing their whistle and knowing the are there. Wow Sandhill Cranes nesting! That is really unusual for the PNW! How interesting. I love how nature can always surprise us by breaking the "rules". :smiley24:

The wildlife refuge nearby is one of my favourite spots to go, too. There's so many different landscapes and possibilities of what you might see. Last time I went, I saw my first Lazuli Bunting! I was very excited! I'd seen one before with a birding group, but that's not the same as seeing and IDing one on my own.

@Lirimaer - it sounds like you have a very diverse set of birds visiting your yard! And a hedgehog!! So cute! One of my favourite things to watch in the bird world is the family interactions so I hope you might see more baby jays this year again! Also - I love the robins across the pond. I hope to see one someday!

@Elarith - oh wow! What a beautiful sparrowhawk! I don't think I've heard of them before. Thanks for sharing that photo!

@Nia - I'm glad to hear you've been growing an interest in birds. I think the best place to start is your own backyard/neighborhood. There can often be a lot more to see even in a city area like you described than you might expect. One of my favourite things about birds is that they can pretty much be found anywhere and times I've been stuck randomly waiting in odd places, I find myself quite happy to just watch the birds.

Feral parakeets ... how interesting! And red kites...that is very cool and exciting that they were able to make a comeback! I love success stories like that.

Ok, I could seriously talk about birds for forever, so I am going to stop now. I swear.

Fea
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One of the red kites, photo taken my my parents' garden a few weeks back :smiley24: .

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Chef
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@Lirimaer I clicked on some of the links in your post and it's so interesting to me that house sparrows are considered threatened in the UK. They are very invasive here in the US and are displacing a lot of native sparrow populations. I am jealous of your resident bat and your visiting hedgehog!

@Elarith your sparrowhawk is so cool! I had to double check my species name because I've heard people here call various other hawks in the US sparrowhawks, but it looks like yours is a Eurasian sparrowhawk, not a species we have here. Common names are confusing. :smiley16:

@Nia I had never heard of a red kite either! Beautiful bird. I used to see Mississippi kites when I lived in Florida, but they're very different. I would love to see wild parakeets even if they're introduced. There are a few populations of wild parrots introduced in the USA (I think this population in San Francisco is the best known) but none near where I live.

@Lailyn I think we have a lot of the same backyard birds, being so geographically close! Right now I have two sunflower seed feeders, one thistle feeder, a suet block, and several hummingbird feeders. I'm seeing lots of house finches, American and lesser goldfinches (all with hungry fledglings in tow), black capped and chestnut backed chickadees, juncos, and white crowned, golden crowned, and song sparrows. Many Anna's hummingbirds (including fledglings) and a few rufous hummingbirds coming to those feeders. Also northern flickers and (unfortunately) European starlings coming for the suet. We had our first black headed grosbeaks in the backyard this spring, which was super exciting! I got lots of red breasted nuthatches over the winter but haven't seen any in the past few weeks. I had heard there are lazuli buntings around here but haven't seen any myself, that's super exciting! I also love turkey vultures and the red tailed and Cooper's hawks I see in my neighborhood. Once in a while we get bald eagles overhead.

I can also talk about birds forever, clearly. I've been chasing invasive European starlings off the suet feeder yesterday and today by opening the back door and yelling HEY YOU'RE INVASIVE to scare them away. I maintain this is normal and not crazy bird lady behavior. :smiley9:
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Fea
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@Lailyn yeah you're so right - and given for the forseeable future I shall be working from home, I feel getting to know the local bird wildlife is a nice idea to pursue.

@Menolly yeah they really are lovely - they spend so much time gliding overhead, it's really peaceful to watch. I've never really seen one up close, although our closest near encounter was a few summers back. We'd taken some raw meat out into the garden ready to put on the barbecue, and we'd all gone in to get the plates and other bits and bobs, and when we came out just a few moments later all the meat had disappeared. After a moment of total confusion, we found some of the sausages trailing across the grass - complete with talon marks in! Needless to say we were all far more gutted about the fact we must have missed a red kite diving onto our garden table than we were about the disappearance of our lunch!

And yeah we're really lucky about the parakeets. I genuinely had no idea there was a population here (or anywhere in the UK to be honest!), so when I moved to London and saw flocks of them (and I mean flocks!) in St James' Park I was utterly astonished. I like the HEY YOU'RE INVASIVE strategy very much. :smiley9: I hope they take heed and leave your feeder be!!

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@Lailyn @Menolly Yes, sounds like we have lots of same names for quite different birds! It’s great seeing what you guys have over in North America. Sparrowhawks here are deranged. Historical falconer people wouldn’t use them as they were too unstable.

@Nia One way I read of to quickly distinguish a blue tit from a great tit is great tits have a black cap like a judge and blue tits have a black mask like a bandit.

I love red kites! They’re gorgeous! What a shame you missed them nicking your sausages! :smiley9: We have some a few miles from us. And if you’re ever up near Stirlingshire, there’s a place where they feed the kites every day and have a hide you can sit in for a couple of quid donation and watch them pretty close up.

Nice bright male bullfinch spotted earlier and the baby jackdaw was grumping around too.
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Eh, I'm back to work, so don't see much of them except at weekends now. If my garden was anything other than an overgrown embarrassment, I'd try and take some photos, but ... *leaves much unsaid* We'll see.

@Menolly Clearly sparrows are not endangered at all, just socially mobile! :smiley9:

@Elarith I do feel lucky to have a jay around - apparently they can eat their own weight in peanuts every day - I am not quite spending a fortune on fatballs, but I do consider it worth it to encourage the pretty :smiley8: Nice to see your sparrowhawk so close! The name always reminds me of Earthsea, of course, but we rarely get birds of prey so close - just the occasional buzzard high overhead.
The Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars.

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I've been a bird nerd forever! My favorites are the Birds of Prey. Southern California is Raptortopia. I see golden eagles regularly. I've seen a bald eagle and we have tons of Redtails and Cooper's Hawks. I've seen Peregrines a couple times. I've had Cooper's hawks visit my garden. Mostly I see sparrows, Mockingbirds, doves and scrub Jays. Mockingbirds sing day and night. They've been called the American Nightingale.
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@Dis Oh I wish we had mockingbirds here! I loved seeing them when I lived in Florida. I also have dreams of seeing a wild California condor someday. My hometown zoo has them and I love watching them. Here we have lots of red tailed hawks, cooper's hawks, kestrels, occasional northern harriers and peregrine falcons, and more and more bald eagles as their populations rebound. Golden eagles are a rarity for me now (located in Washington state), but I loved seeing them in Colorado when I lived there.

My phone camera is not that great but here's my resident downy woodpecker. This is the male; the female looks the same except without that bright red spot on the back of the head.
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Also I wanted to share my feeder setup that has been through years of troubleshooting. It's a double shepherd's hook embedded in about 30 pounds of concrete in a 5 gallon bucket. The hook has a slinky tied to it to deter squirrels from scaling the feeder and helping themselves. So far it's been entirely successful! The whole setup weighs about 40 pounds, so I can pick it up and move it around to mow the lawn or adjust the feeder location for different viewing options. I have two of them, so space for four feeders (and the hummingbird feeder is now hanging from a wire hanger I rigged to hang from the porch roof).
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they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

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Wow @Dis , so jealous of your raptors! I love birds of prey too. Golden eagles are pretty rare over here. Other than the lovely red kites and the sparrowhawk, we have plenty of kestrels and buzzards around here. Kestrels are a favourite. We've managed to see some peregrines as well on holidays around the UK.

Nice feeder set up, @Menolly. We have a similar shepherds crook but just poked in the lawn. Currently we have linseeds which don't seem to be getting eaten and some peanuts which the tits and woodpecker are making a good go of. Squirrels aren't normally a problem here thankfully.

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Oooh pretty kite, @Nia ! I don't think I've ever seen any kite species.

@Menolly - ooo hummingbirds and grosbeaks in your yard! Nice! I never would have seen a Lazuli Bunting if not for a birding trip, then paying attention at the same spot during the right season this year. I heard it first and thought "huh I don't recognize that sound!" then obsessively searched for it and turned out, he was perched right on top of a tree in perfect position for me to see. I think a bit of luck was involved.

:smiley9: I think yelling HEY YOU'RE INVASIVE is perfectly normal! My attitude is usually, "oh, you're invasive but still a cute bird! Can you please just leave?" :smiley16: Not very effective...

I like your bird-feeder set up! So nice. And the woodpecker, of course. I do love them.

@Lirimaer - Not sure if you've heard this, but some genius back in the day decided they'd bring every bird mentioned in a Shakespeare play to North America. Its thanks to them House Sparrows (and Starlings) are now everywhere and are out-competing lots of native birds that need to nest in cavities. :smiley20: to that person.

@Dis whoa that is an epic list of raptors! My partner would love that - raptors are his favourite. I mostly have the same raptors as Menolly, being in similar area. Last weekend I saw a juvenile Peregrine Falcon, that was cool!

Here is my most recent feeder shot (back in April, yikes its been a while!) of a female American Goldfinch. I fill my with shell-less sunflower seeds. She spent an awful long time at the the feeder, I think she thought it was an all you can eat buffet!
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Chef
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I mostly yell at the starlings because they descend on the suet like a horde, and they can eat the entire block in a day, whereas the native woodpeckers and songbirds go through a block every week to ten days or so. @Lailyn I also learned during a course on invasive species that the Shakespeare fanatics introduced starlings to Central Park SEVEN times before the population became self sustaining and eventually invasive. :smiley21: Shakespeare's great and all but I wish I could go back in time and shake some sense into them.

Your goldfinch looks very happy! We buy the cheap sunflower seeds in the shell and I just cleaned a 3 inch deep pile of the shells out of both buckets. I was trying to move the buckets somewhere else and couldn't figure out why they were so heavy til I realized the shells were multiple inches deep and soaking wet. :smiley12:
they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

New Soul
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@Menolly Seeing a California Condor in the wild is on my bucket list. I've seen them at the World Center of Birds of Prey in Boise. When they flap their wings they are loud! I think they are the Thunderbirds of legend.

@Elarith You do have a few Falconers who hunt with Golden Eagles. You can't get any cooler than that. It's also a really good life for the bird. It's a lot harder to get permits to do that in the states.

We have lots of kestrels here. Ours are really colorful. They are so cute.
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@Dis I think I’d fall over if I tried holding a Golden Eagle! There are some in captivity - there’s one at a small bird place not too far from us. I’m not sure if they fly it to the hand or not. But there are no wild ones left in England now. :smiley13: Quite fancy trying to see one of those and also a sea eagle, so that would probably mean to trip to Scotland (no bad thing).

@Lailyn I was watching a couple of goldfinches earlier! Again, our European ones look different - ours have a snazzy red face https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildl ... oldfinch/

Ent Ancient
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Gah! @Menolly fair enough!! I gotta get me a suet feeder someday... Yeah I like Shakespeare well enough, too but I agree...if I had a time machine I might go back and try to stop them from doing that!! And save the Passenger Pigeon while I'm at it.

That's exactly why I decide to splurge on the shelled ones. Its so much less mess! Do you ever have problems with rats/mice/other "pests" getting attracted by your feeder?

Oh I've definitely seen Golden Eagles being used by Falconers on documentaries...! very cool, but honestly I think I'd be a little bit scared. I had a Barred Owl swoop at me once in the woods and I'm not going to lie, it spooked me. Having such a powerful bird so close to you must be exhilarating and a bit scary, though I imagine there is a lot of trust built up between the falconer and the bird.

Oh @Elarith - they do look very different! Those must be the same Goldfinches Vivaldi based his flute piece off of...!

So I am monitoring Western Bluebird nest boxes this summer around my community for the first time and I am really enjoying it a lot! My first brood (well, not mine, but one of my boxes...) just fledged and I was very excited about it! 5 little Bluebird babies I watched from egg to chick are now out in the wide world.
I went out to do my rounds today and it looks like mum and dad are already preparing for a second brood! Here's hoping...

Here's Mum and dad (dad sadly not in focus...)
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Here are the chicks that last time I was able to open the box to check them. If you open too close to fledging time, they could fledge prematurely which is not good so we estimate the number of days from egg to hatch to fledge so we know when to stop opening the box.
Aren't they cute?
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Here to troll this thread with photos of chickens.
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Ent Ancient
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Oooohh my gosh are they cute!!!! I really want chickens someday... have you had them very long? they look little!

Thain of The Mark
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Here to also troll with chickens, hehehe. Pic 1 is my current adult flock (ranging in age from 8 yrs to 2 1/2 yrs), and consisting of a White Leghorn, 2 Black Australorps, and a Dominique.

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Then we have our future flock members! They are a mix of Speckled Sussex, English Orpingtons of various colors, and 2 White Leghorns.

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And as a final non-chicken bird, have a Mississipi Kite, which is nesting in the oak tree in my neighbor's front yard. I caught it mid-flight while collecting nesting materials.

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@Lailyn - They are little. They’re just chicks. I should have mentioned. We have not been doing chickens for long at our house. We are very new to the whole system. :smiley9:
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Taeth - your chickens look so nice and handsome and happy! Your future flock members are very cute... also - wow nice Kite! I enjoy watching nesting birds around the neighborhood. You're lucky its nesting so close! Very cool.
Tari - oh how exciting! I hope it goes well for you and your have happy egg-laying chicks someday!

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@Lailyn I watched one of the Kites collect a twig off that dead tree by jumping on the twig and breaking it off with its feet. While it was flying back to the oak tree, it tossed the twig from its feet to its beak MID-AIR. I wish I had been able to catch it on video. It was amazing.
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Ooo! Count me in!

@Lailyn , THE SLINKY. You are a genius. I will have to try that. I keep neglecting to fill my feeder because a fat squirrel discovered it and has now taught all her kits to come and stuff their faces and there's just no point (although... one of the kits hangs upside down by his toes while he shells his sunflower seeds and it's utterly hilarious).

We have lots of Your Standard Birds here - cardinals, finches, mockingbirds, catbirds, woodpeckers, bluebirds, hummingbirds, boat-tailed grackles, and I think we must have an owl or something because I keep finding evidence of bunny murder. We also see Eastern towhees and rose-breasted grosbeaks on occasion. One of my favorites though is a pair of Carolina wrens whom I have named the Sackville Bagginses, because they are clearly waiting for us to die so they can move into our house. I can't tell you how many times I have evicted them from my indoor pot plants, and this year they built a nest right under the eaves of our porch, facing the front door. After the babies fledged one got into the house and I surprised it and one of the parents on the floor of my bedroom. The adult got away but I had to chase the baby around for some time, even losing it behind a heavy desk for a while (picture me frantically calling my husband, "it's a baby and it's behind the desk and I can't move it! when can you come home???") before I finally caught it and dumped it back into its nest.

Also, we too have chickens. And a loudmouthed canary named Sunny. He bites.

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@Elarith wow I don't think I've ever seen a goldfinch across the pond. They are beautiful and very different looking! The American goldfinch is the state bird where I live and is one of my favorites with how bright and beautiful the males look in breeding season.

@Lailyn We have squirrels, along with juncos and other ground birds, forever picking at the shells and bits the other birds drop from the feeders. One time late at night I noticed one of my cats staring intently out the window, so I turned the porch light on and there was a rat under the feeder. We also get raccoons and opossums in the yard, but none of them have ever wrecked feeders or done anything else destructive, so I don't worry about it. The shells do make a mess on the ground but we don't maintain our lawn anyway, so it's not like they're doing the moss and dandelions and clover any harm. I did mountain bluebird monitoring one summer in Colorado and it was a lot of fun! Your blurry baby birds are adorable.

@Tari and @Taethowen I feel like your trolling attempts have failed, which is to say that your chickens are the cutest and bird nerds of all varieties are welcome here! :smiley8:

@Amhran soooo what I'm hearing is that you need to make a nice indoor home for your Carolina wrens and also just let them have the silver spoons. :smiley9: If you don't have a slinky I know some people have also had success applying an animal safe oil to the feeder pole (like some kind of cooking oil). It's more daily maintenance but watching the squirrels slide down it is hilarious!
they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

Thain of The Mark
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And YAY Taeth's Annual Anxiety Season begins. AKA the Mockingbirds are fledging. :smiley12:

These are 2 different babies.

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Lailyn Watching the bluebirds sounds cool! Is that a typical place for a nest box? It looks quite exposed.

The chickens are too cute to troll anything :smiley24:

MenollyYour goldfinches look floofier than ours. Liking the bright yellow chests.

TaethowenFingers crossed for the fledglings. Are there cats around where you are?

Amhran Wrens are adorable! Give them whatever they ask for!

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@Elarith - some cats, but the main concern currently is a stray dog that animal control insists doesn't exist, and cars. 😑
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@Taethowen The dog’s still not been caught? Poor thing. Cats seem to be the main peril to the baby birds round our way. We tried to stand guard over a baby blackbird in our garden once that a local cat was eyeing up. It didn’t end well. :smiley13:

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@Taethowen - that Kite sounds like a ninja. That is amazing! Its so cool to watch how agile some birds can be. Also - those mockingbird babies are so cute! I hope they make it...

@Amhran it was @Menolly with the slinky :smiley10: but I agree- its genius! Though it is very fun watching squirrels hang upside down trying to get food... but I wouldn't want them eating all my birdseed.

Oh I agree let the wrens into the house to nest! I love wrens. They have to be one of the cutest birds ever.

@Menolly - oh that's really good to hear!! That's one of the reasons I buy the shelled seeds as I hope less mess will deter mice and things. We had mice at my last place, and my landlord asked me to remove my bird feeder to prevent them from being attracted. It was a sad day. Oh mountain bluebirds, neat! I've never seen them before! I've never seen so many bluebirds around actually until I moved to Oregon. They were very rare back in BC where I first started birdwatching.

There are also Tree Swallows using some of the nestboxes. Swallows being one of my favourite birds, I am enjoying watching them, too. But last week, I found a dead parent on the ground and a nest full of dead chicks. I know its the reality of nature, but I was still very sad.

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Exciting new (for me) backyard bird! Had a male evening grosbeak stop by the other day. He had a bit of trouble getting into the sunflower seed feeders since they're designed for smaller birds, but he managed to get a snack eventually.
they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

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Ooh that’s a beauty, @Menolly!

Your poor swallows, @Lailyn. They’re lovely birds. We had some nest in next door’s shed when we lived at our old house. The fledglings would line up on top of the door waiting for food.

I had a good view of some lapwings the other day. They’re very striking and have a swooping sort of cry. We once saw some chicks in a field near us, they were the cutest little things.
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildl ... z/lapwing/
Last edited by Elarith on Fri Jun 19, 2020 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ent Ancient
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Ooo @Menolly!! That's exciting! Evening Grosbeaks are so pretty! Definitely never seen them in my yard.

Menolly, Have you ever seen a Lincoln's Sparrow? I thought I saw one the other week for the first time in real life flesh (I've seen one dead before, window-strike) but I think now looking at the sparrows, it was probably a Savannah Sparrow which I have only rarely seen. Gosh they are tricky... Either way, it was a lovely bird!

@Elarith - your link didn't work but I googled them and wow they are cool! I love the subtle coloring on their feathers!

Doorwarden of The Mark
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Thanks @Lailyn, fixed it! I never get close enough to see the pretty colours but they do have fancy little crests.

Chef
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@Lailyn All I can say for sure is that Lincoln vs savannah sparrows are indeed tricky! I saw one or the other last time I was at the wildlife refuge, and after my mom and I spent 15 minutes staring at it, consulting our bird book, and arguing, she thought it was a savannah and I thought it was a Lincoln. It sat very nicely on a sign for a long time while we stared at it and we still couldn't figure it out! So...maybe? Savannah sparrows seem to have a ridiculous amount of regional variation, much like song sparrows and fox sparrows, which makes them extra tricky. We had a Sibley's guide, which has most of the regional variations in it, and still weren't sure. I've heard Lincoln sparrows described as looking more delicate because they are smaller and have a skinnier bill than all our other local sparrows.

@Elarith wow lapwings are beautiful! Nice sighting.
they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

Warrior of Imladris
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Most of my birds have disappeared for now ... I seem to have a winter-spring plethora and then nothing but woodpigeons through summer.

Maybe I need to change up the feed I offer in summer ... *ponders*
The Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars.

Ent Ancient
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@Menolly Isn't that just the way with birds? In the end I am okay with calling it a Savannah/Lincoln's? sparrow with my notes about appearance, habitat, etc. Maybe someday I will definitively see them and then I can feel satisfied! Its happened to me with other birds - initially I am not sure what I've seen and then I see it again later at a better angle or whatever.

Excited I saw my first Chipping Sparrow of the summer the other day!

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I hadn't posted in here yet because I don't have the time at the moment to list all the birds I have seen in my vicinity. My Dad is a major bird-watcher, so I grew up noticing them, first in Nepal and now here in the US. Having the bird feeder back up again (after a bear took it out) has really become a highlight of sitting at the dinner table.
Current visitors: Red-bellied sapsucker (prettiest of the woodpeckers), Downy woodpecker, Goldfinch pair, Purple finch, House sparrow, and doves. I also have Pileated woodpeckers in the back woods. It helps to have an open field surrounded by trees.
Ziranphel of the Green Hills ~ Thûllir Bregedŷr of Ithilien

Ent Ancient
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ah-ha! I figured out my mystery sparrows. I saw them again and they were neither Savannah or Lincoln's - they were juvenile Chipping Sparrows! Sometimes juveniles just confuse everything... :smiley16:

I also saw some juvenile Western Bluebirds the other day near my nestboxes. I hope they might be the babies I saw before. Very exciting!

@Karis Ziranphel - glad your feeder is back after a bear took it out! I hope it doesn't happen again. Very nice birds...I love watching woodpeckers, they're very charismatic!

Knight of The Mark
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I know little to nothing about birds. I can tell a robin from a cardinal, a bluejay from a bluebird, and that's close to being all. For years I've wanted to hang birdfeeders to watch birds, but squirrels have been my nemesis. They always managed to defeat or mangle any feeder I put out, even those marketed as being squirrel proof. In addition, the hulls left behind attracted some unwanted vermin.

But this year I finally found a feeder that the squirrels have not been able to master. It's pretty basic but it does the trick! And I've learned to buy the seeds without hulls to cut down on the ground mess.

There is a cardinal pair that comes around pretty often, though I've only seen the female at the feeder. I have not been able to get a picture of either of them yet. They come and go pretty quickly.

I have gotten pictures of a few other visitors, though the quality is poor. I usually have to snap the picture on my phone through a screened window, and by the time I zoom in enough to see the bird well, the quality is grainy. I think I know what a couple of these are, but there is one I would love some help with.

Here is a goldfinch that comes around pretty often: https://i.ibb.co/Hgx9ggW/9-D4-B63-F9-72 ... 1-BDD8.jpg

I have several of this next bird that come around daily. I believe it is a chipping sparrow; at least it looks very much like a picture I saw of one: https://i.ibb.co/0CBScYQ/91-F63-E62-73- ... 42-D23.jpg

This next one is a mystery to me. I haven't yet found a picture of anything that looks like it. Any ideas? I live in central North Carolina, in a suburban setting. https://i.ibb.co/PrmSNp4/FEABA5-C7-2-B3 ... 1-D4-C.jpg

I also get quite a few of what I think may be dark-eyed juncos, but I have not been able to get pictures of them yet. The birds in my yard look like pictures i have seen of juncos, but is this range too far south for a summertime habitat?

Ent Ancient
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Hi @Eléowyn! *glomp* Hey - you know something if you know bluejays and cardinals and bluebirds! Everyone starts small. I'm so glad you found a squirrel-proof feeder and seeds that work for you and it seems the birds have been enjoying it, too!

Ohh cardinals are bright and shiny to me because we don't have them where I live! I am less familiar with eastern birds. The goldfinch is beautiful.

Your second photo - I would say I agree it looks like a Chipping Sparrow from what I can see. It looks like you do have them in your region, so it also makes sense. I think you've picked right on this one!

The third image looks to me like a Northern Cardinal but he has his little mohawk down instead of up. Is that the one you meant to link to?

As far as the junco-looking birds, I'm not sure...According to the Cornell Lab, North Carolina is partially year-round and partially non-breeding for them so I think they could be. They look very different across different regions, but I think yours will be mostly grey. Have you had a look at this page? It might help. (Sorry if you have already got this info elsewhere already!) Otherwise if you get photos of them, I'd love to see! :smiley10:

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Hi @Lailorn ! Thanks so much for the feedback.

I had looked at that site while trying to identify some of my birds, and that picture of the full-grown male junco is the closest I have seen. The ones in my hard seem to have a slightly bluer hue but it's still closer to a gray, so I still think that may be what they are.

The one that you think looks like a Northern Cardinal doesn't look like the cardinals we have around here, at least. The body shape is smaller and rounder than our cardinals, and the distribution of red is different. Our males are bright red all over, whereas the females are mostly a brownish color with red beaks and a splash of red around the wings. Is it possible that this is what a juvenile looks like? I keep hoping to see it again so I can get a better look, but I only saw it that one time. Maybe it was just passing through.

Thanks again for the help!

Ent Ancient
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Keep watching those gray birds and I bet you'll feel more confident they are Juncos or figure out what they are if they aren't.

The Cardinal - then I have no clue and am flummoxed! Maybe someone else here will have an idea...it could be a juvenile, but this photo doesn't convince me to be honest. Of course it can be tricky to ID birds through just photos sometimes because lighting can make a world of difference. I am not proclaiming any kind of expertise on Eastern Birds, unfortunately I became interested in them after I moved west!

Either way - keep enjoying your birdies! After all, its only us that gives them names, I'm sure they don't mind what they're called. :smile:

Chef
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@Eléowyn I might have fallen down a rabbit hole of looking at different cardinal pictures just now. I'm not as good at eastern birds, but I think your third picture is a male cardinal whose feathers are looking a little worn and brown instead of the brilliant red of a recent molt. Sort of like this photo. The only bird I know of that is easily mixed up with a cardinal is the pyrrhuloxia, but they don't range that far east. I agree with @Lailorn that it's hard to tell from a single photo though! Body shape and color can change appearance so much from picture to picture.

I was working in the yard today pulling invasive ivy and blackberry vines out of a corner of the lawn, and I was scolded at length by a large family of bushtits. They seemed to be irate that I working under the tree that clearly belongs to them. I think it was a family group of at least 20, very cute with all of them flitting through the tree and peeping angrily at me!
they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

Knight of The Mark
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@Menolly Thanks for your response! You and Lailorn may be right but the beak color and white underbelly on my bird still have me doubting. I do have a cardinal pair that visit frequently. The female comes to the feeder but the male prefers to sit on the fence top. They look quite different from this bird. But I guess it’s the closest answer for anything likely to be around my house.

I wish it would come back so I could get another look! Or maybe it has, but it is now sporting a new look. :lol:

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Uh - just had a female pheasant startle the local fauna (by which I mean myself) by coming in and landing on my fence!
The Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars.

Ent Ancient
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Oh pheasants, nice! I know the feeling - I was startled by some quails the other week. Just didn't expect them to be where they were. I never see pheasants though I did see my local wild turkey flock today!

Chef
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Oh I wish we had wild fowl of any sort here! I loved seeing wild turkeys, pheasant, and quail in other places I've lived. @Lirimaer I misread that as a pheasant landing on your face, not on your fence, and was about to have a lot of follow up questions. :lol:

I've been having fun feeding whole peanuts in the shell to the birds in my yard. It's not something I would have bought, but I was gifted a partial bag by a fellow birder who unfortunately has to stop feeding for now because of a rat problem in his neighborhood. I knitted a mesh bag out of cotton and tried to keep the holes about the right size, then hung it up on my porch. I've had Steller's jays, scrub jays, and of course squirrels getting peanuts out of it. (It now hangs from a wire loop on the porch roof instead of hanging against the porch supports like this photo.) I only put it up when I'll be there to watch it because I worry a little about a bird getting caught in it. It's been interesting to watch the dynamics between the different jay species. To my surprise, the smaller scrub jay chases the bigger Steller's jay away and tries to steal peanuts from it.

Image
they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

New Soul
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Great thread! Love all the posts! I wish I could have a bird feeder.
fka Ann Kalagon, Hyandaner

Mae Govannen, my friends!

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