Bird Watching?

[kherrmann3]

I haven't seen a thread like this around, so I figured that I should make one. Does anyone else feed the wild birdies by their houses? If so, which kinds of birdies do you get? I'm a wild-bird nut, so I like to hear about what visits other people's feeders. I even go so far as to tote my little "bird field guide" along with me on vacations in the state

I'm a dork, I know

My normal visitors include: (left to right in photos)

Northern Cardinal (male & female), Red-Breasted Nuthatch, & White-Breasted Nuthatch


Black Capped Chickadee, White-Throated Sparrow, & American Tree Sparrow


American Goldfinch (male & female), House Finch (male), & Purple Finch (male)


Mourning Dove, Dark Eyed Junco (male), & Blue Jay

 

[pinksalamander]

I don't but my Grandparents do! So when I was little we used to do it a lot and I learnt all about birds! I can't remember everything I've seen, but I once saw a really impressive Kingfisher on the river in France.

Fran :hearts :brownbunny

 

[kherrmann3]

I saw a kingfisher when I was little, but I don't remember it.

Will & I just went up to Northern Wisconsin to the city (if you can call it that) of Clam Lake. We saw a TON of bald eagles up there. Will had never seen one before, so he almost had a heart attack when one flew over our Jeep and he could see how BIG they really are!

Their wingspan is about 6 - 8 feet wide! (1.83 - 2.44 meters)

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Oh yes! My husband has several feeders out there and we have TONS of birds. Lexi just recently saw one of these:

 

[kherrmann3]

Oooo! A pileated woodpecker? Those things are RARE! They're huge, too! My mom had one on a tree in their yard this spring. Will and I saw one while horseback riding in the Wisconsin Dells. He had never seen one of those before, either

Before we saw the one in the Dells, I had only seen them WAY up North near Eagle River, Wisconsin, and Door County, Wisconsin. Eagle River is way North in Wisconsin near the border of Michigan (Upper Peninsula). Door County is the little "thumb" part of the Wisconsin "mitten".

People from Michigan don't think that Wisconsin looks *somewhat* like a mitten... Well, Will doesn't

 

[Luv-bunniz]

I was starting to see alot of different birds in the summer and it became really interesting, but (and this is probably just biased) my favourite has to be a wild Sparrow Hawk, they are sooooo cool! We also had blue jays wich i thought was a little strange, i didnt think they lived in england? :? and sparrows were cool. We didnt get many 'nice' (meaning, not pests) birds around this year though, mainly sparrows, robins, starlings and a few others..

 

[Becca]

I don't really bird watch, once we did this thing where you watch youir garden for an hour and record all the birds that go in it and not one bird landed in our garden for that whole hour :shock:

 

[Luv-bunniz]

kherrmann3 wrote:

I saw a kingfisher when I was little, but I don't remember it.

Will & I just went up to Northern Wisconsin to the city (if you can call it that) of Clam Lake. We saw a TON of bald eagles up there. Will had never seen one before, so he almost had a heart attack when one flew over our Jeep and he could see how BIG they really are!

Their wingspan is about 6 - 8 feet wide! (1.83 - 2.44 meters)

So cool! I love bald eagles, but unforetunatly have only ever seen and handled captive bred. that looks like an AF Eagle though for some reason lol.

 

[kherrmann3]

AF eagle? I could just be completely clueless here.

They are hard to find around here sometimes. You have to go WAY North to see them.

Example: The Red Star on the bottom is where I live. All the other stars (North) were where Will & I saw Bald Eagles while on our trip It was a four-plus hour drive

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Yes, we have a LOT of woodpeckers but we've only seen one of these before. My sister had one also a few years ago. We also have Blue Herrons in the pond behind my house and the creek. I walked back there one day and one took off in front of me and I about peed my pants - I didn't see him until then! LOL!

We never had those when I was a kid, but recently they have come back into the area and they are everywhere. Same with canadian geese! We get tons of hummingbirds in the summer and of course cardinals everywhere.

The one thing I love and have only seen one time here is a bluebird.

 

[kherrmann3]

I have NEVER seen a bluebird out by my apartment or my parent's house! I saw one this year on my road-trip up North (der hey...) I saw it while we were driving through Plainfield, Wisconsin (home of Ed Gein - WI serial killer).

Kind of creepy, eh?

 

[Luv-bunniz]

Sorry, double post.

 

[Luv-bunniz]

kherrmann3 wrote:

AF eagle? I could just be completely clueless here.

African Fish Eagle...See how the white go down the whole neck and down part of the chest? Well a Bald Eagle usually just have feathers on the neck like this...

However it is nearly impossible there would be a AF eagle there and you can see from the beak and primary feathers that it is definitly a bald eagle anyway, AF eagles are more like this:

Anyway, sorry for taking the thread!!

 

[kherrmann3]

Luv-bunniz wrote:

... sorry for taking the thread!!

Ahh, it's bird related. You're OK Our bald eagles look crabbier than the African ones lol

The African ones have a black tip on their beak and have brown feathers on their chests and black on their wings. African fish eagles are smaller, too. The females get up to 8 pounds (3.6 kg) but bald eagles CAN get up to 15-or so pounds (7 kg)

 

[kirst3buns]

We feed the birds to and being in a similar area, see basically the same things as you have coming toyour feeder. I haven't seen any red breasted nuthatches though. We also have:

tufted titmouse

red bellied woodpeckers

And in the spring when I put out oranges, we usually get a couple of orioles. These are my favorites.

We are also lucky enough to live on a pond and see geese, wood ducks, great blue herons, the occasional green heron and most commonly mallards.

Can you tell I love bird watching!?!

 

[pamnock]

Great photo of the red-breasted nuthatch! I've never seen one before.

We have a lot of bald eagles and a few osprey's in ourin our area, so we often go out "eagle spotting".

We went on a bird watching hike with a wildlife conservationist in the spring. We got to see a lot of birds that I didn't even know we had in our area!

Pam

 

[kherrmann3]

kirst3buns wrote:

We feed the birds to and being in a similar area, see basically the same things as you have coming toyour feeder. Can you tell I love bird watching!?!

Ahh! I've been to Fenton before! Will's sisters live kind of near there! (his whole family is from Michigan, he moved here away from his family). They were based out of St. Clair Shores (near Detroit!). We drive their a few times a year

All I ever saw in Clinton Township and St. Clair Shores (where his family lived before they moved to God-forsaken Oklahoma) were House Sparrows and Grackles. I think I have seen a Cardinal or two. They did live in the city-ish areas, though. I've always been near farm-fields and parkways. TOTAL OPPOSITE there Their yard had a fence. My yards have never been fenced It was cute to see the little House Sparrows sitting in the holes of the cyclone-fencing, though. It was like a House Sparrow Hive ^_^

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

I love to see all the different birds around me. I came from the city where we had sparrows, starlings, occasional wood peckers and Pigeons by the dozen, so when i moved outside in the country i wanted to die with all the different types of birds , and the colors.

I love the Chickadees, and the yellow finches. I have seen Killdeers around here, they arent spectacular in color or anything but when you get close to thier nest, which they build amongst rocks and such they wobble around like they are hurt to lure you away from the nest, i think that is so neat. We have finches, wood peckers, chickadees, hawks, turkey vultures which are so ugly,lol. Gosh i have seen ones that i done even know what they are called but they are pretty.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

I want a tufted titmouse! OMG he's adorable!

 

[kherrmann3]

Luvmyzoocrew wrote:

I have seen Killdeers around here, they arent spectacular in color or anything but when you get close to thier nest, which they build amongst rocks and such they wobble around like they are hurt to lure you away from the nest, i think that is so neat.

We used to have Killdeer around my parent's house when I was a wee one. In spring when they have their young, the little ones look like yellow cotton-balls on stilts. They are SOOOO CUTE!

As far as "unknown birdies", there is a series of books by Stan Tekiela that are inexpensive and wonderful! He has a "Pennsylvania Birds" book, too. I'm pretty sure he's done all the states and their birds. He even does "Mammals of...", "Trees of..." and "Flowers of..." and a few others per state.

Here's the Pennsylvania one on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Birds-Pennsylvania-Field-Guide-Second/dp/1591930871

They don't have ALL the birds in that state, but they have the most-common ones. They are color-coded, so when you see a bird, you look on the side of the pages and flip through to the primary color of that bird. It shows you their habitat throughout the state (on a color-coded map) and how that bird is different from other, similar species. I have the Wisconsin one, and it is AWESOME! It is so easy to figure everyone out! Plus, it has real photos (WI's book does) instead of illustrations, which makes it doubly easy-to-use!

Here is Amazon.com's link to all of his books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/s...type=ss&index=books&field-author=Stan Tekiela