Any bird feeders?

eyekatcher wrote:

Anyone submitting any bird counts?

I was going to, but it was a little quiet this morning. A little later I went out and a hawk tried taking out one of our birds. He missed.

Sounds like you live in a dangerous neighborhood.

Tom, which of the woodpeckers does the rapid fire tapping on the trees? We’ve got bunches of woodpeckers, but haven’t heard this one all winter until now. Didn’t see it, but heard it the other day. One of those, “Wait, that’s a new sound this year” moments. That’s what’s fun this time of year-soon, I’ll hear a newly arriving bird every week or two that I’d forgotten about over the winter.
Any thoughts?

Could be a downy or hairy or redhead or red bellied since they all will be noisy at one time or another. Woodies are coming into their pre-mating racket making phase about now. A couple years ago I had a hairy woodpecker that would sit on the edge of aluminum gutters and pound away for hours. Sometimes that fool thing was there right about the time the first edge of light crept over the horizon in the morning. Talk about annoying.

If the rapping is real rapid fire I’d guess either a hairy or downy. Red Headed and Red Bellied woodpeckers will rap but their cadence is more broken and not as fast as the smaller ones. Think of red headed and red bellied as being a semi-automatic rifle and the smaller birds a fully automatic.

Yellow bellied sap suckers will make a lot of noise too and their hammering is fairly rapid.

At my brothers old cabin there used to be a woodpecker that would point the metal vents on the roof at sunrise too.

Good day at the feeder today, first thing this morning I noticed the usual early dawn cardinals weren’t around. There sat a sawhet owl in the lower limbs of the silver maple the feeder hangs in. I doubt that little owl is a threat to the song birds but they don’t like any kind of predator shaped birds. Then later in the morning the Coopers Hawk tried to nail a big red cardinal but missed.
We can’t keep the fat feeder filled for more than an hour unless we put it out after dark and let it freeze over night. Those big pig blue jays grab gobs of deer suet and peanut butter mix and fly off with it.

The sounds of spring have started down here. The sunrise is accompanied by a choir of different species of birds all looking for love. If it doesn’t relax you and get you pumped for the day, nothing will. It’s a nice reward for those of us who feed birds. Don’t worry friends, it’s coming and its worth the wait.

Thanks Tom! Very few red-headed woodpeckers in my area. I see one or three every year but that’s about it. Lots of red bellies, though I’ve had them off and on most of the winter. Yellow bellied sapsucker is a good thought, I only thought of that later. Also, lots and lots of northern flickers here except in mid-winter. Don’t know their pecking cadence, though heard a bird the other day that sounded right. My sub-conscious search for spring signs has me missing my Grandmother, she loved the birds and knew them all by their calls. That and my plant identification; those are the things I want to spend more time getting to know.

My property and surrounding area are covered in typical northwoods timbers-birch, alder, pine, etc. I get birch and alder blow downs and tops blown out every year, people think I’m silly for leaving them standing. I find the birds-especially the woodpeckers of course-love them. Besides, the other critter use the brush so much in the winter. Sheesh, next thing you know I’ll down in the yard hugging my trees.

I like being out in the natural world as much as possible. With the warmer weather right now I am outside frequently even to just look out in the park and watch the stream roll over the dam. We’ve had that music for almost thirty years now and absolutely love hearing the water. The birds, the garden….I even enjoy mowing the lawn.

The gold finches here are getting yellower by the day and the males already have the predominate black patch near the back of the eyes already. Not real bold, but its there now. At (:30 this morning we are at 44 degrees. Never went below freezing last night so things are dripping pretty darned good today. Our snow pack has really dropped from yesterday.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

I like being out in the natural world as much as possible.

Don’t we all! Conversely I cannot stand downtown areas or crowds.

We have a fountain on the patio. I don’t like it. I would have preferred a fountain that made sounds like a flowing stream. The fountain is 1 spout that shoots down about 2′, so it sounds more like filling a barrel using the garden hose.

The one thing I don’t like about our backyard area is just beyond the fence is a main road that gets steady traffic. So that drowns out the natural sounds a little once people start heading off to work.

I live on the 4th busiest street in Rochester. Our front porch is bad for noise, but the yard is terraced and by the time we get to the back side of the original house we have an effective sound barrier that shuts out most of the road noise. When I am in the garden I hear little of what’s happening up front but of course the time of day will have a bearing on noise levels too.

I tolerate crowds for Ma, but for the most part I prefer few people around. I see plenty of people on the bike path that runs thru the park behind us. The stream and dam are within fifty feet of our fence and the bike path runs between the fence and the creek. People are plenty close just passing by. The stream converges with a river about a half block further down stream. There is a dam on the river that I can see from the house with ease. The river has one shore that’s fairly heavily wooded so we get a ton of our birds from there but we also get woodchuck, fox, deer, turkey, eagles and hawks, coyote, coon, mink, beaver…you name it. By far the biggest nuisance animal we have had to deal with is standing on two legs.

Do you have hummingbird feeders in the summer? Sounds like a great area for them.

Feeders for hummers and orioles every year. Oriole feeders go out pretty early, mid-April as a general rule and we generally have birds within a day or two. We noticed Orioles showing up really early if we get a heat wave like we had a couple years back. Hummer feeders go out after things are sure to stay warm, early May. It seems with both birds that if food is here when they arrive they stay with it much longer.

We’ve been gone a couple weeks and this morning I took a little tour to check some water out and saw a ton of Red-Winged Blackbirds. I’d mention the Robins but they’ve been around all winter again with the Mourning Doves.

I got a DSLR camera now. I am going to have to get out and take some photos.

When should I be looking at adding wood chips and
closing the door on my wood duck house?

Now eyecatcher. If these moderate temps hold together we could see woodies early this year.

Thanks, Tom.
It is done.

Saw my first Robin in Cottage Grove and first Red-wing in Woodbury yesterday. The morning bird singing is really picking up!

Cardinals are going at my house this morning.

suzuki wrote:

Cardinals are going at my house this morning.

We must have weather coming. The birds here are all over the feeders and acting real intense. Louisiana and Arkansas are going to get up to 12″ of rain today….I sure hope it stays down there.

Wow, what a difference a week makes! Early last week I was going to remark on the Redpolls and a couple of new woodpeckers but didn’t get to it. Since, it’s birds, birds and more birds…the Evening Grosbeaks, our semi-annual Cardinal, red wing blackbirds, owls, pairs of geese on the creeks, a few buffle-heads on the the river outlet. And of course, robins. We add a new bird almost daily now. The grouse are drumming and the tom turkeys are starting to strut and last years jakes are sporting red that wasn’t there last week, though I expect the weather this coming week will slow that one down.
Ten days ago I was driving on ice to go fishing and, while ice isn’t out yet by any means, it’s certainly sketchy and rotten. Will go out within another few to ten days, cool down or not. Almost makes a guy think Spring!

I was just getting ready for bed the other night when I heard a Great Horned Owl in the yard. I popped the window open and listened to it for a while. I’d seen one several times last summer, but I’d never heard it till now. I hope it eats a few squirrels.

Blue birds are back

big_g wrote:

Blue birds are back

My Dad reported that last week from W Central Illinois…I think he was rubbing it in. Thunderstorms last night, now snowing to beat the band. Ahh, March. She teases us along and then breaks our hearts.

Saw the female duck in the house this AM for the first time.
Not sure how long she has been visiting.

The last two houses we stayed at we’d get ducks because I put corn out. And we were not close to water, but it wasn’t far away. Once they find the feeder they come back every year.

Still getting used to the DSLR. Can anyone ID this one off the top of their head?

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