Joy of Birdwatching

Activity #1- some of my most favorite birds are ones I have been fortunate enough to see but they are not native to my home (North Carolina, USA). I have seen the Atlantic Puffin (Alcidae fam.) off the coast of Maine.  Hundreds of birds were nesting on a rocky cliff and they dove into the water over and over again to catch fish for their young. I think they look adorable and are so unique. Another is the Blue-Footed Booby (Sulidae fam.) in the Galápagos Islands. Their brightly colored feet and legs are quite humorous. They appeared to be more like a cartoon than a real bird. Within my home state, my favorite bird is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. We have a handful that come each year to feed in our yard (Apr-Oct).  These tiny birds are so amazing and beautiful. In Mexico I once saw a mother hummingbird feeding its young in a tiny nest in a bush. I still can’t believe I happened upon that wonder!  Not sure of the exact species.

Hi!  I am very new to bird watching.  As a result of the pandemic, I found myself living full time at my farm, north of Toronto.  In the spring of 2020 we discovered a nest of ravens inside our barn way up at the peak.  After some research we learned a bit about them, and what they like and my daughter build a house for them and eventually it was attached to the outside of our barn in hopes they would return in 2021.  Well they did come back and had 3 adorable babies.  I watched them grow, spoke to them everyday and waited for them to drop from the nest.  It takes about 10 days before they learn to fly!  They are so smart and funny to watch.  They no longer use the house but visit every day…my fingers are crossed they nest again this spring!

I have lots of songbirds including house and gold finches, white crowned sparrows, bluejays and cardinals at my feeders.   In addition there are woodpeckers, red bellied and downy and an occasional piliated.  We also have Canadian geese still around, red tailed hawks and Great Horned Owls in the area.

I found this little guy interesting. Its a black oyster catcher, not actually my favourite but an interesting shore bird. They were travelling in pairs with very striking/bright beaks and eyes. I found this guy on a beach in Vancouver Island. My favourite bird in the area would have to be the Great Blue Heron - they are just so large and majestic.

As someone who recently joined the exciting world of bird watching, I find myself enamored with even the most common songbird.  Whenever I leave the house now (or look out my window!), it feels like an adventure and a scavenger hunt.  I really believe in the sentiment that birdwatching changes your entire perspective on nature and the world around you. Since I have the pictures to accompany, I'll answer activity 2 and share about a few birds I saw in Arizona last month.  I've lived in the Northeast the past 10 years, but I grew up in the Mojave desert in Nevada, and love how resilient the wildlife is in the desert, so I thoroughly enjoyed searching for birds in Phoenix. While hiking around Papago Park, I came across a lake that was filled with a variety of birds including American Coots (waterfowl), Great-tailed Grackles (songbird, blackbird), a Great Egret (wading bird), and my personal favorite, a Neotropic Cormorant (seabird). I only have a phone to take photos with so please forgive the lack of quality! Above - Great-tailed Grackle Above - Great Egret, Neotropic Cormorant, Canada Geese Above - American Coot

01/16/2022 - I live in northeast Texas. #1 - Explore the Wall of Birds. I am always intrigued by the very large flightless birds that look like they should be clumsy, but are not.  Common Ostrich, Greater Rhea, and Southern Cassowary. The Superior Lyrebird was interesting with his fascinating long tail used for mating song and dance. #2 - Find birds from 3 different groups. I have participated in Project FeederWatch for 20 some years since our sons were homeschooling. I am counting birds now from November through May and I highly recommend your involvement. I only see birds from 2 of the groups - Songbirds like juncos, sparrows, cardinals, chickadees, etc.  Pigeons and Doves like the mourning dove and white winged dove. The doves will actually sit in my open tray feeder and are so big and heavy, that the feeder tilts.  Only one dove sits in it at a time and it is very humorous to see. #3 - Favorite bird in yard.  In mid December, I saw a Bewick's Wren. It is a small to medium sized brown bird with a long tail that is usually held up. Long slightly curved bill, white eyeline/eyebrow, dark stripes on tail. It is a very curious bird and bobs it head around looking everywhere. When I saw it, it was investigating a pile of wood that I keep for our stone firepit. It went in, so I do not know if it was looking for a place to make a nest or not. It would be the wrong time of year for nesting.

I love the blue birds. Especially when they scope out our birdhouse like they are at an open house tour. Credit this picture to Mary Prochnow, my neighbor.

Activity 3:  I think my favorite neighborhood bird may be the nuthatch.  I see them going up and down trees in my yard.  Better yet, someone a few blocks away has a feeder next to the sidewalk that they frequent.  When I go for a walk I can stand on the sidewalk a short distance away and watch them take a seed, wedge it between the ridges on the bark of the tree that supports the feeder, and crack it open.  After I observed this behavior it dawned on me that that's how they got their name.

Lately I've welcomed goldfinches to my feeders! I've also had a lot of dark eyed juncos (slate) and mourning doves and have been lucky enough to have some downy woodpeckers and nuthatches (mostly red breasted but did see one white breasted the other day!). The juncos are one of my favourites, I love how they hop/shuffle to uncover seeds buried under the snow.

We were on a driving trip this past August in southern Manitoba, Canada. We rounded a curve on a quiet secondary road and there in front of us, on a large lake was a flock of white Pelicans, about 20 in all. They were swimming around actively, fishing, accompanied by about 15-20 black cormorants. Before this, we had only ever seen grey pelicans, only in Mexico, and assumed their habitat did not include Canada. I read on the Wall of Birds, that they like to congregate on interior lakes in southern Canada, in the summer breeding season. This lake was aptly called Pelican Lake, not far from Baldur, Manitoba.

On the wall of birds, I was intrigued by the Montezuma Oropendola, a bird I'd never heard of before and whose call was unique. In my backyard in Northern California I've most recently seen dark-eyed juncos, California Towhees, Anna's hummingbirds, and crows that love the redwoods behind the house. My favorite backyard bird is the Oak Titmouse, a little grey songbird that has really interesting behaviors and family structures. I couldn't get a picture of him, but he is small and light grey with a short sharp beak and a fun triangular tuft on the top of his head.

Activity 1: My favourite birds were the crested satinbird and great tinamou due to their uniqueness and unexpected shapes. Activity 2: I see songbirds such as robins, wrens and crows extremely often, and I love feeding water birds like mallards, canada geese, greylag geese and the occasional mandarin duck in my local park. Most people I know have seen woodpeckers in the area, and I know that the great spotted, lesser spotted and green can all be found nearby, but sadly my only sighting has been one green woodpecker from a distance. Activity 3: I would say that my favourite bird in my neighbourhood is the european robin. They visit my garden all the time and I recently set up a nest box for them. I love how cute and round they look and how fearless and inquisitive they are. 

Activity 1: my favorite bird from the bird wall was the toco toucan. Activity 2: I have mostly black- capped chickadees and tufted titmice for the songbirds. I have Downy woodpeckers and hairy woodpeckers in the woodpecker family, and I commonly see red tailed hawks.  Activity 3: My favorite birds to watch on my window feeders are Eastern Bluebirds. I had been trying to attract them, and now they are there every day.

Activity 1: My favorites birds were 1) Kakapo, 2) Long-tailed Manakin and 3) the Common Loon   Activity 2: We have a pretty active birdfeeder outside of our kitchen window. We regularly see the regular array of upstate NY songbirds (Black-capped Chickadees, Northern Cardinals, Juncos, Tufted Titmice (Titmouses?), lots of woodpeckers (Downy, Yellow-bellied Woodpeckers, even a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers in the summer). There is a Grouse that lives in our woods. I've never seen him, but we can hear him "thump" when we walk through.   Activity 3: My favorite birds are Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. They come around in the summer and fall in group and this past year I saw their close relative the Evening Grosbeak for the first time!

I'm just learning to attract a variety of species to my yard, and was lucky enough to catch this little Nuthatch stopping by for a drink.  It's cold here in Michigan as well, and the heated water is irresistible to them.  It's amazing to me how they will share the birdbath with many other birds, without being frightened away. I'm anxious to learn more about these amazing little creatures!

It's pretty cold here in Boston.  I suspect the most fruitful use of my time will have to wait until I install the bird feeder that I gave myself for Christmas.  :-). More later.

Activity 1: Great Blue Heron - Carolina Wren - Prothonotary Warbler Activity 2: Red-tailed Hawk - Rosette Spoonbill - Northern Cardinal Activity 3: Black and White Warbler. These are so fun to watch!

Activity #1.  I hiked around a local lake that has an eagle's nest in which both were perched on the nest.  The female, which is about 25% larger spread her wings and both made distinct calls. This nest was about four wide by three feet and eagles continually build on to their nests adding one to two feet each year.

I've been lucky lately with raptor sightings. I think the pic above is a red-shouldered hawk seen at a local college campus. It was lightly raining at the time and the bird was surprisingly bold, sitting on the lawn and gracefully swooping into a tree and then to a lamppost. Such beautiful color and form! I also got lucky with a bald-eagle sighting this week!

Activity 1: The sunbittern is my favorite bird of the ones I explored on the wall of birds. Activity 2: I went to a state park yesterday and observed 1) Songbird: A tufted titmouse (songbird). Also present and easily spotted were numerous northern cardinals, yellow rumped warblers, ruby crowned kinglets and blue gray gnatcatchers. 2) Waterbirds: Cormorants: An Anhinga perched quite close to the walking trail and not very concerned with the people passing close by. This is the closest I have ever been to one of these magneficent birds. Picture attached.  Several migratory ducks were present and attached is a picture that has Ring necked ducks (one male and two female) and a lesser scaup(male). The duck and scaup males look quite similar at first glance. 3) Raptors: It was a good day for raptors, as I approached the gate in my car, I observed an Osprey carrying a fish and flying alongside the road presumably looking for a suitable perch. Turkey vultures are common occurrence in this park but yesterday there were several hundred vultures soaring. A white tailed hawk was also seen soaring. Activity 3: Of the song birds in my neighborhood, I absolutely love the scarlet tanagers. These are temporary visitors arriving in spring briefly when the mulberry tree in the backyard is full of ripe berries. I was able to photograph some this year. One of the pictures is attached.

I just did activity 2 - took my dog on a walk to the dog park and kept my eyes peeled for different birds. I think I saw a dark eyed junco from the sparrow grouping, and I am also pretty sure that I saw a downy woodpecker from the woodpecker grouping. Lastly I saw some crows - I saw that they are under song birds, but I am not sure what the subgrouping would be! Are they in the "other" category? I know they are corvids, but I am not sure if that is one of these sub categories - I also wonder if a raven would be considered a song bird as well.

Not a great shot, but was thrilled to see this female Pileated Woodpecker last week when I met my friend in a city park. I always enjoy seeing these in this park and in the river valley of Edmonton. The female has a red top but starts further back from the bill. They have a grey line coming from the mouth whereas the male has a red line.

I enjoy the high-pitched sounds of a Nuthatch, described as "a toy horn." I took this image through the window at a friend's when I was doing a bird count. I had one land in my hand once, SO light. It was following the example of fellow Black-capped Chickadees, used to being fed by people.