bird watching

More starlings leaving the nests

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Adult on left feeding juvenile, second juvenile, right, looks on

Remember the post about the Starling kids bugging parents for food? Well, this behavior continued today everywhere in our yard. The change noticed today was that there were even more juvenile starlings hanging close to adults, waiting and begging for food. The groups were seen on the ground like yesterday, and now in the trees and even the utility wires overhead. One juvenile even approached a squirrel that was munching on some peanut suet.  Wrong move, juvenile! That squirrel was not going to feed you! Squirrel jumps up and at the bird.  A moment of hilarity.

Today there were many more juvenile starlings in evidence. In addition the chatter from the young starlings was incredible, and the birds actually sounded agitated and anxious. It was not a calm day.

A pair of Pileated Woodpeckers

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If you’ve seen some of our previous posts, you’ll know that we have been enjoying feeding birds in our backyard. It is always fun to see different birds and to watch the antics of them all. But sometimes we just have to say “Wow! Look at those!”

That time came when a mating pair of Pileated Woodpeckers showed up at our tree with suet feeding stations. The male is on the left, female on the right. (We call them Woody and Wilma) We had seen the female before, but this was our first sighting of the male. And yes, to us, this was a thrilling event!

Ah, you might want to duck

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Here he comes, center of picture

Look closely, there is a starling who just left the suet feeder heading right towards the camera. The yellow beak is in the center of the black body, and the out stretched wings are very blurry. We see the starlings getting a beak full of suet and flying off to, we assume, their nests. According to one of our resources the young starlings should be leaving their nests anytime now.

A flash of red on final approach

/ Roadtirementvintage / 13 Comments

A beautiful splash of red

It’s always fun to see a new (to us) species coming to our backyard and our feeders. We are slowly putting together a pretty decent list of the birds we have seen. Yesterday a flash of red, white and black caught our eye. We first saw the Rose-breasted Grosbeak sitting on a swing frame.

Coming in for a landing

It wasn’t long before a second Grosbeak joined in on the feeding fun. They both found the glass shelf feeder and shared a meal together. These colorful birds are always fun to see and hear.

Sher and I were serenaded today

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Nothing like getting photobombed by a twig!

It was a beautiful Thursday afternoon with mostly sunny skies and a very light breeze with temps near 65. The birds and a couple of squirrels were taking advantage of the food we had set out for their use.

We have been thrilled with the variety of species that have come to our feeders. Today we spotted a new little bird, a Carolina Wren, one we haven’t seen before . He decided to flit up into the tree and serenade us with a beautiful song!

Listening to our backyard friends is as fun as watching them,.

 

I see you!

/ Roadtirementvintage / 12 Comments

Sometimes there are birds that just stand out when you see them. Here is one:

This interesting gaze belongs to a White-crowned Sparrow. Below are a couple more images of the same bird after he flitted about a bit.

 

 

 

 

This is a direct quote from the allaboutbirds.org website “Scientists interested in movement and energetics have discovered that White-crowned Sparrows can run on a treadmill at a pace of about one-third of a mile an hour without tiring out.” I can’t imagine any self respecting bird allowing itself to be run on a treadmill.

Nests? We don’t need no stinking nests

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It’s really neat to see a breeding pair of birds together. Yesterday we saw a pair of Cowbirds. There is a very interesting way that Cowbirds “raise” their young.

Male on the left, female on the right

The Brown-headed Cowbird is known as a “Brood Parasite” The Brown-headed Cowbirds do not make nests. Females put all energy into egg production, up to 3 dozen a season. Yes, you guessed it, the females lay their eggs in other birds nests. The eggs hatch before the host nest eggs do, giving the Cowbird young a head start. Some birds recognize these imposters and pitch the trespassers out of their nests. Some people consider Cowbirds a nuisance bird, as they are responsible for the destruction many songbird eggs.

Having spotted this pair, we can now surmise that somewhere nearby another unsuspecting bird family is wondering why that one chick is so much larger than the rest of their brood.

First glance ID was wrong

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When I first spotted this woodpecker I thought it was a Male Northern Flicker. With our camera I captured this image of the pretty woodpecker next to the suet feeder.

Turns out this is a female Red-bellied Woodpecker. The female is distinguished from the male in the red nape vs. the male with a red cap. This bird can stick its sticky saliva covered barbed tongue a full 2 inches past the tip of the beak, letting it successfully catch food deep in crevices.

Additions to our backyard bird sanctuary

/ Roadtirementvintage / 12 Comments

Sher spotted some small but pretty bird baths in a local store’s ad flyer. We decided that they would be a nice addition to our backyard. We thought that we’d use one of the glass receptacles as a true water filled bird bath. The second, however, for now we put bird feed in the second one as a shelf feeder.

Glass bowl bird bath

2nd bird bath as a shelf feeder

 

 

 

 

 

We have been thrilled with the number of different species of birds that have been gracious enough to visit our backyard.

A brash Blue Jay

Chipping Sparrow in the new feeder

Two Starlings enjoying the suet

We have so enjoyed sitting in our backyard watching the birds coming and going from the bird feeders, now scattered across our backyard. We will keep the bird and critter photos coming as we capture them.