Birding

[Turtle]

___I have no interest in blasting away except with photons. I have now attracted 4 individual Steller's Jays & at least 2 individual Scrub Jays. Photos & ID later this evening. I also caught a Sparrow on tape but have to ID it before I put that up. I switched to a new tape just now as the seed is going fast! :)

___At least one Steller's Jay & one Scrub Jay have taken to pushing seed by the tablespoon-full over the edge with their bills. These birds have a voracious appetite today & now I hear some Crow in the distance. At this rate I will need a barrel of seed! :hihi:

___Just finished a breakfast of coffee & now I plan to settle in front of my little TV with some coarse bread, stinky cheese, & a Dead Guy Ale. Arrrrgh! Pirates be the best birders. :evil:

[Buffy]

___At least one Steller's Jay & one Scrub Jay have taken to pushing seed by the tablespoon-full over the edge with their bills. These birds have a voracious appetite today..

You know what they're doing of course: if they can't eat it all, they're going to make sure that no other birds can eat it either! Devious little pirates! "Ha, dump the seed on the ground where the little birdies will meet their doom at the teeth of the land sharks below! Yar!" :evil:

...now I plan to settle in front of my little TV with some coarse bread, stinky cheese, & a Dead Guy Ale. Arrrrgh! Pirates be the best birders. :hihi:

I raise me Jolly Roger in yer direction, matey!

 

Yar!

Black Buffy

[Turtle]

___It's roughly 6 hours now since I saw the first Jay arrive & they continue to feed! :hihi: 4 pounds of seed I put in. No squirrels yet - or mice - but they likely won't take much longer to find the stash. I have Nightshot on the camera & I plan to stick with this the rest of the day & evening. Maybe an Owl swooping in to impale a little vole?

___I made another small feeder which I hanged from a porch extending out over my window. A pie tin, old hamster water bottle, wooden dowel, & copper wire I found under my house. I made the perches & seed holes too small for the Jays & it is only about 6 feet from my blinded camera.

___I have 2 portholes in my cardboard insert now & have pinned 2 bandannas around the hole & onto a small card with a cutout for the camera lens, microphones, & infrared spot (very weak). It isn't water proof but the overhanging porch keeps most rain off my window; it is now only a minor draft source.

___Turtle is having too much fun on his birthday eh? :lol: It may take some time before I put up more photos as I don't want to miss anything. On that note, the tape is rewound now so off I go. To the bird's nest matys. :evil:

[Turtle]

___It is 6:00 PM & dusk is settling in; the quintet of Steller's Jays is still feeding. After 8 hours they now squabble amongst themselves & throw the millet to the ground in search of the sunflower seed, which they carry off to a roost to hold against a branch with their feet & then peck out the meat.

___I put a clamp light fixture on the overhanging porch supports & installed a flourescent flood bulb; maybe the Racoon still visits? Bats? Mice? Voles? Snakes? Owls?

PS Bier's long gone & it's coffee for me once again. :evil: :hihi:

[Turtle]

___The Jays left & out came an American Robin which quickly caugt, killed, & ate a NW Garter Snake. Picture is a little bluury; I don't have the ideal light. :evil:

 

Sequence image of Robin eating the Snake:

http://hypography.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=517&c=3&userid=796

[Turtle]

___I have a photo of one of the Scrub Jays in the Science Gallery now:

http://hypography.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=487&c=3

 

___Yesterday I constucted a 60 foot long "sky-wire" down the slope fom my window. I used some surplus 1/8" twisted steel wire, some cup hooks, & some light nylon line for hauling. I now can run my small bird feeder down the hill on the wire in order to draw some of the more shy birds.

___Now that I see how well it works, I have in mind to construct a platform so that I can "fly" my camera down the hill as well. I even have in mind a feeder & the camera on one deck which I then lower down the hill. As I still have several hundred feet of cable, I may run several more sky-wires to several different areas on the slope; right now I have to recover from yesterdays work! :evil: :hihi:

[Cedars]

Turtle it sounds like your having a great time !

 

I saw my first snow geese last week. I can go a few years between having a local sighting due to having to work for a living. It was a good day.

 

Black & white warblers were moving thru my area in large numbers last week. Many Blackburnian warblers also. Vireo began their migration 2 weeks ago.

 

Hawk numbers are growing right now. Lots of Coopers in the area. Have seen some broad wings, but not in the big numbers yet.

[Turtle]

Turtle it sounds like your having a great time !

I saw my first snow geese last week. I can go a few years between having a local sighting due to having to work for a living. It was a good day.

Black & white warblers were moving thru my area in large numbers last week. Many Blackburnian warblers also. Vireo began their migration 2 weeks ago.

Hawk numbers are growing right now. Lots of Coopers in the area. Have seen some broad wings, but not in the big numbers yet.

___Sounds like a good time there too Cedars. ;) I still have to go look up the Blackburnian Warbler for my edification.

___Last night the owl visited again & I caught his call on the audio portion of my video tape; problem is I don't seem to have the right software to strip the audio & make an mp3? ;)

___My brush clearing (ivy & blackberry briars) I hope draws Owls & Woodpeckers as well as opening some under growth for the native Snowberrys to revive. I have uncovered quite a few natives as I progress including Ferns & small Hazel Nut.

___The Jays continue to clean up spilled seed & they have ignored my small hanging feeder, moreover it has attracted no birds at all yet. I heard Geese overflying late at night this week too... well, off to chores. Cheerio Verio!

[Turtle]

___Those Blackburnian Warblers sure make a bright appearence!

___No birds yet drawn to the feeder on the skywire,... I did have 30 minutes tape of a Rufous sided Towhee foraging for seed on the groud that the Jays dropped. My angle of view however put the entire scene behind a wire fence & I figure to wait for a better shot to grab a still. :doh:

[Cedars]

___Those Blackburnian Warblers sure make a bright appearence!

___No birds yet drawn to the feeder on the skywire, so here is a shot of the skywire from one of the house balconies. I did have 30 minutes tape of a Rufous sided Towhee foraging for seed on the groud that the Jays dropped. My angle of view however put the entire scene behind a wire fence & I figure to wait for a better shot to grab a still. :Waldo:

 

You have a cool looking yard!

 

A thought about the skywire. A friend had a deck and hung a feeder over the edge using a bent pipe (shaped like an upside down J). They could then swing the feeder out via handles on the pipe where it attached to the deck. They wanted to keep squirrels out of the feeder. They did not attract birds there, but winds would sway the feeder enough that spillage on the ground attracted the birds. What they did was build a platform approxiamatly 3 foot x 3 foot and set the feeder in the middle of that. They hung the platform via dog chain by its corners from the J hook. I cant remember how they attached the feeder to the platform, but I know they could remove it for cleaning. That setup attracted birds. I think it was having a place to stand that seemed more solid that worked for the birds.

[Turtle]

You have a cool looking yard!

 

A thought about the skywire. ... I think it was having a place to stand that seemed more solid that worked for the birds.

 

___Thanks Cedars; again! :hyper:

___I think you have a good point on a solid place for the birds to stand; I made the little wire roost too small likely, in my effort to disuade the Jays.

___Two days of almost constant rain has sent most of the birds to cover & my initial bag of seed is gone as well as the Sun. Plenty of time this next week to make a little deck for the feeder & buy some seed; maybe the Black oil Sunflower seed instead of mixed? Is different seed in different feeders effective at drawing a wider variety of birds? :Waldo:

[Turtle]

___First of the month so I picked up that Sunflower seed, & a couple of suet packs in plastic trays, & some micro brew to sip while I bird watch. I see the Robin-eating-the-snake is a popular download image (post #74) & I actually have 3 more that go with it in sequence. My plan is to lighten them all a bit & put them together as a montage in the Science Gallery.

___As they say in merry old England, let;s go twitching! :hyper:

:Waldo:

 

___Robin eating Snake sequence:

http://hypography.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=517&c=3

[Turtle]

___Spent an hour or so putting together a feeder station for the suet; within an hour I attracted a woodpecker! Yeaaaahhhhh! Have to run; here's a quick shot of a Northern Red-shafted Flicker - Colaptes auratus :

http://hypography.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=523&c=3

:hyper:

[Turtle]

___A new visitor drawn up the slope to the seed spilled on the ground; a Song Sparrow - Melospiza melodius. After feeding a while on the ground, he retires to a nearby protected branch & sings "Madge-madge-madge -put on the tea kettle-ettle-ettle" says my Audubon Guide.

http://hypography.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=522&c=3

[Cedars]

___

First of the month so I picked up that Sunflower seed, & a couple of suet packs in plastic trays, & some micro brew to sip while I bird watch.

 

I have a separate tube feeder for the black sunflower seed. It has metal around the feeder holes to keep squirrels from destroying the feeder. Most of the affordable pre-mixed bird feed is lacking in the black sunflower so I will add a scoop or two to the can before tossing it out on the ground.

 

With the suet, the most cost effective way to supplement the birds who enjoy those treats is to swing thru the meat dept and look for beef suet. My birds prefer the kind packaged right at the store itself. There are vaccuum packed types of this, but my birds reject it soundly. If your store does not offer this, just talk to someone in the meat dept. I usually purchace several pounds at a time then cut the chunks into feeder sized pieces, freezing them in ziplocks. During the winter months the competition at the meat counter is very high for this type of suet. Here it gets very cold in the winter and I will sometimes smear peanut butter into the suet feeder. The birds love that too. I had a simple suet feeder I bought at a grainery which has a lid to open and close. I did have to bungee cord it shut after raccoons began to steal all the suet at night.

 

You may be surprized at some visitors you may attract to a suet feeder. One winter I had a rough legged hawk who would hang (uncomfortably) from the suet feeder. That bird was spectacular to watch. May have been a young bird, in that it was not alarmed when I would watch it thru the window. I had many days where I watched him/her grab mice in the yard. I had hoped for his/her return the following fall but that did not happen.

 

Several winters in a row I had a coopers hawk which hunted my feeder. It would show up in mid-december and stay until sometime in march. I did not see that bird this last winter, but I also wasnt home as much.

 

Before that, I had a northern shrike which would show up infrequently each winter to hunt the small birds. It would hang around for a week or two, then move off, then return a month later for a week or two.

 

I have always felt that once you begin to attract predators (not cats of course) to your feeders, you have achieved a balance in nature and completed a small circle of life.

:confused:

[Turtle]

I have always felt that once you begin to attract predators (not cats of course) to your feeders, you have achieved a balance in nature and completed a small circle of life.

:confused:

 

___Thanks for the meat-market tip Cedars; I plan to ask next time I go in.

___I have drawn quite a few cats & I shew them off when I see them in the yard. I admit I thought more of bringing owls back in, but you mentioned the hawks & now I'll be on the look for them as well.

___This morning I found I attracted a pair of Black-capped Chickadees - Poecile atricapillus. As always, thanks Cedars for sharing information on attracting & watching the birds. :confused:

[Cedars]

This past week provided several sightings of pairs of bald eagles making their way south. I didnt see any young birds flying with the adults which surprised me. Several of the pairs I spotted was in the afternoon as I was headed home after work. They were circling over the freeway. One pair was roosting in a large elm tree along the freeway as I headed off on a task. Around 45 mins later I passed the same spot and found the eagles had landed in a plowed field. I have seen this behavior during the spring alot, but not in the fall. I dont know what it is they are doing on the ground.

 

Marsh hawks (Northern Harriers) moved thru in large numbers also. I saw several over the week while on break outside at work. Several others passed over the road in front of me as I went home. Being as my bird watching during the week is limited to an hour drive one way (its usually too dark during the morning trip) I think these are pretty good numbers.

 

Early in the week there were lots of bluebirds along the roadways. Cedar waxwings are showing up in groups now too.

 

We had big rains mid week that messed up the movement.

 

I am watching for the first swans of the season to arrive. But they like to take off from their water spots between 8-10 am, and I am usually trapped in the office then.