I have 2 at the coast and lots of snow birds . Love watching them thru the kitchen window.
Lavina
Anyone else have bird feeders?
Isn't a snow bird a retiree from the Northeast or Canada? You watch them out your window? Why?
A snow bird just comes down south for the winter and goes back home when the prices go up.Their behavior is quite interesting.They flock to any place that is offering free food.In fact "free" seems to be their favorite song.
Ha! Y'all are too funny! My mom always called the juncos that come during the late fall and winter snowbirds. I guess they both have two legs and come to the free food, lol!
Mr. Bird, Mrs. Bird your out nice and early for dinner.
LOL, good one Nancy.
We have all the usuals plus many many bluebirds and literally dozens of Gold Finches. My thistle feeder has about 36 perches and there are times when it is completely filled and there are others waiting in the (on the ) wings.
We also have a nasty Coopers Hawk that terrorizes the song birds. He barges in and considers my garden his personal buffet line. He reminds me a lot of those other snowbirds except he calls Kee Kee. (Perhaps he can't say the FR sound.)
ardesia, do your goldfinches change color this time of year? I used to think that we only had them during the summer but later discovered that they are here year round. They are darker during the late fall and winter months.
Yes, they do. They are mostly dark right now but will all turn bright yellow as the winter progresses. Every now and then we get one with a lot of yellow now.
the only birds i noticed around here were the herons egrets ibises gulls etc.... has anyone seen a painted bunting here.... their range is all the way to columbia/just south of there how about a purple galinule?
My DH had a blue heron 'sass' him while he was walking the dog out by the lake last weekend. Never heard of such a thing...
We've had an influx of western catbirds...ran the other catbirds-mocking birds, really- away. Tough things.
catbirds? is that some type of oxymoron?
I have a number of special descriptors for "Snowbirds", but in deference to DG Hall Monitors, I won't list them. They come by my dock raising 4'-7' wakes in their haste to get to Miami without a care in the world as to what damage their thoughtlessness incurs to the local ecology. And my dock!
But about the real birds: we were inundated with Goldfinches last month for about 3 weeks. Never seen so many! We've got 3 feeders with 36 perches up, and they were covered top to bottom 4-5 hours every day. With waiting lines. Stayed about 10 days, then left. Haven't seen one since. We'll see them again in Feb/Mar on their way back north, and they usually spend much more time here (3-4 weeks) on their trip north (think they might be dreading the journey???). And, they're starting to get their mating plumage in March, so it's pretty to watch. But why only one flock?
We have tons of Painted Buntings here in the spring/summer. Never really understood how many until they started banding them last summer. We rarely saw a banded bird after it was banded, but the Buntings kept on coming! They'll be back to nest around March, and I hope to see at least one with a band! And with any luck, it will be a "green bird" we banded last year, now in "fettle fine"...That would be neat!
We've seen mutiple bluebirds here in the past, but never got any to nest here. They're nesting somewhere nearby, because they routinely avail themselves of the meal worms we put out. And they should start to swing up here in the next few weeks, to scout nesting sites. But they've spurned our nesting offerings so far. And yeah, we're doing everything "right" according to the bluebird afficienados (house size, hole size, entry configuration, entry height, snake guards, nearby perches(but not TOO nearby), water...all that stuff. Nothing so far. But I think this is our year to nail one of those beautiful creatures...make them an offer they can't refuse...
I've seen a few painted buntings,. never seen a bunch of them but their around. My backyard is a bird lovers paradise but I'm not really into figuring out the names of all the different birds.
they (painted buntings) along with ibises and purple galinules (spelling?) are my favorites... they go along so nicely with the tropical theme in the yard!
We too have many purple buntings and they stayed around much later than normal this year. We saw them into the 3rd week in November. I never thought to look for bands, now I can't wait for next year to see if we have any banded ones.
Stono, the bluebirds are a hoot to watch as they go house hunting. They go in and look around and come out and have a conversation, take another peek and chat some more. It is almost like they are talking about what color the walls are or if they will have to change the carpet out. We get at least 5 clutches of young ones each year.
DH, there really is a Catbird, google it.
I am trying to remember the name of the green birds that get drunk on the fermented yaupon berries each year. They fly into trees, windows, etc but they don't seem to feel a thing because they are so plastered.
i remember my friend in lexington had Chinaberry trees, and since they lived in the country, when the birds got "drunk" off the chinaberrries, they would shoot them w/ bb's to keeep them out of the fields for the farmers (no, none of them died... as far as i know)
Not a fan of bluebirds. They attack the other birds nests.
Oh, you know what? I'm thinking of blue jays which your probably talking about a different bird. I get some sort of "blue bird" every year that nest in my backyard. I also get two pairs of cardinals and a black bird with a very yellow/red throat.
LOL, ardesia, you are SO right about their househunting! It's like watching "Sell This House" or "Designed to Sell"!! "I'm simply not going to build my nest on that ugly carpeting", or, " the wallpaper has to go, it doesn't match any of our nesting material...". And they do it exactly as you describe. There's a convenient TV antenna on my neighbor's house high above the bluebird house that serves as an excellent conference room. One flies down, goes inside and looks around, then flies up to the TV antenna and they chatter about it. We actually had 2 pairs start to build nests in the house last year. The snake guard rattling in some strong wind drove off the first pair, so I fixed that problem and another pair showed up a week later. After the prerequisite kibitzing, they started to build a nest, only to be driven off by the sprinkler system hitting the house 3 times a week, so they abandoned their effort. Last week I moved the house to a more wind free area that has drip irrigation only. They'll lose the TV antenna conference room, but there's handy Live Oaks and Pecan trees available for their conferences...here's hoping!
I'm very envious! I've only seen one Goldfinch all season - and I have a lovely feeder full of fresh thistle. No buntings so far either-despite my planting their favorite shrubs. :(
Just the usual suspects, Chickadees, Titmice, Mocks, Wrens, Nuthatches, and the odd Junco, Warblers.
Egrets pop by once in a while, on their way down to the lake down the street. Lots of Red-bellied woodpeckers and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, too.
We usually have lots of bluejays, but very few this year.
Deb
My all time favorite is the Pileated Woodpecker. It is not the true "Lawd God" bird as the Red Cockaded was known, but a close second.
goodness ardesia! what are you doing up so early
LOL this has turned out to be a good thread, I am in Raleigh right now and I had a small wren to come in the door with me last night. Thought I'd never get him back out. Discovered he/she has a nest over the screen door to the screened in porch
Ardesia, I love the pileated wp's too. We used to see quite alot at our "old" house, which is less than 2 miles from where we are now. I haven't seen a single one since we moved. Seems odd.
LavinaMae: Wrens seem to like screened porches. We had a pair nesting on ours last year. They let us know how unhappy they were with us when we spent too much time on "their" porch. :)
Deb
Is it true that bluebirds need an exact size hole before they will build a nest? I have a friend who builds blue bird houses, and he tells me they are very particular.
Lavina, is your wren a Carolina Wren? I guess it is if it lives in the Carolinas :) We had a wren incident on our boat, and a neighbor said it was probably a Carolina Wren.
Entlie
Hi
Here in my UK garden I have lots of sparrows as many as 20 to 25 can be feeding at my one bird table, they pop their heads out of my privat hedge to check that the coast is clear and fly backwards and forwards to the table. I have put up a new table outside my kitchen where a robin visits several times a day and there have been several coal tits around that visit the feeders usually in the morning. In total we have 2 tables a bird bath and 5 seed feeders. We put a variety of food on the tables, seed, bread, meal worms, mashed potato and any biscuit and cake crumbs we may have. The blackbirds are enjoying the apple windfalls in my neighbours garden. We have 2 magpies that nested this year in a nearby tree.
We are trying our best to encourage a variety of birds as many garden birds in the UK have diminished in numbers due to the amount of building on open land and many houses have converted gardens to car parking areas and wooden decking and patios with no trees and shrubs.
Regards
Sue
Oh Sue I can relate so much around us is becomming what I call a concrete jungle. We have 5 acres here in Raleigh and shopping center and strip malls all around us. Everyone wants to buy an acre and I don't want it sold. The deer have no place to go so they stay in our back yard in the trees. I love deer meat to eat but hate when what I consider is mine (LOL) missing and the herd of 12 is now only 4 that I have seen this week.
I don't feed the deer but I feed the birds and we have lots of them.
Lavina
Sue, it sounds like you are providing a feast for your birds. Are squirrels not a problem where you live. The birds would not stand a chance of getting any food here if I provided it on a table. The rodents would surely get there first.
LOL! Ardesia, I had the exact same thought as I was reading Sue's post, "Hmmm. I wonder if they have squirrels?" I was picturing the squirrel banquet table with all the birds hanging back in the azaleas, hoping they'd leave some scraps! :)
What about it Sue? Rodents? I'd love to have a birdie picnic table.
Deb
Hi
We do see the odd squirrel but they don't come into my garden as yet. Pidgeons are more of a pain as they eat so much. Cats are a problem there are 6 cats from the neighborhood that visit but we keep shooing them off. My good friend and neighbour who lives 2 doors away has been having a problem with rats that keep coming to her bird table she has had the environment people down twice to lay rat bait and we have to keep a constant watch for them. There has been an increase in the rat population due to the mild winters we have been having.
Rats or mice ate all a bird food that was being stored in one of our sheds they ate a 10 kg box of peanuts and several fat balls so I had to put down bait to control them.
Regards
Sue
Sue: That's what our squirrels do. I have to store seed in glass jars with metal lids. The squirrels will chew through anything else. ..even wood and hard plastic. One year they destroyed a wooden bluebird feeder, chewed the little hole into a 3" gap to get at the food. Same with a plastic goldfinch feeder. Persistent little fellows.
Here's my favorite visitor from today...Tufted Titmouse.
Deb
Deb, Wild Birds Unlimited makes a great bird feeder pole system that has worked well for me. I have been able to keep both the squirrels and the raccoons out of the feeders for a year and a half now. I do not know why it works better than other pole/baffle systems but it does.
Ardesia: Thanks, I'll have to check it out. Since the incidents I mentioned, I've stopped using metal and plastic feeders. :)
Deb
Hi
My youngest daughter has just come home from her seasonal job on a holiday park. She lives in a caravan on the park and has a robin that likes to come in and fly around. When my husband when to collect her this week to bring her home he was standing at the kitchen sink the window was open slightly and the robin kept fluttering up and down the window as if to say "hello I want to come in". A few years ago my neighbour had a robin that came in through the back door and would sit on the shelf above her fire.
Here in the UK robins can become quite tame, a well known gardening expert who is on TV here in the summer has a robin that feeds from her hand.
Regards
Sue
Our neighborhood is participating in the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. So far I have only seen the variety of birds I typically see each day. Hoping for something unusual......
Well I have loaded up with bird seed so my babies can eat for the winter. I have quiet a few red birds that are stunning. Wish they would stay still long enough for me to take a snapshot.
Marry Christmas all.
Lavina
Don't the red birds remind you of Christmas ornaments when they decorate the trees! I love them... Merry Christmas to you too!
Yay! the cold brought the Goldfinches, finally. :)
Deb
Another phenomenal pic, Deb! How you do dat??? BTW, none have showed up here since that first flush...
Mighty purty picture, Deb! Gotta love those goldfinches and their arial battles for the thistle sock! And then there's the 'jump on the top of it and inch down until you push the other bird off the bottom' trick:-)