missing my "friends" today

[nltaff]

We have birds, and lots of them. Some of them are amazing, from the swallows, to the orioles, to the pileateds (who weakened a 60 ft spruce this year and led to its literal downfall), to the yellow-bellied sap-sucker who is slowly killing my once-beautiful white birch tree. I love listening to the owls at night, trying to identify them. I've seen one, and only one, bald eagle since we moved here in 2001. We even had a pair of American Grebe in our tall spruce and the gangly, fat fledglings walked out the branches to peek down at us one summer (there's a creek across the road). We also have raptors. We photographed and watched some young robins hatch in the birch tree, only to have a commotion one day-a kestrel or cooper's hawk had been watching as well. Timing is everything and I actually saw the bird swoop in from the south and attack the nest. Unfortunately, I was watching from a window and by the time I got through the house, and out the door, the bird was gone.

We always see red-tail hawks. They occasionally call out with their high pitched, prolonged "screech". My husband named them, "Screech"! Over the years, I'm sure they've been different birds, but we just call them "Screech"! (as opposed to the turkey vultures). This year was a bit different! We always saw a pair of them this spring, and then there were three! along with a LOT of racket!!!! Since late-June or so, we couldn't be outside our door without hearing an incessant "fweet, fwweet, fuhdweet" coming from some tree line south, east, or north of our property (any houses around us are west, and why DON'T those parents come back and feed that noisy baby). One day, around mid-July, the sound was coming from above and we looked up and saw the little hawk screaming like crazy, and somewhere nearby, a silent, larger hawk was alternately hovering or circling. Eventually (in the last week or so), the "fweeting" became louder, and more constant, coming from the sky or across the street (open field and stream). We'd scan the sky and see the small one checking out it's flying abilities. Amazingly, we watched it soar across our east yard and climb really high and just hover (was that in the lesson plan?). Occasionally, one of the adults would call that long haunting screech, but not very often. We wondered when it would catch its first mouse or whatever. It has been a constant since mid July. Even yesterday, as I was watering near the barn, I looked up and told the youngster it wouldn't catch its dinner with all that racket! Maybe it listened to me, or maybe it was just time, but today our woods and fields are conspicuously silent. I hope baby Screech has a full stomach and is happy. Today, my chores and watering were missing something. It just seemed so VERY QUIET!!! I miss them, and I hope they'll be back.

[applestar]

Aw how COOL is that? I would miss the Baby Screech too. That sounds like a wonderful experience.

I don't see Hawks often, but sometimes, they fly by or over and every bird goes silent.

Today though, I heard the hawk first, and then instead of going silent, there were massive bird calls -- squawks that I'm pretty sure are Blue Jays. It seems the resident bluejays took up sentinel duty. The hawk flew low -- white underside, but I don't know how to ID them -- making thin high pitched calls and flew on, jeered along by the squawks. I sometimes see the grackles attacking Hawks to get them to fly on, too.

Hopefully, Baby Screech will not be abused by those bullies!

[imafan26]

You have such a plethora of wild birds. I saw crows once when I was in San Diego and a cayote on top of a ridge. We don't have those kinds of birds here. We do have migratory golden plovers that come from Alaska and a lot of birds that were brought in as pets and now have become pests like the bulbul and cardinals. We do have white eye ( mejiro), Cattle egrets (imported by the plantation), and a lot of society finches (released pets). Spotted neck and mourning doves. We even have some imported pheasants and some cockatoo's (released pets) that survive in colonies. There are brown sparrows. There are native honeycreepers but they are very rarely seen and the native alala (crow) is an endangered species being reared in captivity on Maui. There are native owls here. The Hawaiian owl is called Pueo. Most of the native birds are endangered from loss of habitat, competition from non-native birds, and predation from alien imports (the infamous mongoose) and feral cats.

[nltaff]

Applestar, that's called "mobbing" bunches of birds get together and fly at a predator bird to chase it away. imafan, we do have many many interesting birds in the NE. And most of them are colorful. I have this big huge bird book and whenever I see or hear one, I try to find out what it is. The hawks love to hang around and wait for us to mow. They can be so high up and spot the least movement of grass. In the winter, you come across a depression in the snow and telltale tracks of a small animal. Around the depression, you can see the sweep of feather marks where the hawk swept in and grabbed the animal. When we were building our deck one year, we had all the tools out and the chop saw on the tailgate of the truck. Paying no attention to the sky, we heard a hawk above screech loudly, not once, but three times in a row (that's unusual-they usually only sound off once). We looked down the valley and the blackest sky was headed toward us. We got everything under cover quickly and a pretty wild storm blew through. Later, the next day, we found out that the storm created a tornado in a town about 25-30 miles NW of us. Guess the hawks wanted to warn everyone. I'm most intrigued by the owls we have here-so many different ones. We hear them in the woods at night.

[fairygardengirl]

I mostly just have Chickadees and 2 Robins in my backyard, though some one I know practically goes through a bag of birdseed a week, and blue jays will sit and squawk at you if any of the feeders are empty! I think I would have more birds if I hung up a bird feeder, but there have been sightings of black bears in backyards on my road, always with birdseed.