I sat and watched the birds at my feeders this morning. We see dark eyed juncos, chestnut-backed chickadees, bushtits, Anna's hummingbirds, red-breasted nuthatch. Sadly, we recently found a deceased varied thrush in the yard. We do not know how it died. A very beautiful bird and a shame to find it this way. We also have wrens, but struggled to identify which type. We used Merlin to help identify from the sound function. It sounds like it's a Bewick's wren.

Good Morning! I have been interested in wild birds since I was a little girl and my grandmother let me put peanuts on the windowsill of her Queens, NY home to feed the birds.  Cardinals, Blue Jays and Northern Flickers were among the popular birds that arrived.  My grandmother would put out sunflower seeds in the early morning and dusk just for her favorite birds, Mrs. and Mrs. Cardinal.  I was mesmerized by the birds' beauty and how they came to the windowsill like clockwork. As an adult, I have noticed many changes of the birds who visit my backyard.  I have an acre of mostly wooded property on Long Island, NY.  For the past year I have had a flock of Cardinals who come to the feeders.  I have not experienced this before.  Usually, I had one "couple" and sometimes I witnessed "air fights" between Cardinals.  Lately, I have 4-6 males that come in with 4-6 females at the same time.  Is this common? Recently, I noticed that when I put shelled peanuts out for the wild birds in my backyard that the Blue Jays have mimicked the sound of a red tailed hawk.  It is a shorter sound than the hawks, but it seems to scare the smaller birds away.  This is the first year that I ever noticed Blue Jays making this type of sound.  Is this common? Thank you for your help!  Have a great day!

I am very lucky to have an abundance of birds in my backyard and around town in Ann Arbor Michigan.  One of my favorite, beautiful birds that has been very abundant for the past couple of weeks (since the beginning of April) has been the Northern Flicker.  Such gorgeous markings - they seem to be enjoying a smorgasbord of bugs in my lawn.  We also have quite a few raptors that visit often.  I spotted a sharp shinned hawk on the tree outside my office window the other day, but my viewing was cut short when s/he was chased away by a crow.  Lastly, a local park has a nest of Great Horned Owls.  They have the area roped off, so as not to disturb the birds - but we got a great view of the fluffy babies with our binoculars.

I spent some time in my yard. I observed a Black-Capped Chickadee, a Spotted Towhee, what I think is a Song Sparrow, and some kind of Hummingbird. I heard a Chickadee call. I wrote down notes to take back to my computer for identification, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of identifying a few of my local birds. It's lovely to spend even a little bit of time outdoors right now.