Kristen

I chose to complete Activity #3. We live in Central NY and have several frequent fliers to our feeders at this time of year.  The three birds that I have identified searching for food are a dark eyed junco, a red-tailed hawk and a red-bellied woodpecker. The juncos in our yard either sit on a perch on our feeder to eat seeds or they spend time under the feeder picking up any seeds that spilled into the snow. They have a behavior of hopping forward and back to move the snow and uncover any seeds that fell. They almost dig a little indent for themselves where they snuggle in and shield themselves from the wind and snow. The red-tailed hawk that lives in our area was perched in a barren tree yesterday for over 2 hours watching for prey to happen by. He could look over a snow-covered field from his vantage point as well as watch over our open back yard. We have yet to see him catch anything but we have found, on 2 separate occasions, an area of snow covered with feathers and blood where he had a meal. We could make out feather marks in the snow. The third feathered friend we've seen today is a robust male red-bellied woodpecker. He has striking black and white bars down his back and a brilliant red on the back of his head. He enjoys hanging from the suet and will frequent the feeder with a seed mix as well.  

We moved in late August from a very busy neighborhood to a quiet country road. We have many of the same bird species we used to enjoy at our previous house. One of my favorites is the red-bellied woodpecker seen on our feeder. One the ground is a dark-eyed junco. We enjoy seeing these 2 feathered friends every day. It's interesting to note that we no longer see cardinals in our yard. Our old house is less than 10 miles away but our yard is much more open with fewer trees and shrubs. I'm wondering if that is why...