Daily Piccies Vol. 462

Very nice pics where we've come from in Vol. 461 here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1399644/

But time to move on to Vol. 462!

Here's a Eurasian Bittern to start off with - Master of Camouflage!

Resin

And a Shore Lark a.k.a. Horned Lark

Resin

Too bad that they don't know how interesting they are.

Beautiful pictures, Resin. Thanks for starting the thread. :)

I am hoping to finally see Horned Larks in or from the yard now that my husband mowed a path to get into the pasture. The Larks congregate in harvest corn fields around here in the winter.

Awesome birds Resin (also the one from the last thread) and Thanks for the new thread!!

I saw your request, but I couldn't find any interesting new pics to post.

Agree, iris, but they probably know they're attractive to their opposite sex. :o)

The Pine Siskins have arrived! I tend to spot them quickly because they enjoy nyger seed and find the feeders right away.

Still no American Tree Sparrows.

I'm still waiting for them too... awful late this year. But the house sparrows are returning. :(

This picture is not quite bad enough to go on the appallingly bad photo thread, but I thought it was cute how this Junco looked bug-eyed.

HaHa...looks like he's trying to figure out what in the heck you're doing. :o)

yes, I had the same impression. 'What are you up to'?

These little guys have been active here. Still no junco here, yet. Though I did see a flock of robins in north-central Illinois over the weekend and there was a junco with them.

Geesh - my picture did not tag along. So I'll send pic by itself.

Nice pic, Brenda! I had the same thing happen yesterday with a pic that I tried to post somewhere. It even showed up in the preview, but never posted.

Junco and Pine Siskin have arrived here in Southern Illinois. I'm seeing them out in the trees this morn. I went for the camera to share pictures, but seems I left camera in the car and DH went to town to pick up a tire - so no pictures this morn. I kept hearing this gibber and best I can tell it is the Pine Siskin making the noise - busy finding them something to eat. They're probably hungry from a long flight. I've seen 3 squirrels, a rabbit and a muskrat along with the arrival of new birds. I think that is the start to a good day.

The American Tree Sparrows finally arrived, but they like it better out back. They've only come to the feeding area a time or two. We have one, maybe two possums that have taken up residence. A Great Horned Owl spent several nights here before moving on, so maybe got one??

This crow was in town eating a Snickers. One of the children saw the wrapper. The only other birds that I've seen eat junk food were house sparrows and starlings.

Our American Tree Sparrows arrived about a week ago. So far we don't have as many as usual, but I expect they'll arrive a little at a time.

We had a lot of Pine Siskins until a few days ago, but they come and go all through winter. They immediately find the Goldfinch feeders so I always know when they show up.

Lately (for about 2 - 3 weeks), I have been seeing this guy along a busy road. I could use a little help identifying this one?

Thanks Resin, you are always helpful with identification. There are many of the Red-tailed hawks in this area - though I had never seen this coloration before. Did you notice how long the talons were. They seemed extremely long to me?? Wish I could have gotten a little better photo, but I felt lucky just to get this one.

Check out these guys meandering across the field from my window this morn. What a treat to see so many turkeys at one time. Best I could tell there were 21. Right on que for Thanksgiving.

HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We passed a large flock of turkeys eating acorns in the woods today. Hope that they stay there & don't come over here.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!!

Well these cedar waxwings and all their flocking friends have just about cleaned up the crab apples around here.

They're Lovely!

I especially like that streak of yellow across the bottom of their tail. Indeed a beautiful bird. . . I've learned their shrill sound, so now I see them often flying in a flock.

Basically just testing the new forum. It's soo white, but I guess if it functions it's ok.

Today we had our first Black-capped Chickadees since spring 2013. Such cute little fellows. Overall it was very active today at the feeders, with about ten species at one time. The Harris's Sparrows are still hanging around with only one or two Juncos a day.

This is from earlier this month, a favorite bird any time of year, a Western Meadowlark.

A male cardinal under our tube feeder this afternoon.

In the summer I seldom see cardinals. They show up in the winter when I put out feed. Here is a photo early this year when the snow was on. I could hardly believe the number of cardinals.

You are blessed Brenda. :D We actually had a record FIVE Cardinals here the other day. That is basically unheard of here, but now we're back to the two again.

When we have a large number of cardinals, I count the males and double the count.

Gee - Chillybean - you are right. This different setup we have as the posting area is quite white. Also I see when I type, I get way ahead of the words showing up in the message box. I'm sure they will get the bugs out soon - hopefully. We will probably get used to the white.

It is about this time of year - photo below.

I'm trying to force myself to use DG with this new format. To be honest I hate it. I find it confusing and so very, very white it gives me a headache. This morning I noticed some color on alternate posts which does help a little. They've also changed and fixed a few things that also made it better.

It's fascinating the different birds we each get to see. Chilly and Brenda, you guys see birds I never see in my yard, but birds like Cardinals and Chickadees live here year around.

This year since late summer my Chickadee numbers have increased dramatically. From very early morning throughout the day they fly back and forth from the feeders to nearby trees to crack and eat their seeds.

The Cardinals are around all day, but the largest numbers have always been dawn and dusk. That's the favorite feeding time for Cardinals and if I turn off the lights in the house and grab a pair of binoculars it always amazes me how many show up all over the yard with most being in the feeding areas.

Well let's see if the photo uploader still works (my fingers are crossed).

I haven't always had so many cardinals in winter. I think it might have something to do with leaving my flower gardens alone in the fall - as I know there are lots of flower seeds that the birds eat. Don't you agree, the birds (a big variety) should be able to find lots of food in all these spent flowers? I don't get real (REAL) serious about feeding the birds until the snow/ice starts falling. I let them fend for themselves for a while.

The flock of cardinals (& I do mean 'flock) shows up during the first snowfall. However they nest next door but I like to accustom the wood peckers to coming to the suet feeder.

I leave a lot of my plants alone as food for the birds and my feeder bird numbers dropped quite a bit. But as the winter progresses the numbers climb. Strangely, I've been going a handful of days without seeing Juncos, or one at the most. Just odd.

Nuts, the new forums are incredibly hard to read, but I am trying to get used to it. I know I could let myself get really upset, but it's not worth it.

How do we do bold print?

I don't know? Let me test the code I know...
BOLD

Do this with out the spaces between the characters:
< b > Type in your text and you have to... have to close it with this next bit... < / b >

Brenda I agree with leaving flowers for seeds. I don't cut down any of my flowers until spring. I always leave them for the birds.

Chilly, your Juncos may be wandering around checking out other sources for food like many birds do. I'm sure they'll be back.

For me the problems with the changes go beyond the forums being hard to read, although I am seeing many improvements that are making the changes easier to deal with.

When they first made the change, I couldn't even read the posts because they had the "read more/read less" format and clicking on them wasn't working so all I got was one or two sentences.

As they fix things and make it more user friendly I'm having an easier time using the site. I sure hope they don't bring back the "read more/read less"

Brenda, to add to Chilly's explanation for Bold, you can do the same thing to Underline (substitute a "U") or for Italic (substitute an "I"). You can even Combine two or three of the features by typing each grouping one after another.

Let me see if I get it. Thanks for the info. Hey - way to go. The "u" & "I" didn't quite work - though. More practice needed - I guess. Well - bold is good. THANKS!

Yay, you got it Brenda. :) It does help to get things across if you can bold or something the text without having to SHOUT. :)

Underline

One good thing about preview as I know many don't like it, is I can check to see if my code works without having to post it first.

< u > Type in text < / u > That's what I did.

About the "read more" I never saw that... now that would drive me nuts. To a degree I can see how it is ok, like in the plant files for the lists of where the plant grows, but I would not like that in posts. At all.

Well, Chilly, if you didn't see the "read more" and "read less" you weren't missing anything because it didn't work and all I was able to do was read one or two sentences from every post.

Yay Brenda...good job! Just do the same thing you did for bold but substitute U or I.
Chilly's suggestion of using preview does help. I always use preview because it helps me avoid silly-looking typos.

Brenda, have you ever used the "Test" forum? People use it to test all kinds of things like uploading pics, making text bold, etc.. Usually when someone starts a thread other members leave it alone and you can go back to it over-and-over to test your own things out. I have one or two that I started. I keep them saved on my home page so if I need them they're available.

Here's the link to the forum main page.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/test/all/