Great thread. Will try to supply some pics. Pileated woodpeckers ubiquitous in my neighborhood due to abundance of huge pines. See them in yard frequently and they’re loud enough you can pretty much count on hearing them anytime you’re outside. Was a huge “a-ha!” moment when I connected that to woody woodpecker signature call.
They are probably my favorite to watch. I only ever see the male, which is strange to me because every other bird type that I get passing by is always in a pair. I always see this dude solo though and always wondered why. We also have a crew of Downy woodpeckers that come by as well. Got one I've never seen before that was pretty neat. Scarlet Tanager, had the red body and black wings. Did not see the female.
I’ve got a male Carolina wren right now that could out-sing any mimidae. He sings roughly 20 hours a day. Insanity.
I hung one of these squirrel proof suet feeders and it attracts woodpeckers all day long. I have regular visits from two of these and they're p big. Red-headed Woodpecker and a bunch of smaller ones like this Pretty cool watching them daily.
Red-bellies are definitely the most common woodpecker here. I’m partial to yellow-bellied sapsuckers. One of the very few migrating woodpeckers, and a really cool bite from a behavioral standpoint.
Migration in full swing here in North Dakota. Had white throated, white crowned, Harris sparrows, red winged and yellow headed blackbirds, rose breasted grosbeak, common grackle, pine siskins, white breasted nuthatches, black capped chickadees, and hairy woodpeckers in my yard. Got some common goldeneye doing a mating ritual earlier, and a pair of wood ducks. Get to do some waterfowl surveys Monday, hopefully I'll find some phalaropes
We’ve mostly got stilts right now. Least terns are beginning to show up but in decent numbers haven’t started nesting. Herons and egrets got going in late Feb.
Stilts are my favorite. I saw them daily when I worked in Mississippi. We get phalaropes, Willetts, yellowlegs and avocets breeding here. And being in the duck factory we have lots of mallards, blue winged teal, pintails, gadwalls etc breeding.
I saw a male Grosbeak last week, first time ever seeing one. Thought it was someone's lost parrot at first, medium size birds don't have beaks like that around here.
I have this feeder and there hasn't been a squirrel on it in 10 years. After a few days they'll quit trying and wait for the birds to spill some seeds on the ground. Aside from your usual birds, we have a ton of ospreys here and I watched one snag a bull red this morning. I could watch them work the shoreline for hours.
I have about 10 feeders up in the winter that in spring I replaced with houses although I do keep one out by the window to keep the cat amused. I have given up on trying to keep the squirrels out and just live with it. Also have fresh running water for them I love the birds Have some blue birds nesting right now and some wrens
I was telling my wife the other day I think I want to get into birding, glad there is a thread for this- I don’t feel quite so old now. Also- there is a new boardgame our built around birds, it’s one of the best new games out and kind of hard to find but it’s called Wingspan, some of you may like it also.
Are there any apps that you can track what birds you’ve seen, when, and where? I got the iBird app the identify, but I don’t think it does tracking
Drove around looking for some shorebirds, didn't find much in the way of them but had a couple decent photo ops of waterfowl
I have an app called Merlin. It was created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The coolest thing about it is that its free, and all of its "packs" are free. For instance, I have the "US: Northeast" pack installed on my phone. The pack will show me 337 species of birds that are native to or that migrate to the part of the country in which i live. If I were to vacation out say out west or in the deep south, I could also download that pack. The reason that i dont already have them downloaded is because it adds more birds to my apps database and it could throw off the BirdID part of the app where i can enter color, size, etc. of a bird that I'm looking at that I cant identify when I'm at home in this part of the country. It's surprising how accurate it is. App also has sound bytes from pretty much every bird that helps you to identify if they are chatty, and pics to help you determine if its a male, female, or non-breeding juvenile. I've been using it for years and it's gold. I highly recommend.
Never seen this many Orioles in the yard ever. Have at least four different males and two females. And it tickles me to death seeing them fly into my tree in the back yard. Never used to do that. They’d always fly off after feeding.
Did a breeding shorebird/seabird survey today and was able to view some really cool behavior in a gull-billed tern colony. I watched several of them catch and bring back brown anoles to their mates, but not before they pulverized it on the rocks surrounding the colony. Pretty amazing watching watching them gracefully pluck such a fast animal from the ground in full flight, especially when you’re used to watching terns dive. Also got some great views of black-bellied plovers in full breeding plumage. Absolutely gorgeous.
My stepdad is hardcore into birding. He goes all around the country to chase "life birds" that are rarely sighted in the US, and he and my mom take an international trip once every 3-4 months to somewhere new and exotic. He's birdwatching in Uganda right now. It's a really cool hobby that has taken them to some awesome places, but the actual birdwatching part of it was always kind of dull to me.
I used to think so when I was younger, but now I have a masters degree with a focus on waterfowl and I work with ducks. Not sure what eventually changed my mind, but I used to hate it when I got dragged along with family to see birds at my uncles / grandparents houses.
Saw my first osprey flying around my cabin's lake last weekend. Happened just before sundown, was flying around our end of the lake. Easily pushed a 6 foot wingspan and had a distinct, low chirp or chatter while it was flying 10 minutes later and it perched on a high birch tree 50 yards away till all you could see was its large silhouette against the night sky Rare and cool experience to see, especially in Wisconsin
Saw a nearly fledged barred owl chick and it’s mother this morning in the park near us. They’re all over the place here.
That Merlin Bird ID app is fucking sweet. Finally saw an Oriole today. He was hanging in the front yard, we don’t have a feeder there.
Setup three different feeders today. The first has a regular Pennington songbird mix. I had a monster of a Blue Jay drop by, as well as what I think was a juvenile Cardinal - definitely not a female but it wasn't the deep red you expect to see from adult male. Aside from them, all day it was the usual regular freeloaders: a few Starlings, house finches, house sparrows and two very large common grackles. I set up a suet/peanut butter ball feeder hoping to pull in the 2 species of woodpecker that I've seen in recent years and I found a nyjer/thistle feeder that is not inside of those socks (the seed goes to shit when wet apparently) to try and get back the small group of American Goldfinches I had 2 seasons ago.
Never had an issue with seed in those socks. Used to have a bunch of those I refilled when I lived in Nebraska, had a huge flock of goldfinches
I saw a pair of great blue herons flying together on Thursday. Don't believe I've ever witnessed two of them together before. Pretty neat stuff.
Warblers are here now. Saw a Wilson's and a few black and white warblers while out and about this weekend. Saw some Wilson's phalaropes when I was walking my dogs this afternoon. Such awesome birds to watch. Migration + breeding season is so fun. Can't wait to go out and find duck broods next month.
I’ve got to find a good spot to set up feeders at our new house. I heard, then spotted, a pair of red-headed woodpeckers this afternoon in a large oak littered with cavities. I know red-bellies are currently using a the tree as a breeding spot, so it would be awesome to see dual usage.
Going to get out Tuesday to do some waterfowl pair counts. Hopefully I can get some good photos of the shorebirds that are around right now
Black and whites are such cool little birds. Unfortunately their numbers have absolutely plummeted in recent years.
Taking my camera to work tomorrow. Saw my first Cormorant in a pond last year and there are a ton of Flickers and Red Head woodpeckers out. Thought I saw a Kingfisher flying over Saturday AM, but have my doubts. I have seen them out there before, but there isn’t enough water to see them regularly. Haven’t seen any Sandhill Cranes flying over the fields to my east yet...
Yup they are. I wish I worked in an area that made it easier to find warblers. I had no idea that black and whites acted like nuthatches or creepers on tree trunks. I'd never seen thst behavior from them.
The mountains of north Georgia/western NC are great for them. It’s an easy day trip from Atlanta, and you’ll typically see good diversity. Over the Memorial Day weekend last year I saw l/heard hooded, chestnut-sided, black-throated green, black-throated blue, black-and-white, ovenbird, and worm eating along with more common species. Still chasing my lifer blackburnian, though.
Yeah, a little more difficult here in ND. One of the properties we manage has some good habitat, so hopefully I'll get out there next weekend to chase some down
You get all the awesome breeding waterfowl and shorebirds though, so not a bad trade off. Y’all get any least tern colonies?
Yeah it's a good tradeoff, I love watching shorebirds. I'm not sure about the least terns - I don't think we do in my area, not much habitat for them that I know of.
I’ve always loved going out and finding/identifying birds. My favorite is when the snowy owls show up in northern Michigan the winter. I really need to step my camera game up though. Also this local family has been pretty popular over the last week or so