BS: Birdwatching 2013

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 12:44 PM

Here's my backyard bird list for 2013


34 species, mostly just the usual suspects. Only 1 new species for my yard - Ruby Crowned Kinglet

American Crow
American Goldfinch
American Robin
Black Vulture
Blue Jay
Brown-headed Cowbird
Carolina Chickadee
Carolina Wren
Chipping Sparrow
Common Grackle
Dark-eyed Junco
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Bluebird
European Starling
Grasshopper Sparrow
Gray Catbird
Hairy Woodpecker
House Finch
House Wren
Morning Dove
Norther Mockingbird
Northern Cardinal
Northern Flicker
Pine Warbler
Purple Finch
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
White-crowned Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Yellow-rumped Warbler

While I realize there is not the same interest anymore, there may still be a few of us who like to communicate about our birdwatching on this forum and who have enjoyed Raptor's challenge to identify and keep a list of species seen basically from one spot, so now I'll go start a thread for 2014.

Happy Birding, whether you talk about it here or not! Hope Raptor is doing well.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 02:00 PM

Saw about 4000 geese this morning, both Canadian and Snow. Good to see them back for a while as they top up the tanks for the trip south.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 10:10 AM

The Juncos are back for the winter.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Llanfair
Date: 01 Jun 13 - 04:16 PM

Doing my birdwatching on facebook. The ospreys being filmed on their nest have now got two eggs, and both parents are taking turns to incubate them. Last year, the train, which runs nearby, slowed right down so that all the passengers could see the nest. No chicks survived last year because of the weather. Better luck this time. They can be seen on BBC springwatch.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jun 13 - 02:32 PM

The King of Birds.

What a GREAT site. Thanks, Beer!

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 10:21 AM

I've just seen the first swallows here in Rossendale this year, exactly the dame date as last year.
With any luck we will soon have the first day since Christmas with no snow on the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 04:33 PM

Have to crow a bit. Purple Martins arrive three days ago. A little late this year. Two days ago the first Indigo Bunting of the season was sighted. This morning a Rufus Throated Hummingbird was checking out the feeding station. He was back just a few minutes ago. I have his feeders cleaned and ready but need to pick up some nectar. Am making a special trip in just a few minutes. I am sure the little guy is tired and hungry after that long trip over the ocean.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: gnu
Date: 26 Mar 13 - 08:31 AM

The King was spotted in VA on Sunday so it'll be a while. >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: gnu
Date: 26 Mar 13 - 07:51 AM

Crows have been nesting for several days and Mum's robin appears to have moved north. I had been putting out apples (none less than Royal Gala for the Royal Robin) for a month and he devours them. Hasn't touched the last one I put out five or six days ago. No Waxwings this year. No apples. We had heavy frosts and then a warm windstorm (when my 1960s hip roof squeaks, it's a WINDstorm) and there were hardly any apples left on the tree. I was very sad for Mum when it happened. But the robin has been a great source of entertainment, if only for a wee bit of time now and then through the day. I stick the apple "well" on a few cut suckers where he MUST sit on the branch facing her kitchen window so she can easily watch him with binoculars.

Lots of types of birds singing "spring songs". Various types arriving from the south. All will be complete when The King of Birds arrives to nest... The Ruby Throated Hummingbird... but that will take the better part of two months.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 25 Mar 13 - 10:14 PM

Cool, Arkie!

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 25 Mar 13 - 09:25 PM

First time I have ever seen this. Just wish it were a better picture.

Robin at Feeder

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,JHW(cookie on old computer)again
Date: 25 Mar 13 - 04:35 PM

Hoping for joy. 2x magpies building nest 2 weeks now in tree at back fence so I'm seeing two each time not the usual one.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: maeve
Date: 25 Mar 13 - 06:28 AM

Great news, gnu!

Janie- Fine. Tape on the window glass would also work, but you will find your own solution.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: gnu
Date: 25 Mar 13 - 06:21 AM

Tack sommat from side to side where the tacks will be hidden by the curtains?

I have been watching all sorts of birds. Just got Adobe Photoshop and I am importing all my camcorder videos.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 24 Mar 13 - 07:48 PM

Thanks maeve, but vinyl siding and windows and staples don't mix well. Looks like it is decals. Thanks for the info. regarding them also. I supposed that 2 or 3 on the windows would do it but sounds like I'll need many more than that to be effective.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: maeve
Date: 24 Mar 13 - 05:49 PM

Hi, Janie. The decals are effective when you apply one every 3-4 inches over the entire window. We fastened bird/deer netting over all of our big windows (a few galvanized staples work well and are unobtrusive). No more window kills here in two years of use. The fine netting seems to disappear- most visitors don't even see it until we point it out.

I have some extra I would be happy to stuff into a mailer and send along.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 24 Mar 13 - 04:22 PM

And the cardinals are starting to pair off.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 24 Mar 13 - 04:19 PM

Saw my first grasshopper sparrow. Glad it has been around a few days or I would not have been able to get enough looks and long enough looks to identify it.

The goldfinches are molting. It is unseasonable cold with a cold rain falling. The feeders are as busy as if there were a January ice storm happening.

Too many birds slam into my window this time of year.   Must have to do with the angle of the sun. I don't like decals on the windows, but I like dead birds a lot less so I guess I'll break down and put some up. I had to kill a badly injured and beautiful female cardinal yesterday to stop her suffering. 4th bird to slam into the window while I have been sitting by it this month - and I am only home on weekends.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 09:43 PM

Good news, Arkie.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 09:26 PM

Thanks all. I think the Pine Warbler is most likely correct. I had found a flycatcher that did resemble this bird, but it is at a feeder and eating seed and some of the Pine Warbler images are really close. This bird does have a quite yellow breast which I could not get in a picture.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 09:10 PM

Got it!

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 09:04 PM

LOL. Or Janie's link.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 08:54 PM

Pine Warbler?

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 08:51 PM

The adult male in Maeve's link sure looks like it, too. We were going from a book of birds done with paintings, so give Maeve's closer attention.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: maeve
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 08:30 PM

Another possibility

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 07:35 PM

Arkie, we think it's a Flycatcher. Check out that group of birds. It looks like a Western Flycatcher. Check Google Images maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 07:15 PM

Need some help identifying a bird that has been at my feeder for the past two days. Wish I had a better image, but hopefully this is good enough for one more experienced than I. Certain it is not a goldfinch and I have been to several sites in hope of finding a match but nothing certain yet.

Mystery Bird

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: JHW
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 07:57 AM

999 and maeve thanks for ideas. Not spotted that RSPB page before. Body of bird too vertical ie like heron, shag, cormorant when perched for suggestions. Cormorant nearest on that aspect; brown immature in flight in one book looks reasonable but Kirkby Stephen is smack halfway from E or W coast

Goldcrest I reckoned from google images where some shown spherical as mine. Bird book pictures hopeless as shown bird shaped like a warbler. Firecrest should be out of area for River Tees acc to my books though I know things do get about more.
(First Egret I saw was on the Axe, south coast but supposedly continental. Now they're regular at Saltholme by the Tees Estuary.)

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 11:20 PM

Wish I could count the birds the I see on my drive to and from work. Large flock of wild turkey in a field of winter wheat? rye? on the way home this evening. (The field was sown about a month ago and now is a lush green of a grass/grain, standing about 6 inches tall. I think it is a dual cover/spring harvest crop of some grain.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Jeri
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 08:57 PM

I had a pair of Red Bellied Woodpeckers show up last winter, and they're still around. Lovely large birds.

Sometime last night when the wind was fierce, my dinner bell feeder blew off the hook and flipped upside down, in a way that made the seed land in the top. I put it back up tonight. It's still a little windy, but not nearly as bad. The birds were flying forward yesterday, and blowing sideways.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: maeve
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 08:29 PM

Also, JHW- I wonder if the tiny bird you thought might be a Goldcrest might have been the endangered Firecrest? Have a look and see what you think:http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/f/firecrest/index.aspx Just a thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: maeve
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 08:02 PM

JHW- Have you seen this UK Bird identifier? http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdidentifier/form.aspx
Using my understanding of your bird's description resulted in the following possibilities for your part of the world:
        
Bar-tailed godwit (winter), Black-tailed godwit (winter), Curlew,
Greenshank, Red-breasted merganser (female), Whimbrel

You may want to give it a try to see if any of the results fit your sighting. Good luck!

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,999
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 07:23 PM

Spoon-billed sandpiper? Give a look in Google images.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: JHW
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 08:56 AM

Help needed. Yet again a bird that's not in my books.
Sat 17 Feb 2013 out walking in grass fields by the River Eden just upstream of Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria. A female mallard I'm thinking comes flying upstream though looking a bit slim for a mallard but flying like a duck or goose, head outstretched and wing beat like a duck rather than heron. But the head was too long and the bill even more so for a duck. Then it LANDED from flight on to the wooden fence rail of the footbridge next to me and perched there securely a few seconds turning its head round and looking at me perhaps to assess a sandwich opportunity then flew on upstream. When perched it was tall like a heron or cormorant but brown mallard duck colours. Never thought to look at its feet at the time.
?

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 17 Feb 13 - 11:44 PM

A gem it is indeed, maeve. Thanks so much for posting the link.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: maeve
Date: 17 Feb 13 - 05:42 PM

Some who follow this thread are quite likely to find this New Hampshire Public Television Network program interesting:

Saving Songbirds

I also posted this in the "Gems" thread at the request of a friend.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 12 Feb 13 - 01:04 AM

Both flocks - the vultures and the starlings, were gone by dark. Could not have gone far, and I wonder where.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 10 Feb 13 - 05:50 PM

hmmmm. Post did not take. Although starlings are common in my yard during the day, big flocks are rare. It is still not quite twilight, so "everybody" might move on before dark, but right now, the woods across the road and the trees in my yard are full of vultures on the middle third of branches and a large flock of cacophonous starlings in the upper branches.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 10 Feb 13 - 12:16 PM

Fresh nyjer seed did the trick. The finches are back on the thistle.

Watching a Pine Warbler and Carolina Wren face off at one of the suet feeders.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 07:15 AM

I saw a bird this morning.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 07:00 AM

Four chickadees, two cardinals (male and female), two blue jays, a gang of sparrows, hairy woodpecker, red-breasted/chested(?) woodpecker, two snow geese (they never left or they're real late leaving).

Ormstown in southern Quebec.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 06:46 AM

You are right on the edge of their summer/winter range, which abut one another.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: maeve
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 05:40 AM

Janie- Yep!

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 09:04 PM

For some reason this year we have a yellow-bellied sapsucker as a regular feeder visitor.   Could that be related to global warming--a northerly bird which is now ranging further south?

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Janie
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 08:53 PM

I don't think Raptor is on Mudcat frequently. Have pm'd someone who I understand is a personal friend and asked them if they can easily call him and as him to check in. If no response with the next 48 hours, I propose we shut the earlier thread, which had already been combined, down and go with this thread.

Would that suit folks? Be nice to keep the conversation and observations on one thread without having to do a lot of chasing.

I'll make a similar post to the other thread by the same title.

---

Threads combined. -Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 04:13 PM

Bohemian rhapsody

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 11:49 AM

Great photo. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: ragdall
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 05:18 AM

Sorry, I messed up the link. Try this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/diffuse/8440642344/

rags

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: ragdall
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 05:17 AM

I've been mesmerized by flocks of hundreds of Bohemian Waxwings that swirl overhead, land in the tall trees in my backyard and take off again with little warning. Photographing them can be challenging. I think this is the best photo I've taken of B. waxwings this year.

rags

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2013
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Feb 13 - 10:33 AM

Why don't birds fall off their perches when they sleep?

Now that this question is answered, the next one: Why does Rap open a parallel thread. I suspect he is up to something, possibly intending a different meaning to birding:?
:)

Deep inside of a parallel universe
It's getting harder and harder
To tell what came first

Under water where thoughts can breathe Easily

Far away you were made in a sea
Just like me

Chorus
Christ I'm a sidewinder I'm a
California King
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything

Staring straight up into the sky
Oh my my a solar system that fits
In your eye Microcosm


(Red Hot Chili Peppers - Parallel Universe)