Any Birders Out There?

[Cooker]

Hi,

Just wondering how many birders we have. I am a backyarder myself. My hummers seem to be late this year, only seen two.

How about it? Anyone into our two wing friends?

Tom

 

[Curtsmum]

I feed them and think there cute thats about it but i love robins and could watch them forever

 

[Superbob]

We've got quite a variety here in the Blue Ridge. Cardinals, bluejays, bluebirds, carolina wrens, yellow flickers, robins, red-headed woodpeckers, pileated woodpeckers (a really fascinating big guy), the tufted titmouse (a bold little guy), of course mockingbirds, and many more I'm sure. I am no expert on identifying them but do enjoy them.

 

[Mary]

Hi,

Just wondering how many birders we have. I am a backyarder myself. My hummers seem to be late this year, only seen two.

How about it? Anyone into our two wing friends?

Tom

Tweet, Tweet

I haven't put up my hummingbird feeder, but I have seen one or two bee bopping around the neighborhood.
I also have a "thing" for butterflies, so I try to plant flowers that will encourage both birds and butterflies to hang around our yard.

 

[WendyD]

Hi Tom,
Ernie & I are both birdlovers.
Besides feeding the wild birds in the neighbourhood we also have 2 large aviaries and have cockatiels, budgies,button quails and canaries.
The birds are all quite tame as its a big walk in aviary and the birds are all used to me being in there with them.
Ernie says that the birds get fed better than he does !!
Cheers
Wendy

 

[Bina]

Even though I am surrounded by farmland, we keep a couple of acres well treed and plant lots of evergreens, berry bushes, etc.

It was an EXCELLENT birding weekend.....I saw the male Baltimore Oriole (fluorescent orange), they only like one certain tree type here.

And yesterday I saw the male Rose Breasted Grosbeak, so handsome.

We have the usual robins, song sparrows, juncos, goldfinches, woodpeckers, hawks, turkey vultures, herons, etc. My favourite pair of phoebees is back nesting on my front porch. They are the sweetest little birds.

A few warblers are back but not the usual numbers.....on the news it was said that the warblers have had a hard time with the crazy weather and fires in the States.
I'm also waiting for the meadowlarks to return.
The Canada Geese finally left my river to go further north.

 

[Cooker]

Bina,

Sounds great! You have birds that I only read about but I guess that goes both ways. When I travel I enjoy seeing all the different varieties and species.

We have cardinals, blue jays, tit mice, finches, doves, sparrows, juncos, chickadees, wrens, woodpeckers (several types), hawks, owls etc. We have various water fowl but I don?t know much about them. I also enjoy trying to identify the various migratory visitors.

We had a great horned owl take up in the neighborhood last year and I really enjoyed hearing it at night. Also my pesky squirrel population dropped but it left when the food supply did.

Tom

 

[Bina]

Hey Tim,
I adore cardinals, but they live down the road in a larger woods, along with some grouse and partridge and wild turkeys.
We have the pesky blue jays, and the grackles and starlings make me mad.....

We usually have a pair of mallard ducks here and some other types down the road on another little stream. I could watch ducks all day. I used to have 5 muscovy ducks as pets. They are good bug eaters!

I've seen a great grey owl; incredible!!

Rob, yes, the Pileated woodpeckers are awesome.

.....still waiting for a hummingbird sighting.....

 

[gadgetman]

tit mice

Just try keepin' a straight face when sayin' thet in front of a high school class when a talkin? about birds.

Ah also recall one time gettin' in a heap of trouble when overheard by a teacher callin' one of our female huntin? dawgs th' 'bxxch' wo'd common down hyar fo' female dawgs. Had t'do a lot of talkin' t'get outta thet one.

Now about birds, Ah like t'shoot quail, dove, ducks, geese, turkey (all when in season of course--long as yo' don't go wif Earl) crows-----oh, wait a minute yo' was a talkin' about jest watchin'!! So'ry.

OOOOPS!!! LOOK OUT!!!! Hyar comes Dick Cheney!!!!

Now y?all be good now, ya hear!!!!

May God Bless,

Bubba

 

[hensylee]

we have bunches right here in the yard - we live in the woods. Yesterday I saw a hummer right outside the porch looking for goodies. I really believe the same ones come back to our yard every year.

Unfortunately we got up to smoke in our air from the Florida/Ga fires this morning and alaS, I heard only one bird. They are flying away from the smoke and fires, but many are dying while trying to get away. The wind was blowing hard from the east, bringing the smoke - it really is putrid stuff.

 

[ClickerTicker]

Over here, we're called "twitchers".
Although my wife and I are not at the fanatic stage, we also love feeding the garden birds.
Obviously no humming-birds. Currently it's mostly blue-tits, great tits, robins, chaffinches, greenfinches, sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds, & magpies (yuk) etc.
Have a rather spectacular bull-finch pair as frequent visitors at the moment
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/b/bullfinch/index.asp

We also get pheasants ground-feeding off the seeds that the smaller birds discard from the feeders (fussy buggers), not to mention persistent squirrels trying their luck and the occasional rat (that's where warfarin comes in really useful).

 

[Mary]

Thanks Ron for the link.

 

[Granbonny]

I was in the swing on front porch the other day..and a hummer came up to a red ribbon on one of my windchimes.. We plant lots of red flowers..but our bear is still in the neighborhood and I don't want to put the Hummer feeder yet..Just the normal birds here...but I did see a bluebird the other day for 2 afternoons...Never seen one before this high up..but we do have bluebird houses down in the horse pasture....about 2 miles away...Mary, I like butterflies too. have a huge butterfly bush. bonnie

 

[Sagebrush]

Birdies

Birdies

We have hummingbirds, red tail hawks, kill dear, great horned and barn owls, and California quail that I love to watch. Haven't seen the hummers this year yet, but these guys have huge personalities for their size.

 

[geebee]

I love the birds and feed them year round. They don't feed as much in the warmer weather as I am sure there is other food out there. We have the typical robins, finches, woodpeckers, cardinals, etc. There are a lot more but I am not enough of a birder to identify them all. There is also a red-shouldered hawk that shows up now and then and he is growing fast and very gorgeous.

 

[Steph]

I love hummingbirds!

I love hummingbirds!

Here in Connecticut, after the snow melts, I have to put the bird seed away or we will have bears. I don't mind the bears but I am afraid that one will tangle with my dog.

The hummingbirds arrive around May 1st so I try to get their food out the last week in April. I have found that they will nest and stay where they find food. So far I have, (I think), three nesting pairs. There may be a couple of single guys out there but they go so fast it is hard to tell. By June you will take your life in your hands if you wish to sit on my deck. They get VERY busy. They start to do this mating dance thing. The female will sit next to the feeder and watch as the male swoops back and forth in a big U shape. He will talk up a storm, I am sure he is filling her ears with sweet nothings.
My son sat under the feeder one year as quite as a mouse and held up his finger until one landed on him to feed. They are my favorite summer time creature.

Steph

 

[Susan BAV]

I Love Birds! And I really like that term, "twitchers."

We have a tremendous variety of birds here in San Diego County. We live in a relatively rural area with lots of birds and I have seven active feeders right now; the birds eat about five pounds of seed each day from our back yard in the spring and summer months. The ants have gotten into my hummer feeder again, crawled up my Australian Tree Fern, right beneath the feeder, and trailed right into the homemade sugar water. But the hummers are gorging themselves off our valencia orange tree blossoms right now so they're not lacking for food.

If you want to increase the bird activity near your feeders, offer them water, either a bird bath or something bigger. It can make a dramatic difference. My husband built a small pond near our house and the feeders, with an upper pool and a stream that flows down into the main pool which recirculates, and that made our backyard much more bird friendly, despite our six cats (actually twelve right now because our polydactyl calico just had six kittens last week ). Watching the birds bathe and play in the little pools and stream is really delightful!

Also, our little pond is full of tadpols right now, that hatched from long strings of toad eggs. The number of them is rapidly dwindling so I don't know if they're getting their legs and hopping away or the birds are snacking while they're bathing.

 

[hensylee]

I was in the swing on front porch the other day..and a hummer came up to a red ribbon on one of my windchimes.. We plant lots of red flowers..but our bear is still in the neighborhood and I don't want to put the Hummer feeder yet..Just the normal birds here...but I did see a bluebird the other day for 2 afternoons...Never seen one before this high up..but we do have bluebird houses down in the horse pasture....about 2 miles away...Mary, I like butterflies too. have a huge butterfly bush. bonnie

We had several blue bird houses on trees and poles. A few years Resa lifted the side panel to check on the babies and there was an OAK SNAKE in there and had gotten every baby. She killed it (with screams from me on the screened in porch in safety) and then took down the blue bird houses. She left the blue bird houses on the trees because the woodpeckers had widened the entrance holes so THEY could nest there and they are still there, being used every year by bigger birds. I think there is a wren next in one of them and perhaps eggs, but no parents because they have flown west away from smoke. Sad. I will watch to see if they come back.

We have those big woodpeckers that are nearly extinct and this smoke may do them in altogether. I hope not as they are beautiful.

We have whipporwills and you can hear them at night. Such a baleful sound but lovely.

Red birds (cardinals) abound, as well as blue jays. I used to feed them bread from the back door and they would come every morning to get their share. All sorts of birds. It was surprising to stand at the kitchen window and actually see the beaks up close. I wouldn't like to get pecked by one of them.

One year we had baby wrens a few feet from our porch screen and one morning we watched as the babies flew away, one by one. So exciting to see them on their journey.

 

[Mary]

Yesterday, after I read this thread, I went outside to sit in the backyard and read the day's mail. We have a stone patio that gets nice and toasty in the afternoon sun, and after I sat down, I realized that I had inadvertantly joined two baby doves. They were keeping warm while they waited for their mother to return and feed them.

I am use to hearing baby birds frantically calling for food when their mother's return, but the baby doves made no sound as she fed them. I was struck by the silence. Perhaps that is a characteristic unique to mourning doves.

Ann, I haven't thought of whipporwills in years. They were once common, along with quail, in our backyard.

 

[hensylee]

ever see a bird dive at the cat? very funny.

We used to have one that dived at our windows, sat on the cars to look at itself in the side mirrors, then attacked.