Birdwatching Pad Patter 8.30

[GlazeFamily3]

For as long as I can remember, I have really enjoyed birdwatching. I enjoy putting up feeders in my yard and seeing what kind of birds are attracted to different foods.

Currently we have three feeders up. We just put up one of them this week and it’s bringing some tiny birds we aren’t used to seeing! This week we have seen cardinals, tufted titmouse, chipping sparrow, chickadee, house finch, and some others at our feeders. My daughter likes to name the cardinals... and the brown thrashers, though they don’t come to the feeders.

Do you enjoy birdwatching? What type of birds do you see in your yard?

 

[kayjaydo]

I love watching the birds too, unfortunately though with three cats putting up feeders is NOT an option, so I have to watch just like the cats do!
Once a year the Nature Trust (NABU Deutschland) do a count, and I love that, this year whilst counting we had a goshawk hover over our house and all the little birds went quiet and in to hiding, that was great to see. It also looked good on the form I sent off after the hour.
We own chickens and a large family of sparrows has moved in with them, so they are fun to watch going in and out of the hen house!

 

[bonnenuit]

We have a bird feeder hanging from a tree branch right outside my office window so I can watch the birds while working on my computer. The most frequent visitors are the sparrows, but also see cardinals, blue jays, woodpeckers, cowbirds, juncos, and nuthatches. The mourning doves usually get the seeds fallen to the ground by the messing eating sparrows. Once I even had wild turkeys hanging out pecking at the fallen seeds and a hawk looking to grab smaller birds.

 

[Cherylndesigns]

My husband is the bird watcher. We don't have any feeders up in Florida, but when we lived in Michigan, he did. He fed the birds every day all through the frigid winter. He used to watch them and laugh that they put out the word that the food was there. We had Cardinals, Blue Jays and lots of Mourning Doves. He used to put food on the ground for the squirrels, too. We had a real menagerie in our back yard. My granddaughter, Ava, used to love to watch the squirrels. There was one that we swore put on a show for us. She named him Photo and took a lot of pictures of him. I found pictures of Photo in my archives and sent them to her recently.

 

[Angela Toucan]

I love watching birds. Unfortunately there are too many domestic cats in the area to put bird feeders up - the cats just get the birds. We do see plenty of pigeons, gulls and magpies on the lawn, and from time to time we see a hawk up in the sky.

 

[GlazeFamily3]

I love watching the birds too, unfortunately though with three cats putting up feeders is NOT an option, so I have to watch just like the cats do!
Once a year the Nature Trust (NABU Deutschland) do a count, and I love that, this year whilst counting we had a goshawk hover over our house and all the little birds went quiet and in to hiding, that was great to see. It also looked good on the form I sent off after the hour.
We own chickens and a large family of sparrows has moved in with them, so they are fun to watch going in and out of the hen house!

I love watching birds. Unfortunately there are too many domestic cats in the area to put bird feeders up - the cats just get the birds. We do see plenty of pigeons, gulls and magpies on the lawn, and from time to time we see a hawk up in the sky.

I don't have cats but I live in a neighborhood and one of our neighbors decided to make all their cats outside cats... fortunately, they don't seem to bother our birds (that I see).

 

[cfile]

Desi-
Bird Watching has been in my blood since I was in second grade. My Mother became an avid Bird Watcher and became involved with our local Audobon Society, became the editor of their Newsletter the "Sandpiper" and also became the president of the chapter for 2 terms.

She was also best friends with Arthur Singer who illustrated the Birdbooks "Bird Guide of North America" amongst other books, plus he and his son illustrated the US Postal stamps in the 1980's of the Birds and Flowers of all of the US States. In addition many other Bird Artists like Roger Tory Peterson (another Bird Guide author) Guy Choleach and others that all resided on Long Island in NY. Mom was always going on & leading Birding field trips and her friends who would band birds at the beach, would bring the birds to our house prior to releasing them so Mom could photograph them.. It was not unusual to have an owl etc. in our house for a bit

My brother continues on the legacy of feeding the birds, and keeping a life list. I do not feed them, however we have a lot of different species in our backyard that love our holly bushes and trees, so I have seen cedar waxwings, gold finches, and of course the tufted titmice, chickadees (my fav), cardinals, blue jays, robins, mocking birds, morning doves, downey woodpeckers, house wrens, brown thrashers, purple finches, house sparrows and when the cooper hawk comes to visit I am ecstatic. In the mornings when I walk I hear them all in the trees, especially the chickadees and smile

 

[michelepixels]

I haven't done anything to encourage birds to visit our house, but I do enjoy looking at birds when I happen upon them, and might like to put up bird feeders someday. For now I just enjoy the birds, squirrels, and rabbits that randomly appear in our yard from time to time when they catch my eye.

 

[berniek]

Oh I love bird watching! I grew up in a house with a very large garden and in a very green area in general. We always had lots of birds around and we always fed them. And I always made lots of photos. We learned our love for birds from my father. I once gave my dad a book for Christmas: "vogels op en rond de voederplank". Translated: bird on and around the feeding shelf. It had names and photos of all the possible birds in our country that would be able to come in your back garden. It stayed in a easy place because whenever we say a different bird we didn't know, we had to look it up. It took me years to realize my father probably didn't need this book as much as I did.

When I moved out and into an apartment, I have tried those feeders that you attach to the outside of a window with suction cups. They didn't work for me, probably because the trees were too far away.
Now that I do actually have a house with a small garden, I hope to feed them again. I know there are cats around, but also plenty of greenery in the gardens from other people, so I think they will come. Here's to hoping!

 

[Karen]

We used to have several bird feeder up in our yard, tucked by my big windows among our bigger bushes and I loved watching them and taking pictures, but MAN did they send the word out like @Cherylndesigns said and it got too expensive to keep feeding them. Our neighbors on both sides still feed the birds though, so we just watch theirs from a little further away. My hubby put out a hummignbird feeded this summer though and we've had quite a few visitors to that and that is fascinating to watch!

I even saw a bald eagle in our town once about four or five years ago. That is NOT normal, so I did a double take and then it was gone down a ravine. I was pretty excited to tell my hubby about that because he sees them quite frequently when he goes a bit further North in Michigan on fishing excursions.

 

[cfile]

I even saw a bald eagle in our town once about four or five years ago. That is NOT normal, so I did a double take and then it was gone down a ravine. I was pretty excited to tell my hubby about that because he sees them quite frequently when he goes a bit further North in Michigan on fishing excursions.

So cool Karen re the Bald Eagle We had one in our Cul de sac a few years back... there must have been something small like a bird or whatever in the road and he scooped it up and took off.. I was watching and was amazed.. On our street in the middle of a resort community! Fabulous creatures!

 

[bcgal00]

I was never much interested in birds until my mom (many yrs ago) started feeding chickadees on her balcony and named one "Peg" (she only had one leg so she was easy to recognize when she came back). She became a regular visitor and brought her babies each year. That got me interested and it was a fun thing to share with my mom, learning a bit about birds and their habits and going out on walks through the park, noticing all the different species.

I have been putting out suet feeders for the woodpeckers, sparrows, stellar jays, chickadees, juncos, towhee and others I don't recognize. Last year I started putting out a feeder for the hummingbirds and they come consistently throughout the day, every day, all year round. They nest under our back porch in the spring. It is amazing to see the babies as they venture out of the nest and fly the few feet over to our feeder. They are so tiny and delicate. We get rufous, anna and a few others that pass through but our hummers are pretty territorial and don't like to share so chase most of the others away.

Hubs and I love to sit in the kitchen, watching the birds come and go on the porch feeders. Its so relaxing and entertaining.

 

[amien1]

We just have a hummingbird feeder up on our deck now. In our old house, we had a few other feeders- but turns out it attracted some other animals- mice! Ack! We had to do some bad things to get rid of them... So in this house we've just stuck with the hummingbird feeder- which is my favorite anyways! They remind me of my grandma- hummingbirds were her favorites too!

BUT the last 2 years, there has been a little nest under our deck that I've left when we've done spring cleaning. I figured they aren't causing any troubles down there & we can peek thru the top & see the baby birds! That's been fun!

 

[Jan]

We own chickens and a large family of sparrows has moved in with them, so they are fun to watch going in and out of the hen house!

What a fun thing to be able to watch!! I love it!

My Mom loved watching the birds and had a book about them that she would take whenever they went camping. Her love for them has rubbed off on me. Down in Arizona we sometimes saw Roadrunners. And we had doves at our condo. Our neighbor's cat would sit on the block walls watching them. I think he was hoping for a special meal. I took a series of photos of him just waiting for the chance to get it. We also had mockingbirds, which I so love. I tried to count the number of songs they could sing and would get up to 10 or 12 and then it was confusing as to whether they went on a repeat of them or not. I LOVE mockingbirds and have missed hearing them. We also had humming birds down there as well as other kinds that I don't know what they were called. Probably sparrows and black birds.

Since we have moved to Washington state we have seen humming birds. There is a feeder for them hanging from our porch roof and they come often to feed at it. We also have peacocks that just roam around our yard at times. They are so beautiful. They make three different noises one of which is this loud honking sound. I always have to smile when I hear it. Such beautiful creatures making such a loud, undelicate sound!! We haven't seen them in our yard much since their babies have hatched. Every now and then we find feathers from them and my daughter collects them to put in a vase in her room.

We also get wild turkeys. Had four of them in our backyard just a few days ago. Along with a baby deer that still had it's spots. It was pretty curious about those turkeys and would slowly move closer to them and then when the turkeys moved it would scamper away from them.

I'm not familiar with all the other birds yet. I'll learn what they are as time goes on though. There are water birds on the rivers and lakes here that we notice as we drive along the highways. We see a lot of deer in our yard and neighborhood here, too, and that is fun. And we see the squirrels. They are getting their nests ready for winter right now.

 

[jenn mccabe]

I haven't put out feeders in a long time - but I really want to. They tend to attract juvenile raccoons. I'm not really interested in having them in our yard if they can hang out elsewhere. It's been a few years though, so maybe this fall/winter it's time to try again and see what happens.

We have all the ones you mention too - we also have the usual robins, blue jays - the house finch and robins have been nesting in the rafters/beams of our deck every year. We also see goldfinches, the occasional eastern bluebird & hummingbird, pileated woodpeckers, red tailed hawks, and peregrine falcons from our backyard. Turkeys strut through looking for worms and bugs after it rains.

Not at my house, but on the side of the road coming home from soccer one evening, my daughter and I saw a bald eagle picking apart some prey. It was so big we didn't know what it was at first because it was hunched over - then it lifted it's head and we saw all that magnificent white and shouted Bald Eagle in unison! The cutest thing I ever saw - was a mama duck waddling through my neighbor's yard into the woods with 12 tiny ducklings following behind her. It was adorable.

 

[GlazeFamily3]

We have a bird feeder hanging from a tree branch right outside my office window so I can watch the birds while working on my computer.

What a great spot for a feeder! Ours hang out back and we watch them when we're at the kitchen table.

Desi-
Bird Watching has been in my blood since I was in second grade. My Mother became an avid Bird Watcher and became involved with our local Audobon Society, became the editor of their Newsletter the "Sandpiper" and also became the president of the chapter for 2 terms.

She was also best friends with Arthur Singer who illustrated the Birdbooks "Bird Guide of North America" amongst other books, plus he and his son illustrated the US Postal stamps in the 1980's of the Birds and Flowers of all of the US States. In addition many other Bird Artists like Roger Tory Peterson (another Bird Guide author) Guy Choleach and others that all resided on Long Island in NY. Mom was always going on & leading Birding field trips and her friends who would band birds at the beach, would bring the birds to our house prior to releasing them so Mom could photograph them.. It was not unusual to have an owl etc. in our house for a bit

My brother continues on the legacy of feeding the birds, and keeping a life list. I do not feed them, however we have a lot of different species in our backyard that love our holly bushes and trees, so I have seen cedar waxwings, gold finches, and of course the tufted titmice, chickadees (my fav), cardinals, blue jays, robins, mocking birds, morning doves, downey woodpeckers, house wrens, brown thrashers, purple finches, house sparrows and when the cooper hawk comes to visit I am ecstatic. In the mornings when I walk I hear them all in the trees, especially the chickadees and smile

I love so many things you shared! Your mom truly made some great friends in the birding community. I love photographing birds as well, so I can understand just how neat it is that she got to see and photograph them up close.

I haven't done anything to encourage birds to visit our house, but I do enjoy looking at birds when I happen upon them, and might like to put up bird feeders someday. For now I just enjoy the birds, squirrels, and rabbits that randomly appear in our yard from time to time when they catch my eye.

It is definitely cool to see which animals show up. Besides birds, we regularly see chipmunks, squirrels, bunnies, and deer.

When I moved out and into an apartment, I have tried those feeders that you attach to the outside of a window with suction cups. They didn't work for me, probably because the trees were too far away.

I tried those too, even close to trees, and had little success. I love the idea of suction cup feeders, I just attracted zero birds with them.

I even saw a bald eagle in our town once about four or five years ago. That is NOT normal, so I did a double take and then it was gone down a ravine. I was pretty excited to tell my hubby about that because he sees them quite frequently when he goes a bit further North in Michigan on fishing excursions.

How cool to see a bald eagle. They are truly magnificent. Several years ago, my daughter kept telling me she saw one around our house. I had never seen it and I figured she just saw a hawk or something. Then one day, I actually did see a bald eagle flying above our house... and I felt really bad for not believing her. I think it must nest somewhere nearby and it is always such a treat to catch sight of it.

I have been putting out suet feeders for the woodpeckers, sparrows, stellar jays, chickadees, juncos, towhee and others I don't recognize. Last year I started putting out a feeder for the hummingbirds and they come consistently throughout the day, every day, all year round. They nest under our back porch in the spring. It is amazing to see the babies as they venture out of the nest and fly the few feet over to our feeder. They are so tiny and delicate. We get rufous, anna and a few others that pass through but our hummers are pretty territorial and don't like to share so chase most of the others away.

We don't have a hummingbird feeder (YET) but I definitely want to try hanging one. They are so beautiful!

We just have a hummingbird feeder up on our deck now. In our old house, we had a few other feeders- but turns out it attracted some other animals- mice! Ack!

That sounds AWFUL. I haven't seen any around here and I am praying that I don't!

We also get wild turkeys. Had four of them in our backyard just a few days ago. Along with a baby deer that still had it's spots. It was pretty curious about those turkeys and would slowly move closer to them and then when the turkeys moved it would scamper away from them.

Now I have definitely not seen any wild turkeys in our yard- how cool for you! When we lived in South Carolina, we would sometimes see them just hanging out on the side of the road.

Not at my house, but on the side of the road coming home from soccer one evening, my daughter and I saw a bald eagle picking apart some prey. It was so big we didn't know what it was at first because it was hunched over - then it lifted it's head and we saw all that magnificent white and shouted Bald Eagle in unison! The cutest thing I ever saw - was a mama duck waddling through my neighbor's yard into the woods with 12 tiny ducklings following behind her. It was adorable.

View attachment 293917

Those baby ducks are so adorable! I think you should scrap that with Renee's Duck Pond kit- it is PERFECT for it!

 

[KarenW]

I love bird watching. Recently the cat next door was unfortunately hit by a car and was killed. Apparently he was a much bigger threat to wildlife than our cat because within a week, a heap of birds decided our backyard is now a great place to hang out. We have a flock of about 20 King parrots come everyday, they love foraging in the fallen leaves. (our poor backyard is looking quite sparse and a bit dead thanks to a very frosty dry winter)

I throw handfulls of sunflower seeds out on the ground for them to find. They are joined by top knot pigeons most days and also a couple of Crimson rosellas. Magpies and Cockatoos are year round pests. Lately we have had a lot of tiny blue wrens and silver eyes in our front yard. All in all, a pretty busy little neighborhood.
Giant black cockatoos also love to graze on our neighbors Casuarina trees, the noise they make is ear splitting. But they are magnificent birds.

Would love to see a humming bird, just don't get them here...

 

[carrie1977]

Those are so pretty, @KarenW !! What a site to see in your backyard!

We really only get doves, blue jays and your typical brown birds. But, we do love watching them and have several feeders in the backyard. My husband also throws out some food on the ground. Our cat loves to lay in our bedroom window and watch the birds. She makes all these little sounds while watching them. She isn't let outside so she really wants to get to them. lol

We have one dove that lays her eggs every year in a hanging planter we have in our front yard. It's kind of hidden between our home and a pillar so she is pretty safe there. The blue jays love to get their eggs. We love watching the babies grow and leave the nest.

 

[bellbird]

i think all i need to say here is YES!

 

[IntenseMagic]

I guess I am seriously in the minority here, but I don't care too much for birds I like to watch when the hawks come around, but that's about it. I've never kept feeders because of the cats, but the blue jays used to come steal the dog food. I'm ok with hummingbirds, and did put out a couple of feeders because I thought there was no way the cats would catch them. Then sure enough, our baby came running in the house with one in his mouth a couple of months ago. We get lots of cardinals, woodpeckers, and robins in our yard, and there are evidently tons of birds in the woods behind the house because they are super noisy in the morning.