Favorite Backyard Garden Birds?

[digitS']

I hadn't realized that they had such a wide territory!

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Downy_Woodpecker/id

That's year round, folks . That Downy has got the "adapt to local conditions" skills down pat!

Steve

[LIcenter]

I hadn't realized that they had such a wide territory!

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Downy_Woodpecker/id

That's year round, folks . That Downy has got the "adapt to local conditions" skills down pat!

Steve

We've had an explosion of Downy's this year. Normally once a week I'll hang out at my local bird feed store to chew the fat for an hour or two. Just about everyone has commented on seeing an unusual abundance of this little cutey. That and Goldfinches.

[tommyr]

Hummingbirds and Cardinals.

[ButterflyLady29]

I had a House Wren family living in a birdhouse in my front yard last year. The male kept fighting and singing with his reflection in my living room window. We had to keep the curtain closed so he would spend time raising his family. There were 2 broods that fledged from that little house. I was able to video record the last day the parents spent feeding their last brood of the year. It was a constant back and forth that day with both parents feeding babies.

[digitS']

. . . we could do with a lesser number of grackles ... Meadowlarks are beginning to show up in the field, and we are eagerly awaiting the Kingbirds. ...]

I have not seen a meadowlark here for years and years! It's probably been well over 10 and maybe closer to 20 years since they were here keeping the killdeer, cows and cowboys entertained.

I could be wrong but I blame the meadowlark's distant cousin, the starling. The first starlings I saw was when I was about 12 or 15, in southern Oregon. We said that they migrated north out of California.

Starlings were here when I migrated north nearly 50 years ago so if they put pressure on the more solitary meadowlark, it began about then. It is probably true that this was the northern part of the meadowlarks' range and they decided showing up to build nests wasn't worth coming here. Disappointing ...

If meadowlarks can live with grackles, count your blessings .

Steve

[tomf]

I like most of them, crows not so much. A short list of some of the cooler birds that come by are; Eagles, Turkey Vultures, Pileated Woodpeckers, Grouse, Quail, Hawks, Owls, and Sapsuckers. We are feeding the birds so every day there are tons of small birds out our windows.

[tomf]

Morning doves make the nices sounds.

[DavidCampbell]

I believe I saw a robin today. It showed up in a walnut tree across the road.

The robin was there about the first of December . For all I know, it's the same bird. Sitting down here at home, the 3 most common places to find me all have a view of that tree. The chairs and 3 windows all line up right.

I could claim that a robin has sat in that tree once every 6 weeks since October. Ha! Might be true. I think that there are very few over-wintering and I've seen them no where else. It is a blue-sky, snow-covered landscape day! Yesterday, overcast, and even without snow or rain that day, the streetlights were still on at 10:15 AM! ... If I had wings ... !

Ah well, the robins will all be back by spring.

Steve

I like magpies but having seen this video I want my own robin https://www.instagram.com/p/BAz_xFBg7CJ/

[digitS']

David, someone else will have to verify that as a Robin of the British Isles!

Holland Park is in London, just past Kensington gardens and Paddington station.

The British have their larks! And, other critters, as well.

Steve

[applestar]

Today's favorite is Titmouse. I heard a rustling, then rapid tapping right outside a FR window and there was a cute beady eyed and nervous titmouse cracking open some seed on the grapevine.

[Taiji]

The talk of meadowlarks reminded me of the Scott's oriole, which also has such a distinctive melodic song that sounds so much like a meadowlark. We have the meadowlarks around this area out on the prairies. I live at a little higher elevation in the foothills and sometimes Scott's orioles pass through. They don't come very often, but when I hear their beautiful song I rush outside to see. They usually perch on the tops of the pinion pines.

[Taiji]

Speaking of titmice, I love to watch them work the birdfeeders! I have seed that has some sunflower seeds in there, and they scoop out seeds by the dozens, til they get to a sunflower seed, then fly off to a high branch and somehow pick at it til they get to the seed inside. They are such an industrious bird, they just work constantly, minding their own business! I often think if we humans were like that we'd be a lot better off!

I don't mind the seeds they discard to the ground since the juncos and jays scoop them up.

[A Happy Seedling]

Today's favorite is Titmouse. I heard a rustling, then rapid tapping right outside a FR window and there was a cute beady eyed and nervous titmouse cracking open some seed on the grapevine.

Lol, I can't get rid of mine! I like them, though. They are regular feeder lovers, and I'm glad they prevent the ravenous juncos from eating everything in my feeder (and if they got hungry enough, the feeder too ). They restrict the juncos to eating the seed on the ground that is discarded by the picky wrens, alongside the squirrels, doves, sometimes cardinals, and sparrows that scavenge the ground for seed.

Our birds are messed up .
White-Breasted Nuthatches are clinging birds, and lately they have been PERCHING on the feeder (before, they just clung to the mesh upside down) and WALKING on the GROUND to eat the discarded seeds. I didn't even know they could do that.
Clinging woodpeckers have been doing the same.
Chickadees are clinging...
And doves are attempting to walk up trees because they saw the Pileated Woodpeckers do it.
Doves are so stupid
I wish I had my camera when they were falling flat on their backs.

[webmaster]

I wish I had my camera when they were falling flat on their backs.

That made me LOL.

[A Happy Seedling]

LOL
The stupid things just kept trying...
It was a sight

[Taiji]

I wish I had my camera when they were falling flat on their backs.

That made me LOL.

Next thing you know they'll be trying to fly or something.

[A Happy Seedling]

Never seen these ones fly...
They're too fat.
Sumo doves?
O.O

[Gary350]

Birds are my best friends they eat all the bugs in my garden. I never spray for bugs. I have 25 bird houses. I like wrens best they sing none stop all day and eat 2 times their body weight in bugs every day. I build special bird houses for my wrens.

[A Happy Seedling]

Birds are my best friends they eat all the bugs in my garden. I never spray for bugs. I have 25 bird houses. I like wrens best they sing none stop all day and eat 2 times their body weight in bugs every day. I build special bird houses for my wrens.

Adorable!

[HoneyBerry]

A male house wren builds a dozen nests in the Spring and then shows off his handy work to the female. The female chooses the nest. Often the female tears apart the nest and then builds a new nest. Persnickity, those little female wrens.

[j3707]

Right now my favorite are the Robins - they just came back for spring! I can hear them all over in the early morning.

[imafan26]

I saw a cattle egret poking around my front yard looking for bugs or maybe a lizard.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Cattle_Egret/id

[catgrass]

I counted about 23 cardinals at my feeders yesterday evening. A few blackbirds and some "tweety birds". The cat was mesmerized!

[A Happy Seedling]

23?! Our cardinals come in pairs. Right now we have 2 pairs of mates living on our property somewhere in the bushes behind our house, and 1 pair that visits sometimes and lives in the woods.

[applestar]

Yep, same here, until they have their babies. -- then it's usually the babies, the male, and the female, too... Though I think it's the male that is more diligent and continue to feed them until fledging. Sometimes, after that, I see the siblings staying together for a while.

They usually have at least two broods, maybe three? during the season and are CONSTANTLY looking for baby food (worms and bugs) in the garden.

[A Happy Seedling]

Yep, same here, until they have their babies. -- then it's usually the babies, the male, and the female, too... Though I think it's the male that is more diligent and continue to feed them until fledging. Sometimes, after that, I see the siblings staying together for a while.

They usually have at least two broods, maybe three? during the season and are CONSTANTLY looking for baby food (worms and bugs) in the garden.

Sounds great! After and during breeding season we tend to still have pairs, male/female or otherwise; the siblings pair up and stick with each other after leaving their parents. I saw a joyful family reunion of 2 female juveniles and their parents ~2 weeks after the females left their nests.
After the siblings grow up and get mates, they STILL stick around each other (in-laws of the animal world ) to form groups of four; the original two siblings and the mates they took. Sometimes the chicks from an earlier brood, after leaving the nest "for good," come back to their old nest and help out their parents when they are raising a new brood. Usually the females do this, only a few males ever return to their parents' nest for whatever reason.
Good to have that older sister around...
After the juveniles from the early brood, which helped out the parents with the next brood, become adults, sometimes the younger ones that the early birds (lol) raised will seek them out and group with them too. They seem to recognize each other; maybe the little ones imprinted on the juveniles helping out as well as on the parents.
When there are clutches of eggs with more than two siblings in one brood, all siblings will stay around each other. Yes, even when they get mates. This probably has something to do with safety in numbers (and maybe love for their siblings, not to mention trying to steal Sis's boyfriend!)

This is just what happens with my cardinals. Yours are probably different.

~AHS

[ButterflyLady29]

I had a Pileated woodpecker in the tree in my back yard a couple days ago. It hung around and pecked at the tree a little bit, paused long enough for just one shot with the good camera, then took off. Although this is a pretty wooded area it's not a common feeder bird here.

Another interesting thing I saw over the weekend were the bees. They were thick in the sunflower seeds in the feeder. I had to take the top off to release a bee that had apparently burrowed from the feeding port up through the seed to the open area inside. She couldn't find her way out and kept trying and trying to fly out the mesh. Once she realized the top was open she took off.

[Taiji]

Marlin, your bluebirds are such a bright blue compared to mine! Mine are western bluebirds, would yours be eastern? Your photo makes me want to put up some birdhouses!

[LIcenter]

The Bluebird is our state bird. Sixty two years living in NY, I Have never seen one as yet.

[imafan26]

You have interesting birds. Thanks for the pictures. I will probably only see most of these birds in pictures. Sadly, even our native birds are so rare and dependent on specific native plants for food that most of them won't be seen in home gardens. All I see are sparrows (not as many now), bulbuls (too many), cattle egret (imported by the plantation), finches (pets people deliberately let go), parrots (also escaped or released pets), Sharma (rare, and has a beautiful song), cardinals, great northern cardinals, golden plover (they migrate from the Aleutions every winter), occasionally a pheasant, native white owl (very rare I have only seen it twice on the Big Island's Parker ranch, mynah, spotted neck doves, small grey dove, mejiro (Japanese white eye), pigeons, and feral chickens.

[Taiji]

Our state bird is the cactus wren. They live in holes in the saguaro cactus. I don't think I have ever seen one since I don't live in that type of landscape. Around here we do have the canyon wren which I've never seen either, but their song is unmistakable, I've heard them many times. They start out with a high pitched whistle then more whistles descending in pitch til they get really low and it slows down. (all in one breath!) They live in canyon walls, (of course), but hereabouts they live in among granite boulders.

[A Happy Seedling]

You have interesting birds. Thanks for the pictures. I will probably only see most of these birds in pictures. Sadly, even our native birds are so rare and dependent on specific native plants for food that most of them won't be seen in home gardens. All I see are sparrows (not as many now), bulbuls (too many), cattle egret (imported by the plantation), finches (pets people deliberately let go), parrots (also escaped or released pets), Sharma (rare, and has a beautiful song), cardinals, great northern cardinals, golden plover (they migrate from the Aleutians every winter), occasionally a pheasant, native white owl (very rare I have only seen it twice on the Big Island's Parker ranch, mynah, spotted neck doves, small grey dove, mejiro (Japanese white eye), pigeons, and feral chickens.

I feel for you. Cattle egrets are nice though. Their white plumage is beautiful!

[tomf]

Took the photos from a ways off through a window of this Flicker.

[tomf]

I have a field guid book but would like a better bird book, anyone have any recommendations?

[rainbowgardener]

I think I just saw an eastern bluebird in our backyard! It didn't stay around long, so I didn't get a good look at it, but I have seen them before.


https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Bluebird/id

this is not my picture, just something I found on line

[ButterflyLady29]

Which one (field guide) do you have? I've got Peterson's, Audubon, and National Geographic. Of the 3 I prefer the Peterson's

[digitS']

I like my Peterson's guide but I don't have the chance now to compare.

It replaced my Audubon guide.

Have you ever wondered what sort of book might be most commonly dropped from a jacket pocket and lost? I bet bird guides are near the top of the list.

Steve

[LIcenter]

If you have a smartphone, ipad or the like. This site lists 19 apps that might interest a few here.

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animal ... ess-expert

[Susan W]

Who needs many different birds when one has a mockingbird?! They are hanging out in my yard all year, and never cease to amaze with their run-on songs. The Carolina wren makes way bigger song than its little body. (also yr 'round). The brown thrashers are checking out the available real estate, usually lower part of privet hedge (a good use for privet!).

Last week with the never ending rains, many of the birds feasted on worms coming up to surface of yard and even on roadways.

[Susan W]

On those bird field guides. My mother was an avid birder. We grew up with bird guides, binocs, looking and listening. Also sketch books. When she passed on near 20 yrs ago, I was able to get her bird guides, binocs and some of the sketch pads. Her last fave guide was Nat'l Geographic. When I open it and see her notes, let's just say there's a tear in my eye.