Barred owls barking at night is awesome. I have only seen redbreasted gross beaks once in my life at rice creek. The other weekend I think I spotted one here. Hard to know for sure because it was a female. I’m in a group for birding and they had seen them down there the week before.
Wife and I decided we will be putting a feeder back up in the front. Hopefully the rats don’t become an issue.
We have a live oak up front and there are always birds in there. Most I assume are insect eaters
Ice….We got a pic from a friend in Two Harbors of a Scarlet Tanager on a feeder yesterday. Larger areas of softwoods will draw them.
I’m surrounded by about 150 acres of mostly poplar trees with my house pretty much right in the middle of them. Hope they stick around this year. We’ve got just about everything under the sun out at the feeders. Sunflower seeds, Fruit & Nut mix, Cardinal blend, thistle seed, Oriole feeder with jelly & oranges, 2 different suet cages, & meal worms out in the back yard. The 2 Hummingbird feeders are in the front yard where we can get a closer look at them from the kitchen.
Ice…..I watch them in the woods while we’re fishing, usually drifting or slowly working shoreline.. They love to grub around the understory in soft wood forest. They may or may not come to feeder after they start the nesting thing. We have a ton of softwood forest here in town along the river behind us and while we walk we’ll see one or two rooting around in either the understory or fairly high up in the canopy. They love bugs. They seem to be skittish with movement around them and if we get close, they’ll be gone.
I’d grab a binoculars and head out in your woods away from the yard and sit down, stay still and watch. The red on them is electric and stands out super well against the green of the woods.
I got our yard and the portion of park land I mow, mowed yesterday afternoon, then Ma and I sat down for a cold beer and to watch our Orioles. A bird flew in but stayed behind part of the Oriole feeder, then hopped around to our side so we could see it and it was a male Indigo Bunting. We’ve seen a couple of them in the wooded area along the river behind us over the years, but this was the first in-yard time for us. Pretty bird. I see some while fishing too but have always thought they were bug eaters and this male sure enjoyed the jelly feeder. He was in the nectar as well, but the jelly just held his attention for maybe five minutes before he took his leave.
Have others seen the Indigos feeding at Oriole feeders? I thought it was strange to see on at ours but then perhaps it was lunching on bugs that get attracted to the sweet stuff.
Tom Sawvell:
We live a little too far west to see Indigo buntings at our feeder. But, we have had a couple Lazuli buntings at the feeder.
How long a period in the spring so you usually have increased Oriole activity? A couple weeks ago we were going through a jar (30-32 oz.) of grape jelly a day, with up to 15 Bullock’s Orioles at the feeder at one time. Starting 3-4 days ago the Bullock’s Orioles seem to have moved on. We only see one Baltimore Oriole at any one time, and he is still around.
We do see Western Tanagers at the jelly feeder, maybe two or three at a time.
Thanks,
Buffalo Fishhead
I’m not Tom, but it could have alot to do with the birds starting to nest and having youngins! I’ve also noticed a bit of a decline in feeder activity.
Right now I know we have four breeding pairs that visit our feeders. We have two jelly feeders and two nectar/orange half feeders. All of these are in a span of about 40 feet of one another and at times we have male Orioles on each one at the same time. I’ve had to spread the feeders out a hair so they don’t argue. It won’t be long and they’ll be bringing their chicks to the yard. That’s when it gets fun. The Baltimore Orioles will stay as long as the chicks are at the feeders. When the chicks are strong enough to stray, they all disappear for the season. 20th of April is when I hang the feeders and we generally will have a bird or two within two days. Last year I hung one feeder and went back to the garage to get the second and there was an Oriole on the first already when I came back out to hang it.
I have one male robin with territorial issues. It chases the Orioles off the feeders when he’s around. We had one two years ago too. It died. This one is headed in that direction. The darned thing will sit right on one of the nectar feeders and when an Oriole gets within ten feet it charges it and chases it off.
We have one Orchard Oriole in the area that stops by once in a while. Last year we had a pair regularly. They’re an interesting bird. Bullocks have not ever been here.
My feeders are about 670 miles west of Minneapolis (measured using Google Earth).
Feeding Orioles is something we have always wanted to do, but we have only observed one or two in our yard until this year when we saw one feeding out of the hummingbird feeder. We placed some grape jelly near the hummingbird feeders and had Orioles come in right away.
We will definitely try it again next year, but we will get the jelly out a little earlier.
Buffalo Fishhead
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