Bird Watchers

[zuben el genub]

Our spotted or Western Towhees don't migrate - we've had them all year. Think the Yellow-Rumped Warblers are back at the nature center. So are the Pelicans. Great-tailed Grackle also back.

Most of the stuff is blooming and we will be getting snow and a hard freeze on Sat. Nite.
Bleeding hearts too damn big to cover, now.

 

[Clementine_3]

Indigo Bunting from a few years ago. Now I'm showing off

 

[Clementine_3]

Yay! Warblers! Here's a Nashville in my apple tree

 

[zuben el genub]

Yay! Warblers! Here's a Nashville in my apple tree

American Goldfinches back at Nature Center. Flock of them getting drinks from a stream.

 

[Clementine_3]

American Goldfinches back at Nature Center. Flock of them getting drinks from a stream.

My Goldfinch stay all year, I give them thistle/niger seeds during the winter. My migrants are starting to show up, heard a Baltimore Oriole and saw 'my' Gray Catbirds today...plus the wee little Nashville fella. Still waiting on the hummers though.

 

[Clementine_3]

Hummer! Yay! There's a little wee male hummingbird out there this morning!

 

[zuben el genub]

Yellow-rumped Warblers back now.

 

[Clementine_3]

Yellow-rumped Warblers back now.

Haven't seen any yet but I did see a Blackpoll warbler the other day, sort of early for them around here.

 

[zuben el genub]

3 swallows today.
Damp weather. Barn Swallow, Violet-Green Swallow and Bank Swallow all cruising over the water and grass at Nature Center.

 

[zuben el genub]

Still damp and cloudy. Yellow Warblers back at Nature Center, saw a pair of Western Tanagers stopping by.

 

[Unforgiven]

I just had to tape a picture of a red tailed hawk to my window. A pair of male Baltimore Orioles kept attacking their reflections.

 

[zuben el genub]

I just had to tape a picture of a red tailed hawk to my window. A pair of male Baltimore Orioles kept attacking their reflections.

They make a sort of plastic leaf, flowers that just plain stick to the window. They are a lightly opaque white, but birds can see them.

We use these.
http://www.duncraft.com/Window-Strike-Solutions?view_all

We had a vaguely hawk shaped tv antenna that we taped to the window.

 

[Clementine_3]

Ugh. I feel bad, a hawk got a bird and got as far as taking feathers off when something (me/dogs/neighbor) scared it off. It sort of looks like maybe a fledgling gray catbird. I can't tell. I left it there to see if the hawk will come back. I hate that he caught a meal and doesn't get to eat it and I hate that a bird may have died for no reason. UGH

 

[lunatic59]

If the hawk doesn't come back ... to quote Josey Wales ... "buzzards gotta eat, same as worms."

 

[Clementine_3]

Yeah, I suspect he's not coming back for it but he does hunt here all the time so I'm hoping...

If it's still there tomorrow I'll toss it over the back fence so the dogs don't eat it. Just spent $600+ on Raphael for an emergency visit because something he got into made him really really sick. So right, over the fence it will go.

 

[lunatic59]

Put that down, you don't know where it's been.

 

[Unforgiven]

Cross post, but I thought this audience would enjoy this too.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

I don't know where to look for owls in Boston MA. A little help; Keep in mind I'm right in the inner city.

 

[Unforgiven]

I don't know where to look for owls in Boston MA. A little help; Keep in mind I'm right in the inner city.

Swamps and old growth forests. Red bellies are in the same areas more or less.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Maybe a really small salf marsh? No tall trees though.just *****willow and other reeds. The area can be reached on the MBTA by using the trolley line between Mattapan where I live and Ashmont Station on the Red Line. Start at Mattapan and ask the driver to be let off at the stop before the trolley goes through the graveyard. The graveyard is actually one of the borders to the salt marsh. Did I mention the graveyard?

 

[zuben el genub]

Maybe a really small salf marsh? No tall trees though.just *****willow and other reeds. The area can be reached on the MBTA by using the trolley line between Mattapan where I live and Ashmont Station on the Red Line. Start at Mattapan and ask the driver to be let off at the stop before the trolley goes through the graveyard. The graveyard is actually one of the borders to the salt marsh. Did I mention the graveyard?

Use your ears at night. If there is prey and a suitable nesting site, owls can be anywhere.
Burrowing owls set up housekeeping on a untamed traffic circle near an airport.
Those you can see during the day.

Here's a note from NYC. You can probably search for a city close to you.
https://www.nycgovparks.org/places-to-go-birding/owls

 

[dontpanicbobby]

I've seen the owls at Logan Airport. It's the only way i knew there were owls in Boston. Problem is I was on a plane at the time.

Living deep in a small metropolitan city my Avian encounters are special surpries except for the sparrows and pigeons. Those guys are everywhere.

 

[lunatic59]

I know there are owls in the woods behind my house, but I haven't actually seen one. I have found remnants of their supper in my yard. They seem to have an appetite for the bunnies.

 

[Clementine_3]

Speaking of owls and remnants, I just went out to get the dogs and saw this on the fence. It's huge, guessing it's the great horned that lives in the back woods.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Holy owlcrap!