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Saw a pair of breeding American Goldfinches this morning at the feeder! So cute!
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Hi, I'm a new birder. I've always loved being outdoors and exploring nature, but I only started observing birds on my walks very recently, and I'm really enjoying it. Activity 2: on my walks recently, I've come across Great Blue Herons from the wading birds category, Song Sparrows from the songbirds category, and Ring-Billed Gulls from the seabirds category. Activity 3: so far, I think my favorite bird from my area is the Cooper's Hawk. I've seen a few of these in recent days. There is an area near my home with large nests in big trees where I frequently see hawks, including this one. Highlight was seeing two Cooper's Hawks mating in a tree! I love coming across them because they are rare to see and so striking in their poise and their grand soars. (My photo isn't very good -- just from a smartphone.)
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Nice! I have never seen Cooper's hawks in flagrante. On my daily walk, it surprises me to see wood thrush -- in town!
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I think your photo is great! Patti
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Thanks for sharing this pic! I took these pictures on 3/27 in Richmond VA but never settled on an identification. Looks the same as your picture.
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Hi I live on the Gold Coast in Australia , this bird is a black necked stork always great to see this bird it stands over 2 meters tall and has a massive bill and looks amazing.
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Beautiful photo! Thank you for sharing it. I think that storks are amazing birds.
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wow! Great photo of a cool bird.
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I love those eyes! Such a neat-looking bird!
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Wow! Thank you for sharing - what a beautiful bird!
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Shazam!
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Great photo!
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What an amazing bird. Australia and New Zealand are on my list of places to visit next year! One gets complacent about the birds we see everyday and I am finding as I read through these posts how diverse some of the birds around the world are. I also realize that the birds in my own backyard are beautiful too. Daily I see Blue Jays, Northern Cardinals, Redwinged blackbirds, Gold Finches, Starlings, Grackles, Robins, Juncos, a number of different sparrows, Cowbirds, Woodpeckers, Coopers Hawks, and lots of Mourning Doves. I have to say the Blue Jays are my favourite.
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Hi! I'm a new birder! Excited for this course! Since I began birdwatching, I've noticed so many more species in my urban neighborhood than I ever expected. It is so fun. Activity 1: I saw a Shoebill online recently, and I'm obsessed. I love huge weirdo birds. I immediately sought it out on the Wall of Birds! Activity 2: Pigeons and Doves group: there are tons of pigeons living very close to my house, and Mourning Doves can frequently be heard. Blackbirds group: Spotted a Grackle party in a tree. Raptors group: Saw my first Cooper's Hawk this week! Activity 3: My favorite neighborhood birds are the pairs of Northern Cardinals that hang out and chase each other around near my building. The females are often described as "plainer" but I love the nuances in their coloration. Theirs is among the first bird songs I ever learned to identify.
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Not a wonderful picture, but this cheerful fellow was admiring himself in the window the other day...
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@Amy I love that photo! He looks like quite a character. :-) I didn't get a picture, but there was a cardinal couple in the backyard the other day who would take turns coming out of our azalea bush and sun themselves. The male would preen himself a bit and fluff up his feathers. They are so much fun to watch.
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Activity 1- I enjoyed exploring the wall of birds. A number of favorites are ones we see at Lake of the Woods, and I so hope we can travel there this summer. Those are Great Blue Heron, Pelicans, Bald Eagles and Loons. I love the loons song at nite. Activity 2 - I am envious of all the birds in some peoples yards. So far I have seen Songbirds - lots of Juncos at our feeder. I am waiting for the American Goldfinch to arrive. Bluejays have been around all winter. I have seen lots of Raptors on drives through the Pembina Valley as their numbers are increasing now, lots of Red Tailed Hawks ( picture attached). Another Raptor I saw that was so beautiful was the American Kestral. We have also seen swimming birds- a number of Mallard pairs on our drives. Activity 3 - one of my favourite birds we saw on a walk this evening in a creek at a local park. They come back every year. Luckily I took my binoculars with me. It was a male and female Wood Duck. Attached is a picture from another year.
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Awesome photos! I love how you captured the movement of the birds and the beauty of their varied colored feathers.
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Wonderful photos and as Donna said, great at capturing their feathers and colors.
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Very nice photos! Thanks for sharing.
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Great pictures. At my grandparents cabin in the summer we fell asleep to the sound of the loons. It find it calming.
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I was so excited the other day to come upon a flock of cedar waxwings. I was really happy I had my binoculars. They don't stay around my area for long, and they're easy to miss. I also saw a Northern Flicker that morning as well. I recently bought a finch feeder and this really nice niger seed/sunflower chip mix. I have about 5 or 6 goldfinches that area eating me out of house and home right now, but I love it! Chickadees and robins are my favourites, though. Where I live they are very common. Robins have such cheery voices. And, the little black capped chickadees come to eat sunflower seeds at my feeder all year long. I am really hoping to get better at identifying the little brown and grey birds in the woods behind my house.
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Observed today at the feeders (Charleston, SC) 1. Red-bellied woodpecker (a very large bird that has a bright red head, but also a light red belly)he likes the suet feeder and is here more often and longer since we added a new suet feeder with a tail prop) 2. Ruby-throated hummingbird has arrived. It’s so tiny and fast that I don’t know if it’s a male or female. 3. Eastern Bluebird: 1 male, 1 female and 3 juveniles. Eating at mealworm feeder.
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I learned some new things from lesson 1. I’m excited to begin my bird learning journey. Now I want to visit those places and see those birds on the wall!
I am currently watching a family of eastern bluebirds voraciously eating mealworms at my feeder. There is something different this year. Three juveniles sit on the nearby perch and scream at the Parents to be fed. The parents bring them mealworms and feed them. Sometimes it’s just two of them (see screen grab of my video) but at one point there were 5 bluebirds all eating, screeching, and sharing. (I’m in Charleston, SC) now I know why the mealworms were disappearing so fast. Teenage bluebirds must eat a lot!
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Greetings from Australia. I've attached a photo of a Grey Fantail taken on a birding walk not too far from my home in Melbourne. For once small bird cooperated and stayed still for a few minutes.
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I imagine you have some incredible birds in Australia. I think I might go look on the wall! Thanks for sharing your photo. Stay safe.
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How charming, you almost wonder what it is thinking.
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My wife and I have recently been enjoying visits from a barred owl. We often see it in the woods behind our house around breakfast time. It may be hunting mice around our compost bin. I got these photos from about 10 m with an extended zoom Nikon 995.
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What a great picture. Thanks for sharing.
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Such beautiful photography, thank you for posting. I am jealous, I rarely see owls.
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Great picture. I rarely see Owls except Snowy ones on telephone poles
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My main birdwatching goal, for now, is to see an owl. I only started birdwatching last week. Those are beautiful pictures and they inspire me.
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It's so beautiful!
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That picture is amazing! I love owls but I rarely see them in my neighborhood.
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Incredibly beautiful photos!
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What a gorgeous picture!
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Awesome pictures and what a great expression on the owl's face in the second one. I also love how you can see the different feather shapes and textures.
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Topic 1. I have a Barn Owl print by Mort Solberg and was curious to learn about the Barn Owl and its song. I also like to see the Blue Heron when I go to the zoo so I was curious to hear the song of the Blue Heron. Topic 3. I have a hummingbird feeder in my backyard. One hummingbird in particular is I think the Allen's hummingbird. It is my favorite! It has an iridescent coat with a pink throat. The body is green in color and is slender compared with the Anna's hummingbird. It brings me such happiness to see all of the different hummingbirds feed from the feeder! It is such a blessing!
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I really enjoyed the first lesson. It was an unseasonably cold day and very windy so there were no birds around all afternoon. However, just now (7pm ) I just saw a bald eagle flying alongside a gull. It was hard to know which was chasing which but fun to see!
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Birds bring me into the moment, forget about covid 19 and help me feel connected to nature. I always enjoy the song of the house finch, meadowlark and catching a glimpse of a goldfinch. Swimming birds are very challenging for me but love seeing wood ducks. The avocet is probably my favorite wading bird- very elegant. Barn owls have faces like cats and I hear them outside my window at night. I had my first spring visit by a hummingbird today!
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I think birding does that for us all.
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We saw a juvenile bald eagle in our yard. He flew in large circles, and then swooped down and caught a large fish from the river. He took a few seconds to secure it, and then flew away. We could hear the flapping of his strong wings. Magnificent (but of course no camera near by!) My favorite birds are the small little birds that brighten my day ... white breasted nuthatches and goldfinches. There are many birds on our property, and I am looking forward to identifying them! Excited about this course.
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Wow! What a treat to experience!
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Laura, where are you located? What a cool experience. We have a few eagles here in Charleston, SC, but I have never seen them other than flying. Usually an experienced birder friend points them out to me! 😀
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Even though it’s one of the most commonly seen birds in my neighborhood, I never get tired of seeing a Northern Cardinal.
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I agree with you! My Mom gave me this. I have a pair of cardinals (angels) that visit my feeder every day.
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@cindy I am lucky to get quite a few cardinals to my feeder. There's one silly female that climbs right in, she's really too big to do it comfortably. She looks all squished up, and she seems to be the only one that does it. But we are lucky to have so many in the woods behind our yard.
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@cindy My dad always said the female cardinal reminded him of my mom. Mom wore the same color lipstick.
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One can hear them in my neighborhood calling one another quite often. It would seem as if one is on one side of my building and the other on the opposite side. They are sometimes shy and hard to spot, but you can always hear them.
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Northern Cardinal hanging around my back yard.
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- I took a hike today at a local nature center. I think I identified a prothonotary warbler near a bird blind and some swallows flying around a lake. I am working on identifying the type of swallows.
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These Little guys on my front porch! Robins I think!
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Cute!
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We get robins that nest in my fern every year and I never get tired of watching the hatchlings grow up. But they can be noisy!
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- The Golden Crowned Kinglet is my favourite bird in the spring. It is such a small and fast bird to catch in the moment. On this male you can see a touch of yellow on his head about the eye and his red swatch further back on his head.
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Nice photo. Where is this?
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Beautiful photo!
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So cute. I love the little fluffy birds, like the Chickadee and Nuthatch.
- The Golden Crowned Kinglet is my favourite bird in the spring. It is such a small and fast bird to catch in the moment. On this male you can see a touch of yellow on his head about the eye and his red swatch further back on his head.
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- The red tailed hawk is a favorite of mine as he surveys his world from atop a high electrical tower or soars gracefully above the spring grasses growing underneath the towers. One day he surprised me as he looked at me from the tall grass beside the walking path. I was able to get a photo of him with my iPhone.
- The red tailed hawk is a favorite of mine as he surveys his world from atop a high electrical tower or soars gracefully above the spring grasses growing underneath the towers. One day he surprised me as he looked at me from the tall grass beside the walking path. I was able to get a photo of him with my iPhone.
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I was on Maui this past winter (back in the good old days when we were allowed to fly in airplanes and travel the world, before the current pandemic isolated us at home in Michigan). My favorite bird on Maui is the Cattle Egret. Egrets are "wading birds" but I always saw them in the bushes or grass along the ocean shoreline.
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My favorite bird in my neighborhood is the Northern Mockingbird. There are several that come to my porch every day and I love to hear them sing on my chimney. My sister's favorite bird is the Great Blue Heron. They fly over our house almost every day and they look really graceful and elegant.
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I, too, want to mention the mockingbird as my favorite—probably the most common bird around my house, in Southern California. I woke up at about 1:30 this morning and heard a mockingbird singing loudly—a lone voice in the middle of the night.
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We live on a lake and my favorite bird to watch right outside of our house is the Ruddy Ducks. It is a waterfowl. What I think is great about them is how vibrant blue the male's bills are. It's really cool to see that color blue in contrast to their redish/brown body. There are also a pair of Mute swans that live on the lake that are great to look at. The white of their bodies is brilliant and it is interesting to watch such a pretty bird be territorial towards other birds in their bay.
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1. The Lilac-breasted Roller is absolutely beautiful--it blends into the sky's colors! Saw one in Africa this fall. 2. The American Goldfinch, Red Bellied Woodpecker and Tufted Titmouse come to my feeder almost everday and bring so much joy. 3.When the Osprey come back in March, you know spring has arrived and summer is not far off. They can't be missed in the sky with their white head and dark wide wing span. They dive down to catch fish and are successful more than 50% of the time. They carry the fish off in their talons. Remarkable!
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Yes! There is an Osprey pair nesting in my neighborhood with three chicks about to fledge. It is so cool to see them fish for the family! My friend took some great pics this week, maybe she will share some.
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We have enjoyed seeing an Eastern Towhee spend some time in our yard. So he/she would be part of the sparrows. There is a Barred Owl in the park near our house- so he is a raptor. About a week ago we saw a pileated woodpecker which was a first for us and obviously part of the woodpecker group.
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The Pilates Wood Pecker, I have seen them in the woods in Pennsylvania but I didn't realize just how large they are until I spooked one from the back side of an old log I was hiking past on the Appalachian Trail. It really startled me.
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@Bruce Awesome picture of the Pileated woodpecker. It does look huge! It must have been amazing to almost stumble into one. I've seen a few of these in Maryland in the woods and recently just outside my apartment. But I have never been so close to one!
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Hi I live on the Gold Coast in Australia , this bird is a black necked stork always great to see this bird it stands over 2 meters tall and has a massive bill and looks amazing. 
I am currently watching a family of eastern bluebirds voraciously eating mealworms at my feeder. There is something different this year. Three juveniles sit on the nearby perch and scream at the Parents to be fed. The parents bring them mealworms and feed them. Sometimes it’s just two of them (see screen grab of my video) but at one point there were 5 bluebirds all eating, screeching, and sharing. (I’m in Charleston, SC) now I know why the mealworms were disappearing so fast. Teenage bluebirds must eat a lot! 
Even though it’s one of the most commonly seen birds in my neighborhood, I never get tired of seeing a Northern Cardinal. 
I agree with you! My Mom gave me this. I have a pair of cardinals (angels) that visit my feeder every day. 
I was on Maui this past winter (back in the good old days when we were allowed to fly in airplanes and travel the world, before the current pandemic isolated us at home in Michigan). My favorite bird on Maui is the Cattle Egret. Egrets are "wading birds" but I always saw them in the bushes or grass along the ocean shoreline. 
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