Today I took a walk and brought my binoculars, which I have recently learned how to use thanks to this course! I live on a country road in rural Massachusetts, with both wooded and meadow areas. Lots of birds and bird songs today! The first thing that happened was I heard a song that was unfamiliar to me. I stood still and looked for the bird, and then kept my eyes on it as I brought the binoculars up. But I didn't really need to look through them to know it was a Baltimore Oriole! Beautiful. It stayed with me as I walked, and kept singing that same song of an upward note and then a downward note. I started trying to copy it, and it seemed to be answering me! I also saw what I knew was a woodpecker from the coloring of black with bright red, and also because it was walking up the trunk of a tree. I was assuming it was either a downy or hairy woodpecker, and was focusing on the beak to see if I could figure out which one, and had settled on hairy. But the thing was that it seemed too big. I knew it wasn't big enough to be a pileated, but it had a red crown like the pileated. I checked Merlin, which suggested Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker. Ooo maybe! Reading about it in my book, I think that's what I saw. I learned about a new bird today. I also think that might be the drumming we hear in the evening, because the book says they are territorial and drum loudly. I also saw an Indigo Bunting today! I have caught sight of some beautiful blue birds flying in front of my car on occasion, and today I saw one through my binoculars, and got a much better look at it. I'm much more sure that it is an Indigo Bunting that I have been seeing.

Dear Bird Academy, I am writing to comment on the activities I have participated so far.I thought that participating in these lessons were really helpful!it helped me a lot and I got to capture the beautiful birds in the trees around me. I would like to thank you as well. I was actually loved  birds since I was young and I longed to get the opportunity to watch a bird in the wild flying in the wild up close. I only knew that using binoculars to watch birds was the only way to have a closer look at it after participating in your course. I also felt that attending your lessons and activities improved my bird-watching skills. After reading the bird academy provided notes, I thought that the notes were dam helpful! I really want to thank the bird academy staff for all the efforts they have put in to help me in bird watching. I look forward to seeing your reply. Yours Faithfully, Jerry Lee ( a participant of bird academy)😀

Activity #4. My favorite bird today is the Eastern Bluebird because I could ID it!  I used color-- predominantly blue body, red breast, some white-- and size (robin-sized) mostly, plus being here in Virginia. The bird was alone, not social, and flitted between a tree and our car. I also used the Merlin app to confirm, which it did. I like the process of checking multiple sources while I am still at this early stage of learning.

Activity #1:  So for this activity, I saw a Pileated Woodpecker and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker.  One of first things I noticed was the size of the birds.  The Pileated Woodpecker is much larger, about the size of a Crow.  The Red-Bellied Woodpecker is more medium sized, about the size of a Blue Jay.  The head of a Pileated Woodpecker has a red crown with very long beak.  The Red-Bellied Woodpecker has a much rounded normal bird head with a shorter beak.  The Red-Bellied Woodpecker has black and white stripes on its wings and back where as the Pileated is mostly black when its not in flight.  Even though both of these birds are from the Woodpecker family.  They are easily able to be identified from each other due to their many differences to each other.  Please enjoy the pictures that I took of these two beautiful birds!

we love the live bird cam at feeder, and used Merlin to ID grackles. We also knew the red-winged blackbird and a female cardinal.  We plan on using the live bard cam in the future to get more experience identifying birds we aren't familiar with.

Hi everyone. For activity 4 I have chosen a male golden whistler. He is a small bird. Short body and medium length tail. Small beak which curves slightly downwards to a point. Mostly yellow, but with black head and nape, and olive green wings. It has a white throat or bib, and black chest band. Legs, beak, and eyes are black. Seen in Australian bushland perched on a horizontal gum tree branch, singing his distinctive and loud song.

1. This evening we walked to the reservoir and saw a pair of horned grebes, and a pair of buffleheads.  They are both small duck-like water birds, but have very different shapes. The buffleheads looked rounded and compact, and the male has a large, bright white patch on the back of his head.  The female has a little white patch on her cheek, and is mostly grey and black. The male and female grebes have the same coloring, with a long thin neck, longer narrow beak and a bright yellow/orange tuft from their eye to the back of their head.  They look very striking, but they're not round and chunky looking as the buffleheads. 2. Red: The male sapsuckers have bright red on the top of their heads and on their throats. The male red winged blackbirds have a bright red patch on each shoulder/wing.  The red breasted nuthatch has reddish orange on his chest. 3. Food finding: The northern harriers spends a lot of time flying, gliding low above the fields and trees, looking for something to eat.  The white throated sparrows in my yard spend lots of time searching for food on the ground.  They hop twice then peck into the grass, or into my flower beds.  It just stopped raining today, and the robins are hopping through the wet grass looking for food.  They don't seem to both with little insects; i think they are eating the worms that came up to the surface because of all the rain. 4. The northern harrier is a medium size raptor, smaller than a red tailed hawk, but way bigger than a kestrel.  It has a white rump patch, and flies low to the ground, gliding with its wings held high in an elegant v shape, rather than holding them parallel with the ground. It frequents the farmland and small lakes, but is less commonly seen in the conifer forest areas.  I listened to its recorded call on the Merlin app, but i have never heard them make a sound when they fly by...

activity 1:  crows and ravens are common here in Santa Fe.  Now, when I see one soaring I know it's a raven!  If it's flapping away I assume it's a crow.  The tail shape (rounded for crow and wedged for raven) is more difficult for me to discern.  On the ground, the size difference, and the raven's shaggy throat makes identifying easier.

My feeders and larger garden are on the east side so in the morning I am looking into the rising sun.  Early morning and overcast days it's bright and difficult to see colors so I am working on learning birds from their silhouettes - a challenge with the finches.  The Downy woodpecker and Norther Flicker are easy because the Flicker is huge compared to the Downy and I've learned to gauge that in relationship to the suet feeder and seed cylinder.  I used to have both Downey and Hairy woodpeckers in eastern Washington and finally learned to gauge the beak length in relation to the head. One of my favorite birds is the the chickadee: I have Blacked capped and Chesnut backed here. They are larger and rounder through the breast than the humming birds and smaller than sparrows and tend to dart about from branch to feeder and back to branch or bush.  Both types have black caps on their heads and white cheeks that spread in a V from beak to back on their cheeks.  The Chestnut backed look like they are wearing a rust colored vest and the Blacked capped are grey brown or buffy yellowish underneath.  I had noticed that a few of mine had a cheek with a curve between white and black along the upper side of their head as opposed to a straight V line and I've learned that those are like the eastern version which also includes the yellowish undersides, so we have a mix of eastern and western types  here  now - a fact I learned doing this lesson.

This gobbler and hens are relatively common in some areas of St. Louis County Missouri. He works so hard to get the attention of the hens and they seem to simply ignore him.

Baltimore Oriole that we were able to enjoy for about 3 days until he left. South St. Louis, Mo.

I saw a Baltimore oriole and a wild turkey

Today in my yard I had to Morning Doves a male and a female, but I wasn't sure what they were looking for let me know if anyone has any ideas.

Activity 1: The Steller's Jay and California Scrub Jays which are so prevalent in our area, while (sort of) having similar colors, are easy to differentiate by shape due to the Steller's pompadour-like crown. Activity 2: The Varied Thrush, and Black-headed Grosbeak are easily confused for me due to the similar colors; and throw in the American Robin, especially when they all are moving, and things get messy:-) I find that the patterns (like the Varied Thrush's necklace) can really help distinguish birds with similar colors and size and shape. Activity 3: The Scrub Jay and Northern Flickers were both foraging on the ground in a nearby meadow today, but it seems the Flicker was looking for food, while the Jay may have been looking for nesting material. And the Acorn Woodpeckers seem to be ...well looking for acorns.:-) Activity 4: One of my favorites is the Acorn Woodpecker with [1] their clown-ish call (hee haw, hee haw), [2] their red cap, [3] their always seeming to move in groups and [4] the flash of white on their wings when they are in flight.

ACTIVITY 3: 1. We watched 2 crows picking up popcorn spilled near a picnic bench. They tried to fill their beak with as many pieces as possible. It was funny to see them dropping almost as many pieces as they picked up. We just thought they were being greedy. Later, we noticed one of the crows fly into a nest. Then we watched the crow feed its babies several times as it flew back and forth with more food. 2. We watched a brown creeper hopping up tree trunks in search of insects, then flying quickly down to start over again. 3. We watched a hairy woodpecker eating from out suet feeder.

Activity 4: Pick your favorite bird, and see if you can describe it using at least three of the bird ID strategies (size and shape, color pattern and markings, behavior, habitat and range, and sounds). Share your description in the discussion. One of my favorite birds is one I see 3-4 times a year-The Pileated Woodpecker. He is not quite as big as a crow [which we have lots of] but I look to see if it's "Woody" every time a big shadow goes over.  He has a crest--crows don't. He [and she] come for one thing--a felled conifer that we left for a nurse log.  They settle in and begin to drill, and the pieces of wood start flying, and the bugs start disappearing.  They walk up the tree to peck, or stand on the ground, as you can see. They often come together as a pair, something I really like.  Stellars Jays do too. When they call you can hear them throughout the neighborhood.  They are shy but I got some pictures of them.

Activity #2: Small Sparrows I chose to focus on differences in color between three small sparrows that I see frequently.

• Lincoln Sparrow
  • Color: Brown and Grey
  • Markings: Black eyestripe, brown crown stripe, black dots/stripes on body
• Savannah Sparrow
  • Color: Brown, White, and Yellow
  • Markings: Black eyestripe, yellow eyebrows (?), white/yellow eye ring, brown dots/stripes on body
• Song Sparrow
  • Color: Brown, White, and Grey
  • Markings: Light brown crown stripe, "softer" patterns on body

These ones are really hard for me to distinguish between. The Savannah Sparrow's yellow makes it the most "distinct" out of the three, so I would probably need to pay attention to behavior and foraging patterns/songs to tell the difference between a Lincoln Sparrow and a Song Sparrow.

Activity 4 Using the bird ID strategies from this lesson and the Merlin app, I was able to identify two different species that I had previously thought were the same bird. Hutton's Vireo and the Orange-Crowned Warbler are both small, olive green, insect-eating birds, but have distinct differences in markings. The white wing bars and eye rings of the Hutton's Vireo now stand out to me as distinguishing markings.

During a dog walk, I noted a couple of neat-looking little brown sparrow-type birds pecking at the ground.  Their markings were nicely defined, and they had a reddish/brown cap, a black line through the eye and white bit above.  When I got back home, I consulted my bird book.  There were several sparrows with reddish caps, but the well-defined eye markings suggested that this was a breeding chipping sparrow.  Distribution charts helped as well.  A couple of the other red-capped candidates weren't common to this area. We do have more exotic and colorful birds here in Atlanta--cardinals, towhees, bluebirds, blue jays, and many others.  But "little brown birds" always pose an interesting i-d challenge.

#1 Where we live, this time of year we can easily identify Piliated Woodpeckers from all other birds due to it's shape. And we also have sandhill cranes that nest on our property that are very distinctive to anything else here. #2 At our feeder we get dark-eyed juncos, black-capped chickadees, and white-crowed sparrows that each have black, white and brown parts, but their colour patterns are very different from one another, which aids in identification. #3 The Ravens fly over our farm and scan the ground for anything to eat. Again the piliated woodpecker we saw ripping an old tree apart looking for food. The tree swallows are very active, flying overhead searching and eating insects in the air. And our pair of mallards on the pond peacefully bob up and down for food. #4 Not our favourite bird, but, we recently had a huge wind storm that must have pushed north some Bullock's Orioles. We had one at our feeder by the house and it confused us because it looked like a western tanager, which we get here, but the colour patterns were not quite the same. And the body share was definitely different. We didn't have Merlin yet, but the maps in our Sibley guide showed that the Bullock's came close to our location. So I asked a bird expert friend of mine, and even though it is rare for the bird to be here, it likely was. And since then, there have been other sightings, so our ID was confirmed.

Activity #3 Robins searching for worms Osprey hunting fish in the lake near us Song sparrow scratching for something in the shrubs (bugs?)

The warblers are definitely going through here in southern Maine!  Today I saw a female yellow warbler (tentative id by size and color, then positive when she sang).  I id’d the song sparrow first by by its song (three first notes, then the rest).  Goldfinch flock both by coloring and the behavior in flight (up and down, up and down trajectory).  A week ago I saw this guy in a stand of brushy trees, which I think is a northern parula because, although in shadows, I had time to study him and am pretty positive I saw a greenish patch on his upper back, and a dark band across his throat/chest.  Apologies for the bad quality of the pix - I only had my phone zoomed in as much as possible, then cropped out all the brushy stuff....

Activity 2 I saw a rose breasted grosbeak, a northern cardinal, and a house finch that all have red on them. The grosbeak’s rosy red bib on the breast was easy to spot.The rest of the bird was black and white.His head was all black, his back was black and wings had white wing bars. His lower chest was white with the red bib prominent under his chin.  The female northern cardinal had a bright red beak, red on the wings and crest and rosy red breast area.  Finally the house finch has a red cap on his head, red breast and brown back with brown streaks on his flanks.  at first I wasn’t sure if he was a purple finch or a house finch, but on looking up those two in Sibleys, I could tell that my bird was a house finch.

My favorite recent bird I have seen a couple of times while riding my bike out near marshes, and is the American Avocet.  I like this bird because of its long beak that I see it poking in the mud, presumably for food, and its distinguishable coloring.  This bird has a redish brown head with a white body and large black stripes on the wings.  It also has light blue legs.  It's a medium sized bird roughly the size of a crow and is often seen surveying the mud near shorelines.

Activity 4:  Not necessarily my favorite bird but I spotted a pair of birds three days ago.  Had no idea what they were. Using the ID methods taught in this course I found out they were Eastern Kingbirds.  They landed on a Hydrangea Bush just outside my kitchen.  So I decided they were about the size of a Robin.  They both had the same markings.  It did not seem like there was a different between a male and a female.  They were a dark grey color with some white markings.  They had a white belly and it went all the way up under the chin.  They had a very black cap.  The best giveaway was the white tips of feathers on the very end of the tails. I did not hear them so could not ID with a song or call.   It was for me a great spot.