Found a dead indigo bunting yesterday :( no clue what did it in, was just on the ground beneath a tree, in tact. Just ran across this on the ground as well. Could this one be a humming bird nest? I've seen them made out of moss and such. Deep and narrow, legit thought it was a piece of wood when I first passed it. Top Bottom Sides
My camera started taking some blurry pics and I've been working like a motherfucker, so I haven't been birding since mid April. I feel like I've missed out on a lot of the warblers, but I saw a fair amount in Mar and April.
Still haven't pulled the plug on a new camera and/or lens... leaning towards mirrorless Nikon vs. upgrading to a higher quality DLSR. Pic above, with bluebird in flight is a great example of what I'd like to be able to capture, better. I need a faster processor & larger sensor to achieve.
Had to shut my feeders down for a few weeks. Had some rats running rampant and living off the feeders. One is an absolute unit, saw him all winter and I kind of liked him, but, once the weather picked up we removed the food. I'm thinking about another week or two and we'll slowly reintegrate.
Pretty sure they've all passed over the rainbow rat bridge. Traps out another week or so to be certain.
Shorebird migration is kicking in now. Getting a great concentration of birds on the refuge since everything is generally dry around here. One of our ponds naturally drew down to a mudflat and shallow sheetwater, had a pretty good look at some cool birds the other day. Need to get photos off my camera. Got Dunlin, ruddy turnstone (rare here), marbled godwit, semipalmated Plover, least sandpiper, lesser yellow legs, avocets, some other small sandpipers I didn't have time to ID. Finished up the first round of our breeding waterfowl survey, numbers will be interesting this year. No small ponds really have water so lots of birds concentrated on the larger bodies. I'd guess production will be down this year. Already seeing goose broods, surprised the mallards haven't hatched any yet.
I've seen so many bald eagles this past year. 2 more on a lake nearby last week. Then saw a pair of green herons on a different lake Friday. They were so cool to watch, perched on old timber in the middle of the lake and stayed incredibly still, even with many other birds flying near them.
Spoiler: general picture https://www.thenorthwestern.com/sto...ely-rare-bird-found-lake-superior/7504162002/ A supposed artic loon was spotted on Lake Superior off the Wisconsin shoreline on the 31st of May. Was spotted by DNR employees/bird enthusiast kayakers 500 feet off the shore and confirmed by an eBird project coordinator. To be official, four of the five committee members of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology must vote in favor of an application for a sighting to be accepted in state records. Sounds like some have already concurred that it was an artic loon. People drove from all over Wisconsin and Minnesota, including bird sighting bus tours, to view the loon for a couple days after the initial sighting. Spoiler: Info on the raity of sightings Arctic loons are birds of northern Europe and Asia as well as the Pacific coast of Alaska. The eBird map of Arctic loon sightings worldwide is essentially void of entries for the central U.S. In the several hundred years American birders have been keeping records, other than in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California, there are only a handful of records of the species in the U.S., including one in Ohio, Brady said. And never in Wisconsin.
Finally spotted my first hummingbird of the year this morning while I was picking the garden. Checked out a couple of garlic blooms. Usually have this red flowered vine that they swarm over for a couple months, but the cold this winter must have really killed it back because its just starting to come out of the ground and may be weeks/months away from flowering. So broke out a couple of feeders and got them cleaned, going to hang them up this afternoon.
also, my security camera tripped at ~1:12am the other night - due to a bird, but I could not make it out . Surely an owl, right?
I have a couple setting up a nest in my front yard. Every morning when I water they stare me down and dive bomb me. They also try to stare me down and yell at my dogs the entire time they are outside. That part is funny, what’s not is they shit all over my front porch. I have a big bay window and my only guess is they think they have to protect against the reflection.
Further - anyone know why he/she would let me get so close? Kept doing this for the ~3 minutes I was near him, even as I get ~5 feet away.
The two psychopaths referenced in my post above are not really afraid of me. I just mowed and saw their nest this morning but I did not see them though. Almost the exact same spot as last year. Owsley do the same couple nest at the same spots normally? Also when they are always in the nest I mow no where near it. Looks like a big patch of pubes in my yard.
Yeah, they’ll utilize previous nests if they’re still in good condition. At my old house we had a robin pair utilize the same nest in the corner of the porch for 3-4 years.
Put my feeders back up a few weeks ago and just took them down Thursday. If you don’t read the link; cliffs. Birds are dying and they don’t know why. Twelve species have been reported: Blue Jay, European Starling, Common Grackle, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, House Finch, House Sparrow, Eastern Bluebird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Carolina Chickadee, and Carolina Wren. Carolinas aren’t common around my feeder but the others are pretty much standard if you look out my window. https://www.media.pa.gov/Pages/game...J3L5NeUR02QgGtF7WzaHdkh-jlaQ9SfbDUK8SvI1Rc7to
Read a couple more articles from PA and they still are not sure what’s killing them. In this case, clean them and don’t refill them is the advice. Could be clean as a whistle until a contaminated bird stops by one minute later.
Went birding today for the first time in a few months. Saw Red-Shouldered Hawks, Common Yellowthroats, Western Tanager, Red-whiskered Bulbuls, and a really out of season Black-throated Gray Warbler.
Stuff from today. Red-shouldered Hawk Yellow-headed Amazon Red-Whiskered Bulbuls (Invasive species from southern Asia) Western Tanagers are so fucking cool. Allen's Hummingbird
I love listening to the summer tanagers around here. Pretty birds but the scarlet scarlet westerns are even more beautiful
So there a lot of Pin-tailed Wydah sightings right now in SoCal, which is not great because they're a non-native species that practices brood parasitism. Funnily enough, people have started noticing that their preferred targets are Scaly-breasted Munias, which are also an invasive species. So, at least the damage to native birds is somewhat mitigated.
Broke down & grabbed some of the infrared window stickers for my lounge area, to prevent birds from crashing into it. Have had very few incidents in the last year, but a recent increase... likely do to all the new fledglings. Thought I was gonna have to give CPR to a downey woodpecker yesterday, that crashed HARD
Was visiting family around Hilton Head last week and saw a Roseate Spoonbill. I was talking with my uncle about birding and saw a flash of pink fly by the window. Immediately interrupted him and said what I saw. He called bullshit so we walked over to the Marsh and sure enough, there it was. I think it was a lifer for him. It's finally duckling season in ND. We've had a really fucked up year, I think all of the early nesters failed aside from the Canada geese. Mallards showed up the same time they did but we saw no chicks until mid July basically. Had a late freeze that may have killed the eggs, then the extended drought meant all the semi - permanent and seasonal wetlands had no recharge and have all dried up.
Thought I noticed that house finch the other day, but wasn’t certain… flying a little off, like it’s vision is impaired. Ugh
I wrote an article for the Congaree NP magazine on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, whom I believe only exist in bottom land, hardwood forest. I know they are basically extinct, but I heard they legitimately found one on Arkansas several years ago? Can anyone confirm, I've looked on Google and can't find anything. It was rediclous how many hikers would come and say they spotted one, just to end up being a red-head or pileated - can't remember which looks almost exactly the same.
Anyone identify this ugly thing? It’s about twice the size of the house sparrows it was fighting for garbage. Either I’m describing it poorly or Merlin doesn’t think it lives in Newark...