BirdingGirl

Here are some pictures of a Carolina Wren house in my parents' yard in Bourne, MA (Monument Beach to be specific). Each year my mom has at least one Carolina Wren family nesting in the yard. Usually they go after some of the more traditional bird houses she has up, but this year they decided to nest in an ornamental bird house, not meant for actual birds! Since Carolina Wrens are so small, this bird house actually suits their needs just fine. Here are some pictures of the wren nervously looking out and waiting for me to get in my car and leave. Right before this, the bird was bringing food to its babies- specifically a nice green inchworm. Carolina Wren House: Carolina Wren House in context of the yard (you can see how small the house really is): I had hope to capture the Carolina Wren call on video, but I just wasn't fast enough with my camera. But I do have an older video on my blog featuring the Carolina Wren Song .

I was so happy to be home this past weekend so I could do some backyard birding, and count birds for Project Feederwatch. Actually, I recently connected with another Bridgewater birder, the " Bird Man of Bridgewater ," who also took pictures in the snow over the weekend. John is good at identifying the gender of birds in his pictures, something I blogged about last spring. I love this picture- I'm excited to have my very own picture of a Carolina Wren at a suet feeder. It's such a common picture for carolina wrens, and I'm glad this guy came around on Saturday to pose for me. This suet actually was a Christmas gift from my mom- it's a Berry blend and the birds love it. Carolina Wren and Downy Woodpecker: On a related note- not sure how to tell the difference between a Downy Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker ? I wrote a post about it nearly a year ago. Red-bellied Woodpecker: Winter Goldfinch: Dark-eyed Junco (I like how you can see the darker feathers with it...

I was out in the yard again on Saturday practicing with my tripod. It's very tricky how I need take the camera off the mount to flip it around so I can either aim up or aim down. It's still pretty cool though and I'm excited about the stable pictures that I'm able to get now. Since our back lawn has tree-lined borders on either side, that is naturally where the birds like to hang out. Unfortunately it looks like I like to spy on my neighbors with binoculars and tripod-mounted camera! Tufted Titmouse: White-throated Sparrow: Dark-eyed Junco: Carolina Wren: Ok- so the Carolina Wren and White-throated Sparrow aren't the greatest, but those birds are fast! They're so tricky to photograph. Practice makes perfect :) Can't wait to get out there again.

Today is the official start to Project Feederwatch, operated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This is my first year participating and I'm excited because it will make me much more disciplined about birdwatching. I've never done counts before, so I think it will be helpful in getting into the habit of doing that. Although today is the official start date, I won't be starting my counting until Tuesday. I've decided to count on Tuesdays and Wednesdays since the odds of me being around are much higher than the weekends. Plus, it will be good motivation to get up early to watch the feeder before work (and start my day earlier on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). With the time change, it's actually daylight when I get up now so it shouldn't be too hard. This morning I went out back for a practice run. I knew there would be a lot of birds since I had been hearing them outside starting around 7am. The feeders were in rough shape (the smaller one was empty, and the long tube ...

I was home on the Cape this weekend and decided to go birding in the conservation land behind my parents' house. I first went down to what I believe is a vernal pool (it has water in rainy seasons, but is mostly dried up during hot, dry periods like we're experiencing right now). I crawled down the hill and spent a long time patiently waiting in the swampy area, which looked very promising. I waited there probably about 20 minutes braving the mosquitoes and a slight case of the jitters since I was a little creeped-out about being in the woods by myself, but finally gave up and climbed back out to safety. I saw some common birds: a Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Northern Cardinal, and a Catbird. I did a loop around the area, using my better judgement and not venturing into the woods, and finally decided to check out an area very close to the border of our land. It's at the base of a very steep hill we used to sled down in the winters, and it's made up of large ...