Birds

If you like watching birds or have any comments about a cool bird in your yard or something, this would be a good place to discuss anything to do with birds.

A few from the yard yesterday...4/23/24

Lots of small birds in the yard this afternoon.  Red-breasted and white breasted nuthatches, chickadees, goldfinches, house finches, and finally had a few white-throated sparrows show up.  They are going through seed like crazy.

pics of white-throated sparrow, house finch, goldfinch.

Here’s some shots of the dove nest or her at least sitting in the nest 7 feet away from the robin nest.

Just came back from a turkey hunting trip in Grant County. One of the birds I miss the most around here (Washington County) are Meadowlarks. Just love their song and we saw them often growing up on our family farm. Heard and saw numerous Meadowlarks every day in Grant County. Still quite a bit of CRP and grasslands in Grant County and I know that is what birds like Meadowlarks need for nesting. Also saw several bluebirds. Hard to beat a day in the Spring turkey woods watching/listening to all the different birds sing. 

One of our fellow LL'ers pointed out that the pic I posted yesterday was not a grackle but actually a Rusty Blackbird.  After looking up Rusty Blackbird, reading about its ID description (color, slightly curved bill), typical locations found (wooded swamps, same habitat I photographed it in), etc., he is correct.  That had me look back at the "grackle" photo I posted on 4-18-24 and examine that.  I believe now that bird is actually a Brewer's Blackbird, based on its bill shape (straight bill) and where I photographed it (large, expansive grassland).  So, I appreciated the feedback for sure.

Pics of Rusty and Brewer's blackbird pics and range maps.  One thing I learned in looking up Rusty Blackbird is that the population has declined around 90% over the last 40 years.

While I was walking through the wetlands earlier today, I came across this single grackle.  It seemed a bit lost, almost like it was looking for his buddies.

These guys come closer and closer as a spring goes on. They come and watch me work in the yard. They eat bugs that I turn up. Nice coloration on the head of this guy. He did turn a couple times and it looked really neat, but every time I snapped the picture, he turned his head to the right, the last pic is taken off. Soon, I’ll be dive bombing my squirrels to keep them away from their nest. And the yard.

and a couple pics of sleeping blue-winged teal

A few pics from today and one from late yesterday.  Turkey, Trumpeter Swan, Ring-necked ducks.

Found my turkey, as my hubby was out hunting them!! Also, got a sassy blue jay.

Most birds roost in trees at night.  Cling to a limb and sleep. Nests are for laying eggs, incubating eggs, rearing young, and feeding young.  Nests are for reproduction purposes, not for sleeping.

My wife came up with this question this morning. Do all bird's nest at night? Where do they go? You would think that you would see nests all over!

This little bird is not camera shy.
Inches away! Pine Siskin I think 

Redwing coming in. Phone photos looking bad. 

On the drive home this morning from looking for waterfowl, I spotted a hawk sitting in a tree inside the forest edge.  I turned around and went back, stopping on the side of the county highway and had time to get one quick photo through the tree branches (not the sharpest pic) before the bird flew off.  As it flew away through the trees, I knew based on its wing/tail shape it was not in the Accipiter group (Cooper's Hawk, Northern Goshawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk), but was one of the hawks in the Buteo group.  After initially comparing the photo to internet images, I was debating between an immature red-shouldered hawk or a young broad-winged hawk.  I am now fairly confident it is a broad-winged hawk.  That would be the first time I have ever photographed one of those.

Regarding backyard birds, I am still waiting to see the migrating white-throated sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, towhees, and yellow-rumped warblers.