At the bird feeder today the Blue Jay would take a seed and fly away and eat it them come back and get another seed and repeat.  The Mourning Doves were foraging on the ground and the sparrows just hung on the metal change and ate until something startle them and then they all flew away.

Activity #1 I glanced out the window today and saw a different looking bird sitting in a tree next to my feeders. I grabbed my binoculars to take a closer look. I'm so glad I did because it was a quite uncommon White-Crowned Sparrow. I watched him sit there brave as can be and then he began to pick at the tree a bit and move farther down it. Then he flew just a few feet and began foraging on the ground under my sunflower seed feeders. So excited to see an uncommon bird in a city setting. Activity #2 I regularly have House Finches at my safflower feeder and they grab the seed and either feed right at the feeder or sit nearby and eat it and then go in for some more. Unlike the few chickadee and titmouse that show up where they grab a seed and then hide in the nearby tree and bang at the seed between their feet to get parts of it open. Then they will go back and get another seed. The Gold Finches at the thistle feeder sit there for a long time eating away but they have been getting more territorial with each other. Activity #3 Around my house today, I heard House Sparrows, House Finches, Gold Finches, Tufted Titmouse, Cardinal

Activity 3:  Heard simultaneously this morning: crow, dove, wren, sparrow, hawk, warbler, hummingbird Activity 2:  Bewick's wren fiercely defending his territory when a Junco was at the feeder in the garden area adjacent to his nesting box on my patio. Activity 3:  Observed Bewick's wren couple for 30 minutes.  Thought they were incubating eggs--just had paused in nest building.  Today they picked up with nest building activity.  Thought I'd heard pipping of chicks--just the male and female communicating in a different way than when they were singing.  Female went into nesting box first and called to male.  Male arrived later and sat atop nesting box.  The two communicated in short, high pips, chirps, and cheeps.  The male alternated between foraging and gathering nesting materials.  Observed the male problem-solve:  after consistently dropping willow branches that wouldn't fit through the nesting box hole sideways, he put them atop the nesting box and fitted them through the hole one-by-one.  Later observed the male defend his territory from a larger Dark-eyed male Junco at a nearby feeder--shrieking and waggling his tail from side to side and hopping up and down until the Junco flew away.

Activity #1 I have  pileated wood pecker who lives in the woods around my house and get to observe him almost daily. Today he spent some time on the ground close enough for me to have a good view. It looked like he was going through leaves, I assume to find bugs to eat. I love hearing him and watching him fly between the trees. Activity #2 I have a bird feeder near the creek in my back yard. This week, I've seen three indigo buntings, which I think are just passing through. I've noticed they seem to stay on the ground and eat the dropped seeds more often than sitting on the feeder. We have two pairs of nesting cardinals and I've seen the males chase each other away from the feeder. I also have three suet feeders and have quickly realized that almost all the birds (with the exception maybe of the chickadees) prefer the peanut butter suet. Activity #3 We have many woodpeckers in the woods around our house. I've heard the pileated call and recently have heard a red-bellied call and never realized how similar they sound. I'm not sure now if everything I thought was the pileated might have actually been the red-bellied!   This is a downy woodpecker at one of the suet feeders (I think! I'm struggling to figure out which ones are downies and which ones are hairies. I think we have both!)

I also was able to get this image on another camera, a flock of Black Birds found something to eat. The more they called out, the more showed up. I wanted to share due to it shows so many different stages of their flight.

Activity #1: I watched daily, a flock of Blue Jays that hang out. I set up a trail cam near where they nest and over a  winter got some really nice pictures on the cam. It almost seems like one sits high up in the trees while the others were foraging in the snow. (is that a feather from preening in the lower right?) Activity #2: I watched a variety at my home bird feeder this morning. A "flock" of 4+ yellow finches hanging out on a block i put in a hanger. Several brown headed cow birds at the feeder eating.Activity #3: Listening out my door this morning I could hear some Sand Cranes calling (the echo in the woods sounds like we live in Jurassic Park!), I heard the Red Wing Blackbird call and the distinct tap tap tap of a Woodpecker. 

Activity #1: I watched a Hairy Woodpecker hanging upside down to jab at the Cornell Lab feeder that looks like the little rooftop of a house. He was really enjoying jabbing at whatever is in the feeder, and seemed perfectly content to be upside down hanging from the feeder by his feet. Activity #2: There were a few Red-Crowned Woodpeckers (the caption said; I didn't know the name!), and one of them kept feeding fruit to another one standing nearby that was not feeding, just waiting to be fed. The odd thing was that they looked identical, so I don't think it was a male feeding a female, or an adult feeding a fledgling. Would one adult male feed another? I guess it's possible one had less red on the head, so was a female, but I'm not sure. Activity #3: Listening outside my window for five minutes...it's a quiet day. I heard Northern Cardinal singing, and House Sparrows chattering. That's about it.

I’ve been listening to recordings of different birds, on Merlin and on a CD. When out walking today I heard a sound I recognized as a Pileated Woodpecker call, I looked and sure enough there he was. I almost got an even better picture of him on the side of a tree a few seconds later, but a person was walking from the other direction and the bird flew away. 

Activity 1: I watched the Red-Tailed Hawk cam for a little while, and got to see a hawk preening its feathers while sitting on some eggs! What a special view. The hawk used its beak to clean feathers on its belly and sides. We got a nice zoomed in view of two or three eggs in the nest. This hawk is not just preening, but incubating as well! After a while, the hawk stopped preening and went back to sitting still and looking around.   Activity 2: I watched the Cornell Feeder Cam for a bit, and noticed a few different feeding behaviors. A European Starling picks up seeds and cracks them in its beak, eating the insides. A Mourning Dove picks up seeds it can easily eat, and does not break them. Unlike what I read in the lesson, the Blue Jay I saw eating at this feeder selected seeds it could quickly swallow whole. A strange, fluffy bird with four legs and a big tail arrived to eat a snack. It scared all the other birds away. I could not identify this bird in the Merlin app, leading me to think it was a VERY rare sighting! ;)   Activity 3: I listened to birds on the feeder cam. I recognized a blackbird, a chickadee, and a goose. Because this is an east coast camera, there were many other sounds I did not recognize.