Project FeederWatch- Week 3

It's been raining all day but that hasn't stopped the birds! They were a little slow to rise, but sure enough around 11:00 they were swarming the feeders. I couldn't believe how active they were even when the rain was at its heaviest.

It's been just the usual suspects so far, but I did see an interesting sparrow. Since I've been watching from the safety of my covered porch I wasn't able to get close enough to get a good shot, and had to rely on the strength of my Canon PowerShot's zoom. Fortunately I had the steadiness of my new tripod in my favor. It's not very tall, but I can set it up on the table in the porch. It works out pretty well.

The rain has added an interesting element to my shooting today. Some of the pictures make the birds look like they have white specs on them.

Dark-eyed Junco and Tufted Titmouse:

Male Northern Cardinal:

Blue Jay and Squirrel:

I know squirrels are a nuisance but I don't see very many of them (this is maybe the second time I've seen one at my feeder) and I thought this was a cute picture.

I also had a sparrow visit briefly, but I couldn't get a good enough picture because the rain was coming down hard when I saw it. The most distinguishing characteristics I saw with my binoculars were a dark grey underside and brown wings/top feathers. My best guess is a Swamp Sparrow.

Comments

Anonymous said…

I actually enjoy watching the squirrels, which is good since ours are daily visitors. Some days I'm more a squirreler than a birder. I like that jay/squirrel shot, btw.

December 2, 2008 at 6:43:00 AM PST

Cathleen Voss said…

@James- it's nice to hear you don't have any hostile feelings toward squirrels despite the fact they're frequent visitors. Some people actually have squirrel feeders, which I think is an interesting concept. I wonder how well it works at keeping them from the bird feeders.

Ours is catching on to the availability of food at our tray feeder. My boyfriend said he got a lot of seed the other morning. But at least we have the long cone feeder that he can't get into. And he visits only sporadically so for now I think he's cute :)

December 11, 2008 at 6:40:00 AM PST

Anonymous said…

I have a squirrel feeder also, but they seem to know the birds can't get into it so they work the bird feeders first and then hit the squirrel feeder. Clever devils!

December 15, 2008 at 9:59:00 AM PST

Difference Between Grackles and Starlings

I saw a sad sight today during my lunchtime jog—a dead grackle. Or was it a starling? I'll get to that in a minute. I was making my way down to the trail along the Charles River when I saw what I thought was an injured bird in the middle of the road. It was just sitting there and I figured it was just stunned or maybe had an injured wing. The bird probably didn't have much of a chance, but the least I could move it out of the road. As I got closer to the bird I saw it had its mouth open and then I realized the gruesome truth—it was dead and was frozen in that position. I just got shivers thinking about it. The poor thing. Anyway, so it got me to thinking 'What is the difference between grackles and starlings?' I use the two interchangeably and haven't really made an effort to sort it out. Until now. I like to use All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an online resource. The site is comprehensive and easy to use. (I also really like the 'Cool ...

Using Birds to Control Tomato Hornworms

Here's a lovely macro shot of a tomato hornworm caterpillar taking a little break from gorging himself on my tomatoes. Ever seen one before? They're huge and pretty startling to come across when you're pruning your tomato plants. They blend right in, until you accidentally touch one- hopefully not with the horned end! This picture was taken near the end of the season so I wasn't SO upset, but I definitely want to prevent hornworms for next season. I started doing some research on how to get rid of tomato hornworms and the good news is you don't need to use insecticides or crazy home remedies- birds will do the work for you! This great website I found- the Yardener has a whole section about insect pests in the vegetable garden. According to the site, feeding birds year-round will help you control the tomato hornworm problem in your garden. For bird lovers, this shouldn't be a chore at all. Just keep your feeders full with desirable seed like black-oil sunflower s...

Large-billed Crow pictures from Japan

These large-billed crow pictures come courtesy of my work colleague Phil who lives in Japan. He told me he had some great Japanese crow pictures, and the first thing I noticed about the bird was the large bill. I started doing some research to come up with the correct crow name. First I thought it was a carrion crow since those are a common type of Japanese crow, but the bill wasn't big enough. Then I found pictures of the large-billed crow and those were a match! Duh- "large bill"- it couldn't have been any simpler. These crows are also called jungle crows, but most of the birding sites call them large-billed crows. Phil said they can get really big, which I believe since American crows are huge sometimes. I have vivid memories of standing my in my parents Cape Cod kitchen doing dishes and getting spooked by something huge in my periphery on the deck. All it ever was was a giant crow, but really they can be scary when they get so big! Here are some interesting thing...

BirdingGirl

Search This Blog