We are so ready for the Great Backyard Bird Count and this month we thought we would join Heather over on her blog Kingdom Arrows for a new bird meme.
- We live at about 2000 feet in elevation, in North-Central California, foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
- Our yard has pine and oak trees as the natural habitat, supplemented with a variety of bird attracting features like sheltering bushes near feeders, birdbaths at both ends of the yard, and seed bearing plants.
- Weather this month has been unusually warm, very little rain, and absolutely no snow.
Here is our list for our yard– I have starred the most common birds at our feeders:
- Dark-eyed juncos***
- House sparrows***
- Spotted towhees
- California towhees
- Western scrub jays***
- White-breasted nuthatches***
- Mourning doves
- Lesser goldfinches***
- Downy woodpeckers
- Nuttall’s woodpeckers
- American crows
- Oak titmouse***
- House finches***
- Purple finches***
- White-crowned sparrows***
- Hummingbird—not sure of identification. We are thinking it was migratory.
- Northern mockingbird
In our travels-
- Mallard ducks
- Common mergansers
- Red-tail hawks
- Cooper’s hawk
- Red-breasted nuthatches
- Steller’s jays
- Red-winged blackbirds
- Rock pigeons
- Western bluebirds
We have been out looking for bald eagles but so far we have not scored a sighting. Our friend did last week so we are not going to give up!
Don’t forget!!!
We enjoyed reading your list because we live on the opposite side of the country from you. My sons want to travel west so they can see the scrub jay and a mountain bluebird.
Thanks for sharing.
thanks for participating, Barb. I certainly have never seen several of your birds. I think we need a field trip out west:)
Wow, that is quite a list!
Wow – what a list of birds. We live on the other end of the country with lots of ice and snow right now! I just put up a feeder last week and we have about 6 variations of birds.
We have these bird, butterfly, toadstool counts too here in Belgium. I always like to participate, not only because it is important, later you are able to see -via a website- how bio-diverse your area is.
Although we live in a city, I am always pleasantly surprised how much we see and count. Nothing special though, but nature isn’t that much intimidated by a busy city either.
Keep up the good work, Barb.
Paula
Barb, I am SO, SO, SO excited to be able to participate this year. We have even put up an inexpensive bird feeder in the backyard. In just two days, the birds (and squirrels) devoured half of the seeds. We are having a BALL watching them.