Backyard Birder

Heat On!

Skip identified the New Visitor as a carolina wren. After checking the guides, I believe Skip is correct. There was a recent BirdNote about LBB. Little Brown Birds are difficult to tell apart, especially for a novice like me. I won't be going to their Seattle seminar, however!

One day this week the forecast was calling for the temp to be around freezing. I figured the birdbath would be OK, maybe I'd see a bit of ice floating around. See the male cardinal contemplating the ice. I don't think the goldfinch has ever seen this before! I'm not sure, but I think the HOSP is ice skating. Even the doves can walk on it. When I saw the pics, I plugged in the heater! It warmed up since that day, but the temp is supposed to be below freezing several days this week.

Since I pulled the ice pics, it mostly rained, and the batteries died in the Wingscapes camera. I didn't get any other pics, except for my favorite female.

I checked the web cam (user- nhpa pass- birder) several times at work this week. Most times I at least saw a HOSP or HOFI, but the throughput was not too great. I tried turning on compression, and set it to various levels, but I ended up turning it off- it didn't help much, and made the quality even worse. I did note that, the picture looked much better during the first half of the day, because of the lighting. The camera has a manual aperture, and I have to find a happy medium between over and under exposure. I do have an outdoor enclosure, and I am thinking about moving the camera outside. I believe that would make a big improvement in the quality.

Web Cam Update

When I stepped outside today, I saw a pair of pheasants in my yard. I think they were eating the cypress vine seeds. When they saw me, they ran off but did not fly. Odd. I have never seen them around the house before this.

I heard about Project FeederWatch, but didn't know what it is about. Here is a popular birder site, with an audio file that explains it well. Look for the Program #12 - October 29, 2008

I was looking for ideas for the Downy Cam. It is hard to catch a downy at the feeder, and even more so since I added another suet cage. I thought about turning the cam into a snow depth gage. -put a stick in the ground, paint inch marks, point web cam at stick, but it seemed it would be used even less than it is now. So I thought that I would point it at the tube feeder. Yes, I have a cam pointed at that feeder, but it is too far away to really see the birds. Within the first ten minutes of moving the camera, I saw a handful of chickadees, a juvenile cardinal, and the ever present HOSP and HOFI. Of course, I didn't see anything after that! But it was close to the end of the day. The camera is close to full magnification, so the quality dropped off some. Compare it to the last downy pic. Over the next couple of days, I do hope to play with the aperture and focus to get it a bit better. If you want to take a look, it is linked on the right side. The user name is nhpa, nhpa1, nhpa2 or nhpa3 and the pass for all is, birder. If you like the cam better this way, please let me know. Thanks!

So after looking at thousands of bird pics, I finally saw a new visitor! After not seeing the female cardinal for months, and rarely seeing the male, they have been showing up pretty regularly of late. The blue jay, doves and goldfinch have been in a lot of pics lately, too!

Latest Pics

I won't bore you today, just some pics!

I was beginning to think there wasn't any female cardinals around, but I finally saw this. And a better pic of a male. And how many birds can fit in the birdbath?? How many doves? The jay looks like he is posing. I like robins! And finally, the Wingscapes camera caught a pic of birds in flight.

Three Return

Today there are three birds that I haven't seen in a long time, and they all showed up in the last week or so.

In the spring, I saw a pair of robins in my yard all the time, but I haven't see them since. I guess because they are so prevalent I never looked at them too closely. Looking at this pic, they are a very pretty bird! Whenever I have a group of something and I don't know what it's called, I say a gaggle. Know what a gaggle of robins is called? A worm. A group of robins are collectively known as a "worm" of robins. And in the "early bird catches the worm" category- Robins eat different types of food depending on the time of day; they eat earthworms early in the day and more fruit later in the day.

After the worm thing, I discovered this tidbit: A group of house sparrows are collectively known as a "humiliation". I still haven't decided what this bird is. I am wondering if the yellow color is caused by the camera? Also, I said this was a different pic of the same type of bird. I am not too sure about that.

The other day I thought I caught a glimpse of a cardinal, another bird not seen here recently. I wasn't sure it was one though, all I saw was a flash of red. It could have been a male finch. The next day this showed up at the birdbath. Still no female, however.

The goldfinch has been a favorite, ever since I first saw a pair while I was out riding bicycle. Usually I see two of them together, but this is the only one I've seen.

More Birdbath Pics

I saw a blog on the Audubon web site that had a couple of things of interest to me. It was under the title "Spoiling Birds?" One was "Delayed Migration:" This addressed the issue I raised on 9/07/08, and they do not feel that feeders cause birds to halt their migration. The other issue is titled, "Predation:" This assuaged my fear that, I am setting up the birds to be easy kills, for all the wild cats that my neighbor is feeding.

I saw this pic, and I am not sure what it is. I guess it is an ordinary house sparrow, but it has a yellow belly. Birds Of Pa mentions a dickcissel, a similar species with a yellow belly, but I do not believe that is what this one is. Here is another pic.

Here is a little one looking at the camera. A mocker enjoying a bath. A dove, and a duck- OK, maybe it isn't a duck.

Red Knot

OK, I haven't posted anything for awhile. Sorry about that! Anyway, last week a recent Nature episode was released on DVD, Nature Crash A Tale of Two Species. I thought that I had posted something about it when it first aired, but a quick Google search of my site turned up nothing. The show was about over harvesting horseshoe crabs, and the effect on red knots, a migratory bird. If you haven't seen it, you can rent it from Netflix. I don't know (or care) if Blockbuster carries it.

I am going to try and add a Google search to my site, since it lacks a built in search. If it doesn't fit in well, I will pull it.

I have seen a debate about when to take down hummingbird feeders. Some people fear that, if you keep the feeders up past September 15th, you will encourage the birds to over winter and not migrate. Since I haven't seen any birds here, I figured it was a good time to pull mine. The cypress vines still have blooms, so any stray passing through it can still find a quick fix. Most people believe, when a hummingbird gets the instinctual urge to migrate, it will go, whether or not food is available.

I haven't seen any cardinals lately. I really hoped the female would show up at the birdbath, but neither one did. I still haven't seen a male downy, either. But, here are some recent visitors. A blue jay, a mockingbird, and what is this monster? It is a normal size goldfinch. It looks huge because it is close to the camera. And finally, the party continues!

edit Here is a party video.

Migration

The hummingbirds started their migration, so any that visit my feeder would not be local. I didn't realize that they would start so soon! I will keep the feeders up until I am sure they will have all passed by here. I will wait until next year to decide if I will try again to attract them, but right now I'm thinking, why bother? By the way, when I was taking the feeders in to clean them, I heard an eagle call. It was frustrating! I could hear it several times, and it seemed to be moving away from me, but I couldn't spot it.

Since I had not seen a single image of a bird at the hummingbird feeder, I moved the Wingscapes camera and pointed it at the birdbath. The robins loved the birdbath, but I haven't seen any of them for weeks. I was curious to see what is splashing all the water out of the birdbath. I should have known! See them here and here. They do look like they are having fun.

We got two inches of rain from Hanna, but it wasn't enough to stop my downy!

I knew some species of birds are supposed to be able to identify individual people, but this post in rec.birds, from Jerry Avins, sort of grabbed my attention:

"I once raised a pigeon from dropper feeding to release. A year later, a pigeon of the same coloring peeled out of a high-flying flock and landed on my shoulder."

Amazing!

Downy

There is good news and there is bad news. The bad news is, I haven't seen any hummingbird pics. The good news is, I only have to look at a handful of pics every day, rather than 300 plus I was used to! On second thought, guess there isn't much good news for you. :)

I am still seeing the male cardinal at the feeder. Sometimes I think he looks a little ratty, but maybe it's just the lighting. The jay still shows up occasionally, too.

A few days ago, I heard a chirping outside my window. I checked the downy cam and, sure enough, I saw a female downy feeding. Since then I saw her at least once a day, and today I saw her three times before 11:00! She is noisy, it was easy for me to tell when she was there! Since she only stays at the suet feeder for less than a minute at a time, it probably isn't worth checking the cam to see her, but have at it, if you wish. It was a female every time, I have not seen a male lately. I wish I could think of a better use for that web cam, it seems like somewhat of a waste. On the other hand, when I do see a downy feeding, I do enjoy watching them!

Chickadee II

I fried the computer which held the database for this blog. All my bird pics were on that computer, as well. I did have a backup of the blog, so I was able to do a restore. I am still hoping to gain access to the bird pics, but it'll be a couple of weeks more, at least. The Downy cam went down with this, as well. That was no big loss, I have not seen any activity lately. The cam is back online, and hopefully there will soon be something to watch. (It would have been nice to turn it into a hummingbird cam!)

On my way to clean the birdbath the other day, I noticed a chickadee sitting on the ant trap, on top of the hummingbird feeder. I like chickadees, so I didn't want to scare it away. I stood there and watched it as it ducked it's head down in the ant trap to get a drink. I thought, that figures! I clean the birdbath and fill it with fresh water everyday. I add water to the ant trap when I notice it is empty, but I sure don't clean it! Anyway, after getting a drink, it flew to the box feeder. It landed on the side away from the Wingscapes camera. There are a couple of small holes on the side of the feeder, and it was using one to get something to feed on. Then it flew to the feeder hanger and started to sing. Being a chickadee, it didn't stay there very long. It flew down to the top of the feeder and sang some more. It continued to fly to various spots on the feeder and sing. Meanwhile, a dove landed on the ground under the feeder and was pecking away at the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a squirrel off to my right. It wasn't any farther away then what the birds were, which wasn't very far at all! But then the birds flew off, and I continued on to the birdbath.

For the first time, I noticed a sign of activity at the hummingbird feeder. Namely, the water got cloudy. But I did not notice the water level dropping any faster than usual. The Wingscapes camera caught a possible culprit! I believe that this is my friend, the chickadee. I might re point the camera to better view the hummingbird feeder. I sure would like to see one.

A couple more chickadee shots, here and here. I changed these links to open in a new window. Is that better, or would you rather hit the 'back' button on the browser? I guess it is six of one, and half a dozen of the other. :) edit: I changed it to open in the same window.

Barn swallows

I have mentioned more than once, that I see swallow type birds dive bombing me, while I am mowing the yard. I could never figure out what they were. Here is a good reason why! Check this picture, it is what I usually see when I am looking for a pic of a bard swallow. This does not look like my birds. I usually see the swallows when I am mowing the yard where my box feeder is located. Before I mowed the yard today, I read the daily Birdchat Digest, and checked the messages in the Garden Web Forum. I saw a post that seemed to answer my question as to what they are doing: * Posted by chinamigarden Mon, Jul 21, 08 at 10:25 "The birds that are circling you as you mow are probably barn swallows. They are eating the bugs that you are scaring up with the tractor. Its something to watch as they are quite acrobatic. Good luck with your new hobby. Be prepared for your one feeder to become 6."

So I moved over to the yard on the other side of the driveway, and suddenly, the swallows were all around me! I counted at least six birds! I never saw more than two, before. So I was thinking that they probably are going for the bugs. In the past, I always assumed they were buzzing me, to chase me away from their nesting area. Then one flew within a couple of feet of me. I want to tell you, that woke me up! They usually don't get that close!

After I finished mowing, I came in to search the web until I came up with an answer as to what these birds are. I found this page, which shows a pic much closer to what I am seeing. I really didn't notice the red around the head, but it would be easy to miss. In any event, I am sure that these are barn swallows.

They are entertaining, and whereas they eat bugs, I am happy to have them. I don't need them to get quite so close, though. :)