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.