BS: Birdwatching 2024

Subject: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Jun 24 - 09:58 AM

What happened with all our birdwatchers??

Anyway, I'm not really a birdwatcher but
I could not help but notice
the latest gaggle of goslings with their goosemother,
as they were grazing right next to the road shoulder.

The goslings are now past the ugly little gray stage,
and they actually appear like miniature geese,
especially the color of their plumage.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jun 24 - 06:45 PM

Last week I spotted a juvenile yellow-crowned night heron in my front yard, and got enough photos for a good ID (from the car, where I rolled down the window but didn't move much at all so it wouldn't leave). I'm always pleased that my yard is wild and welcoming enough that birds like this will move from the woods across the road to the yard to continue their grazing on bugs and such. I have a lot of toads and lizards and snakes, and some of them may also be lost to the birds, but that's what happens in a healthy yard.

Here's one of them from Wikimedia.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Jun 24 - 07:08 PM

I live 1 train station from Sydney's CBD & we have the usual urban birds - seagulls, pigeons, mynah birds (Oz & lots more imported Indian, both members of the starling family), crows/ravens, magpies & our very own Australian White Ibis aka Bin Chicken which came to the Big City c1982 after a bad drought in their proper environment. Cockatoos are very noisy & everywhere as foolish people feed them.

I've once or twice seen the beautiful Rosella in our courtyard perched on a water pipe & demanding to know where the trees are, then it heads to a park or a better garden!

We have 2 large parks nearby - Sydney CBD's Hyde Park, & Centennial Park which add to the bird population, but I haven't been there for a while as it's a huge park to walk around!

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jun 24 - 08:10 PM

I got out in my kayak the other morning for the first time since my last hip replacement and paddled around the backwaters of the barrier islands looking for fish. They weren't too cooperative but there were plenty of birds doing okay, black skimmers zipping trough pods of baitfish, an osprey   
dive bombing mullet and a flock of roseate spoon bills wiggling their beaks in the water by a sandbar.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Jun 24 - 03:02 PM

Our tiny front garden is alive again. As well as the resident host of sparrows, the jackdaws are back in force. They have to contend with a family of wood pigeons, a pair of mallards, blackbirds and some itinerant black headed gulls, but we generally manage to keep them in corn and seed. The back garden seems to be the domain of the starlings although we see a few bluetits and hear all sorts that I don't recognise.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Jun 24 - 03:52 PM

We used to see huge flocks of grackles and starlings, but I haven't seen as many (not perched in my trees, at any rate). And where there were once the smaller birds hopping around the yard, now I see more crows visiting. There didn't used to be many crows around here 20 years ago when I moved in.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Jun 24 - 07:14 PM

Bird-listening is legit too, I should hope:
I can heard the red-wing blackbirds calling in the marshes,
even though I can't see them.

Last month I visited a friend's house, where they work hard at keeping the bird feeders supplied.
I not only saw a red-wing blackbird AT THE FEEDER, which is unusual,
but I also saw a goldfinch going after thistle seed.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Jun 24 - 08:45 PM

one of my friends has 2 birdbaths on her plant-filled balcony - different birds have different bathing or drinking habits. The balcony looks down on a plant-filled yard so there are many birds around, & she enjoys watching them

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jun 24 - 04:10 PM

tonight i saw 2 swans, a pied wagtail, 2 sand martins and 2c housemartins and a robin

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Neil D
Date: 24 Jun 24 - 12:34 AM

My wife maintains a couple birdfeeders about 30 feet out from our front porch. She also scatters peanuts around the front yard. The blue jays especially love the peanuts. We also get the most beautiful cardinals as well as sparrows, woodpeckers (3 types), robins, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, a variety of finches and mourning doves. Killdeer don't visit the feeders, being mostly meat eaters, but I often see them flying across the cornfield as I come up the drive. We also have two hummingbird feeders on the porch and had frequent visits last year. This year I've only seen one lone female out there twice now.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: gillymor
Date: 24 Jun 24 - 06:57 AM

The other morning I was looking out back at a pair of wood storks feeding in the rainwater-swelled swale that abuts the woods while a small green heron worked around it's edges, occasionally poking it's beak in the water after a minnow when suddenly a family of otters tumbled out of the woods and started frolicking and rough housing in the water. It spooked the birds but the otters put on a heckuva show.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Jun 24 - 01:36 PM

today i saw a Thrush,

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 24 - 06:23 AM

house martins, jackdaw, swan,pied wagtail

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jun 24 - 08:00 AM

The swifts are screeching like mad overhead

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 24 - 08:56 AM

are there a lot of them, Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Jun 24 - 01:52 AM

yellow wagtail, house martins

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Jul 24 - 05:08 PM

Not the usual birdwatching:
I am sitting before a large window, and I just saw
a bird fly smack-bang into said window.

I have not gone outside to see if the bird
remains where I saw it drop.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: gillymor
Date: 02 Jul 24 - 07:23 PM

I walked out of our 2nd floor condo at dawn this morning to witness the sunrise battles between the blue jays and the mocking birds and found our neighbor feeding a jay bird by hand which was a new one on me.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: gillymor
Date: 02 Jul 24 - 07:28 PM

keberoxu, The Audubon Society used to give out stick-on bird decals for windows to discourage birds from flying into them.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Jul 24 - 03:52 AM

We moved the bird feeder a few feet and the sparrows seem to have taken offence! They used to live in the privets but we haven't seen them for ages :-( Anyone know if putting the feeder back where it was will bring them home or have we lost them now?

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jul 24 - 03:56 AM

try it Dave, what is there to lose.
I saw a woman feeding a swan out of her hand, unfortunately she was feeding the swan bread, which has little nutrition and in large quantities is not advised.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Jul 24 - 08:34 AM

I shall - Thanks Dick