BS: Birdwatching 2014

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 12:42 PM

Spring is here in SW Florida. I went yak fishing around Lover's Key (a barrier island on the Gulf Of Mexico) last weekend and saw a bunch of Roseate Spoonbills in their mating colors and several pairs of Ospreys building nests and no, I didn't catch any yaks.
Love your pictures ragdall, especially those Waxwings.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: gnu
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 12:26 PM

Aggghhhh! I approached Mum's apple tree with camcorder in hand while carefully eying the branches. It was on the snow under the tree munching an apple, flew into the tree, got nervous and took off. I did snap a pick a long way off but I know it won't do much good. However... I saw the white bands on the wings and tail when it flew the second time and also on the third time so I am almost sure I have seen my first Northern Shrike. There were two here a couple of days ago doing that "chase" that birds do.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 11:45 AM

Kendall's list except no owls, herons or mallards. The blue jays (camp robbers) are about with the chickadees and sparrows. Have no idea how many varieties. The pigeon population is dropping a little thanks to the Cooper's hawk. Woodpeckers (downy and hairy, but have heard the pileated and he's still a one-bird percussion team). I think pickin's must be poor for the crows because this is the first year I have seen this half dozen or so who show up just to check things out. I wish the snow would melt because getting a garden in will be an exercise in futility for anything but plants that grow and ripen quickly. The garden makes the robins happy. And the chipmunk whose name is Charles the III. If he's half as smart as his mother that will be a good thing for him.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: gnu
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 11:18 AM

Haven't seen Rob for near two weeks. We had a BAD rain/freezing rain/ice pellet/wet snow/fluffy snow storm with high winds sooo? I will check under the yew in a month when the snow is gone.

I believe I may have seen my first Northern Shrike. Hope to get pics/video soon. Haven't been able to get the binoculars on it among the branches so I may be way off.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Janie
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 09:34 PM

So glad to see you post and to have started the other thread. I learn from folks like you who are more knowledgeable and more astute observers than am I. As an example, I think it was you who a year or so ago posted about a junco/white-throated sparrow hybrid and maybe posted a picture. At the time I had no idea they hybridized. Juncos are so common here in winter I had never really tried to closely observe them.    Since that time I have watched them much more closely, am so much more aware of how variable they actually are in appearance, had never really noted the differences in males and females, and occasionally wonder if I am looking at a hybrid or just getting familiar with their variability. I took them so much for granted that I don't think I had ever picked up the binocs to look at them and notice the difference between males and females. I appreciate them so much more. Thank you!

Subject: RE: Birds 2014
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 09:03 PM

I am fine with combining the threads.

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Done

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: kendall
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 07:56 PM

Barred Owl,
Cardinals,
Tufted titmouse,
Robins,
Cooper's Hawk,
Piliated woodpecker,
Two Mallard ducks,
24 Turkeys,
Mourning Doves,
Chickadees,
Nuthatches.
A Great blue heron,
and the usual murder of Crows and flocks of Gulls.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Janie
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 07:12 PM

Wondering about your Robin, gnu. Still around?

Subject: RE: Birds 2014
From: Janie
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 07:08 PM

Here is the link to the 2014 thread. If it's OK with you, Arkie, can we ask Jeri to add these posts to that one so all is in one place?

Birdwatching 2014

Subject: RE: Birds 2014
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 06:51 PM

"Arkie" is a hint. ;)
The "usual" birds here are getting brighter. Male gold finches getting golder, house finches getting purplier, and cardinals getting their red on. There is a horde of chickadees mugging my birdfeeder and loudly complaining when it's out of seed. No hummingbirds yet, but it's New England and there is still a bit of old snow around in the woods.

Subject: RE: Birds 2014
From: Paul Reade
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 06:44 PM

I take it you don't live in the UK!

Subject: Birds 2014
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 06:38 PM

If anything has been posted for this year, I missed it. Many pardons. Just saw the first hummingbird and first purple martin of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: ragdall
Date: 17 Feb 14 - 07:47 AM

Thanks, Janie,

It looks as if my post a couple of days ago to gnu about his robin didn't make it here? Trying again.

gnu, has your robin's mobility improved or do you think he will always need to close to your home and rely on you for care and food?

rags

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Janie
Date: 14 Feb 14 - 02:37 PM

Just watched a pair of seagulls of undetermined species fly by, quite high. Gulls do come inland here, and I will occasionally see them around big mall lots or if I am visiting the few lakes in the area. Have never sighted them from my yard before. Probably more a function of me being home due to weather on the roads more than usual than for any other reason. Herring Gull is the most likely species, this far inland, but not possible to make a positive identification. Sure they were gulls, and sure of nothing else.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Janie
Date: 14 Feb 14 - 07:11 AM

As always, ragdall, your photos are a delight.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: ragdall
Date: 13 Feb 14 - 07:47 PM

Yard birds are eerily scarce this winter. No sign of the usual large flock of Redpolls at all. Other people in this area report seeing none, too. We wonder what has happened to them?

A tiny female Downy Woodpecker comes for the suet and checks up and down the trunks of my aging trees. The past week or so a flock of about eight Dark-eyed Juncos have been eating seeds on a board outside my window which is also visited by up to 15 House Sparrows. I see several Black-capped Chickadees once in a while. Feb. 8th, a flock of about 30 Bohemian Waxwings came to glean the few berries left on my Mountain Ash trees and High-bush Cranberry bush. Several Northern Flickers come for the suet and to hang on the small bird feeders, eating seeds. This is a female Northern Flicker, and a male Northern Flicker. I'm hoping that I might be able to identify individual Flickers from photos and determine whether or not I'm seeing repeat visitors or they are all "just passing through".

There have been reports in town of a lone American Robin and a lone Varied Thrush. With at least three feet of snow covering the ground in my yard, I don't expect to see either of those anytime soon.
rags

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Janie
Date: 13 Feb 14 - 04:38 PM

The snow cover is bringing birds I don't usually see in my yard, at least not this time of year. Have a large mixed flock of common grackles, brown-headed cowbirds (which I usually only see in my yard in summer, though they do both winter here, plus two red-singed blackbirds, one of which has white tail feathers. Red-wings are common here around ponds and wetlands but these two are the first I have ever seen in my yard.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: gnu
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 03:36 PM

Patience? Nah. Persistence. I spotted him in August. He was staying under my utility trailer parked in the back yard, in the yews out front, and a few other spots. I noticed he was frail and seldom flew. Messed up wing was my guess. I began talking to him quietly and throwing worms toward him while he was out in the open and then walking away quickly. I then did the same by laying worms on the ground when I knew he was under the trailer. I made "worms" out of bacon when I didn't have worms at hand.

In fall, I started dropping food from my bedroom window in early morn when I knew he would be in the yew. Always talking first. Then, I would go out the front door, stand on the steps and do the same. Then, talk but no grub until he came toward me. That took a while. Then, grub on the railing. Then, grub on the railing removed if he didn't come to get it while I was there. Then, grub in the hand until he came to the railing to be hand fed. And he really likes warm water when it's cold. For that, he has to sit on my finger and drink from the bowl.

What I said about the squirrel and the lead? I would never do that. For one thing, it is illegal to discharge a firearm within city limits. But, I have grub and a hockey stick and if he messes with Rob again, his training will begin. Don't worry. He won't suffer... I am a Canuck and I know how to stick handle.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Janie
Date: 12 Jan 14 - 04:30 PM

Wow, gnu. Such patience on your part, to bring a bird to hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: gnu
Date: 12 Jan 14 - 01:28 PM

The small lame robin that is stayed here despite our savage winters will now come to me to be hand fed warm pieces of apples, cherries, suet and cooked meats. I have named him Rob. The rat with the bushy tail chases Rob out of Mum's apple tree and chases him in the pine trees behind my house. I am considering feeding said rat some lead.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Jan 14 - 08:40 PM

Hi, Harpy -
I saw you at the Florida Folk Festival 2001, a few months before I got married. You bought me a tie-dye T-shirt as a wedding present. But I thought I saw you in Sarasota another time, and we went to Myakka.

I was thinking we should have another thread for bird photography timps, but maybe this thread would be good for that. You and Ferrara are two of the best bird photographers I know, along with a friend of mine named Larry. I get a lucky shot now and then, but the three of you get consistently good bird photos - and I want to know how.

My highly-rated Canon G11 PowerShot camera is not working very well (only 2-1/2 years old), so I bought another to replace it. The new one has a 35 x optical zoom, so I'm hoping that will help with birds.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: GUEST,hg
Date: 11 Jan 14 - 06:00 PM

Joe took me to Myakka State Park in 2001 wasn't it, Joe? We were on a bridge with the most alligators I have ever seen in a mudhole under the bridge. It was wall to wall and imagining falling off that bridge was mighty anxiety provoking!

I am seeing lots of migratory birds now that are going into breeding...wood storks, great egrets, eagles, and lots of exotic ducks like mergansers. A snowy, owl was near Jacksonville last week and was the talk of the birding community.

I haven't been getting many photos because of caring for dad who we are trying to keep in his Westminster duplex as long as possible before nursing home care. I just moved my office across town and there are some nearby ponds with tons of birds so I am taking my camera to work and stopping for photos along the way.

Both my kayaks have holes and cracks and I have to mix up the epoxy or whatever it is to fix them before I go out again.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Janie
Date: 11 Jan 14 - 11:48 AM

Sounds like you were in birdwatching paradise, Joe.   I love hg's bird photos she puts up on Facebook from her kayaking on the rivers there in the panhandle.

We used to spend the winters down in the Keys and spent a lot of time kayaking, camping on keys in the backcountry of Florida Bay and birdwatching. In spring, when birds migrate across Gulf from South and Central America, the lower Keys are the first land they come to after that long flight over water. One spring, when we were camping in the Content Keys, which are right on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico - several migrating Prothonotary Warblers made landfall. We didn't know then that they were migratory, or migrating - had never seen one, but were amazed that they seemed so tame or fearless that they allowed us to walk right up to them. Could probably have picked them up in our hands. Later, the folks at the botanical garden in Key West told us it wasn't unusual in the spring. The birds are simply too exhausted to care or react.

Watching a goldfinch that is so wet from a recent intense downpour it is having trouble flying.

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Jan 14 - 10:17 AM

Have you visited the Ding Darling Sanctuary Joe? Helluva' place down that way. We had a wonderful day there....the best day of the entire week (spent with my late M-I-L).


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2014
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Jan 14 - 03:00 AM

We spent most of this week in Sarasota, Florida, visiting my dad in his nursing home - he finally had to leave his condo (at the age of 94), but we got to stay in the condo with a view of brown pelicans diving into the harbor. We saw black skimmers and a wide variety of terns at white-sand Siesta Beach on the Gulf of Mexico. The high point of our birdwatching was a visit ten miles inland to Myakka River State Park. Only two alligators, but lots of Sandhill Cranes and Roseate Spoonbills and Wood Storks. We saw three ospreys, and countless herons and egrets and black vultures.
Oh, and we saw some beautiful bufflehead ducks in a pond near the nursing home. There are several ponds surrounding the nursing home, and my dad enjoys watching the birds around the pond - mostly egrets and cormorants and anhingas when we were there.
Florida is a birdwatching paradise.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Biirdwatching @014
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jan 14 - 01:53 AM

Snowy owl irruption!
I have seen four in the last month... On Amish farms.

Subject: RE: BS: Biirdwatching @014
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:43 PM

So was this one a Pill-lee-ated, Pile-lee-ated, or Pi-lated, woodpecker....LOL....

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Biirdwatching @014
From: Janie
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:40 PM

Fumble fingered. Also the extra i in bird. Sorry.

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You mean, before Spaw sees it? Sorry, Janie, I was too late...
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Biirdwatching @014
From: Janie
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:38 PM

Wood a mud-elf kindly correct my typo in the title and change @ to 2?

Thankee kindly.

Subject: BS: Biirdwatching 2014
From: Janie
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:34 PM

OH! MY! GOSH! Yes, I'm shouting out of sheer excitement. Just saw my first Pileated Woodpecker here on the Piedmont since I moved here in 1986. More at the end of this post.

Keeping alive, at least for what I hope is another year, a tradition started by Raptor within the Mudcat community. Understand the community is smaller and also that many folks are more likely to discuss such things on other social media sites now. But I'm a geezer and feel most at home here. Will stick with Raptor's "rules."

Keep a list of all the birds you observe or hear and can conclusively identify from your yard. (or other annually fixed location.) I often see Canada Geese, Killdeer, Great Blue Herons and other waterfowl on my drive through the country to and from work, but they don't go onto my fixed locale list. I see purple martins and seagulls from the strip mall parking lot at the location where I do most of my grocery shopping. They don't go on my fixed locale list. My fixed locale is my yard, but it could be my office window, or for that matter, could be my local mall parking lot.

Share observations! Keep lists very specific to fixed locale, however. Seems to me fair game to keep multiple lists if one is up to it. Share lists at the end of the year. This old Mudcatter still enjoys the sharing within this community.

Happy Birdwatching!


Posted an hour or so ago on the 2013 bird thread and said I was going to start the 2014 thread. Got distracted by a couple of other threads, so had not done so.

My 'puter is arranged so that I am right by my big window where I can watch the birds in the front yard and most of the feeders. My attention was just grapped by a large movement out in the yard, and a Pileated Woodpecker just landed on a suet feeder! This is the first Pileated I have seen on the Piedmont since I moved here in 1986! They aren't rare, but are not common throughout much of the Piedmont, where there are not many large stands of woodland. I've lived either in small towns or in the middle of cleared farmland since I moved here. Have occasionally, when hiking in tracks of Duke Forest or Eno State Park heard them, but haven't seen one here for lo, these 17 1/2 years.

I love these birds, and am obviously thrilled to see one in my yard. They were common where I was raised, in WV. Love their attention-grabbing call as they power through the heavily forested woods of my homeland. We called them "Ginseng Birds" because they thrive in the same habitats as native patches of ginseng.