We have had an abundance of birds in our yard for the past few weeks. Part of the reason is my new birdfeeder station in our front yard but mostly because it seems to be that time of year.
I grabbed my son’s camera the other day and took quite a few photos of just a small fraction of the variety of birds right in our yard.
There are always lots of Western scrub jays in our yard. This one found an acorn snack.
This is the best I could get of the Northern mockingbird in our front tree.
There have been quite a few Western bluebirds hanging around this week. I was able to snap a good photo of this pretty little bird.
There is a pair of Nuttall’s woodpeckers that are frequently on the utility pole across the street from our house. This seems to be the female…the male has red on his head.
This Western scrub jay was poking around in the rocks. I think he was trying to find some acorns or walnuts that he stashed but I was able to catch him holding still for a few seconds so I could capture his beautiful blue feathers.
Stay tuned because I am sure I will have some more to share soon. We spend time watching birds everyday and it is always fun to share.
We had a glorious day yesterday in our part of the world. I heard it was in the 70’s! We took advantage of the weather and spent time working on our frontyard remodel project. Our sweet gums are starting to become a riot of color, turning red and orange overnight.
We are getting very close to being finished. I know I keep promising a post sharing what we have done but I want to wait until the project is completed before tackling that post. We put down weed block because we were already getting some grass sprouting with our last rains. The rocks are a work in progress….we keep rearranging them as we finish the planting.
I think this is the last of the hardscape going in which is a path up to my faucet and around to the backyard. I will be planting bulbs around the edges of the blocks as soon as they arrive in the mail.
The leaves are falling gently and this one landed on the step…..love the yellow contrast with the blue/green tiles.
The birds were loving the idea that they are getting a new feeding station. The red/orange bush on the left is our new smoke tree and Mr. A is planting rosemary around the base of the pole.
Here is one bird that I was able to catch in mid-song the other day in the backyard.
They enjoy the sunshine as much as we do I think.
This morning we woke up to rain….pouring rain. I am sitting inside with my cup of coffee and shopping for seeds. I know that nothing perks me up more than thinking and planning for the next summer’s garden. We are hoping to finish the front yard and turn our attention to a whole new garden project in the backyard. I am going to be concentrating on flowers and colors so my garden will be filled with lots of things to draw and paint.
Where is my favorite online source for flower seeds? Renee’s Garden of course! I dare you to pop over there and not feel better even just looking at her front page. What is on my shopping list? Zinnias, sunflowers, dahlias, hollyhocks, and California poppies. I want color!
Oh, I want to share something else I have been meaning to write about on this blog. I have recently started reading and receiving the Herbal Roots Zine.
If you haven’t seen Kristine’s web page or seen any of her monthly zines, I highly recommend them as a great way to incorporate nature study into your month. This month she is featuring sage which happens to be something new we planted in our front yard…two different kinds. I now know a lot more about this very interesting plant. I will write a review of one of the issues soon so stay tuned for that.
That is the news from my world. Hope you are having a great autumn weekend and are doing some weather observations for this week’s challenge.
We have had a hard time attracting goldfinches to our yard. We tried thistle feeders before but the goldfinches never came. I decided two weeks ago to try again and this time….they arrived right outside my window!
I can’t tell you how thrilled we were to see them in the feeder, lined up along the branches, and sitting in the top of the tree. Their bright yellow color is amazing to see flash across the yard and their sweet little song is so beautiful coming in the windows.
Mr. B came in yesterday with a gift for me.
He found a goldfinch feather under the feeder and brought it in for me to see. Doesn’t it look as if someone dipped the tip in yellow paint?
This is going in my nature journal! We found the goldfinch in the Handbook of Nature Study and now we are going to read up on them and do some of the suggestions in Lesson 10.
“Goldfinches are seen at their best in late summer or September, when they appear in flocks wherever the thistle seeds are found in abundance.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 57
Hopefully they are here for awhile so we can get our fill of finches.
As part of our great front yard remodel, we cut down a tree.
My boys brought me this nest that they found among the branches. I knew there was an abandoned nest up there and it was exciting to see it close-up.
We were able to only see the stick part from underneath but now we see it is lined with soft grasses for the eggs and babies.
We know it is from a Western Scrub Jay because we watched the baby birds fly away this past spring. We know they have a new tree to nest in across the yard…it has better protection and we think they may even have another nest there too.
I have discovered that learning about birds comes in layers.
You start noticing the birds in your yard or neighborhood.
You discover that you indeed have birds in your yard and then develop a desire to know their name.
Start to notice the colors, beaks, sizes, etc so you can identify the bird using your field guide.
Find yourself reading the field guide just for fun.
Start noticing birds as you drive around town for your daily activities. Begin to see birds everywhere and wonder what their story is. The story becomes part of the fun of birding. Does this bird live in your neighborhood or is it a visitor? What does the bird eat? How does it makes its nest? How does it fit into the habitat of your neighborhood?
Now you want to take a few special day trips to places you might see new birds. You notice a pond and you look for water birds. You visit a park with a wooded area and you go on the hunt for some new birds, perhaps a woodpecker.
You pack a compact pair of binoculars in your purse just in case you might need them.
You get a second copy of the field guide to carry in the car.
Now you want to keep track of your birds, listing those you have seen and identified.
You dream of seeing certain birds you have only studied in the field guide. It is like a treasure hunt only with birds.
Now in our family, we are at the point where we can hear lots of unidentified birds and we want to know who they are. As we hike along, many times the birds are high up in the trees and they are well hidden from sight but we can hear them loud and clear.
This is where this challenge has really challenged our family.
We decided that the hawk we hear many times each week is not the Red-tailed hawk but the Red-shouldered hawk. We are now going to take our good binoculars with us to see if we can get a good visual of the hawk the next time we see him soaring overhead. Now that we have armed ourselves with some good visual descriptions, we feel that we can tell the two hawks apart.
The boys surprised me when they said they didn’t know the song of the robin so they now know what to listen for in our yard. I hear the robin’s song early in the morning and I will point it out to them next time I hear it. The titmouse is one that I hear before I actually see him. His flight is so fast that it is easy to miss him but if we can listen for him in the trees, we will know he is there.
We have already picked out our next three birds to learn the songs for and it will fun as the weeks go by to increase our skill at identifying birds by their calls.
I purchased these two items last year and I have not used them as much as I would like to.
The IFlyer Wand and ScanBook: I saved up for this gadget and purchased it to help us identify birds by their calls. The wand reads the bar code of the bird in the book and it plays the bird call for you to listen to. You can also purchase stickers with the bar codes to put into your own bird field guide and scan those instead of the ScanBook that comes with the wand. This gadget isn’t as easy to use as I would like and I’m not sure at this point if it was worth the money. It is definitely fun to use but very expensive.
Someone told me that you can buy an app for your iPhone that does the same thing: iBird. They thought it was a great app but since I don’t have an iPhone, I haven’t checked it out personally.
Western Birding By Ear:This set of CDs helps you systematically work through bird calls. There are three CDs to listen to and a booklet to go along with the CDs. I think in the long run these CDs will be very beneficial and make the learning of bird calls much easier.
My boys have learned to use the iFlyer after going through this challenge. The CDs are now in our car and we will be listening to them as we do our weekly driving.
I look forward to hearing about your bird studies!
Today it snowed. Today it rained. Let’s just say we were surprised at how many birds we had in our feeders despite the crazy weather.
I had my Canon Rebel out again and did some practicing and experimenting with various settings.
This is a resident Western Scrub Jay in our Sweet gum tree. I like the little sticker balls in this photo.
This is my absolute favorite photo of the day. A pair of Mourning doves perched in the Sweet gum tree and did some posing just for me.
I love their little pink feet. They also make a wonderful sound when they fly. If you would like to hear what it sounds like, click over to Cornell and scroll down to where it has the listing for wing whistles. This is exactly what it sounds like.
Here is one of our many, many juncos sitting in the rain.
This photo is from yesterday and even though it is a little blurry, I thought you might like to see one of our Northern Mockingbirds with a tasty little treat in his mouth. He stopped on my neighbor’s mailbox and looked over his shoulder at me before flying off.
That’s enough birds for today……thanks for indulging my bird photography habit.
Our official count for Friday, February 12th:
3 Western scrub jays
12 Juncos
2 Spotted towhees
4 White-crowned sparrows
1 Titmouse
6 House finches
1 California towhee (unusual since we always see them in pairs except for today)
5 House sparrows
1 Anna’s hummingbird
1 American robin
1 White-breasted nuthatch
The white-breasted nuthatch is my favorite little bird right now. He is so acrobatic and he creeps up and down the trunks of trees. If you follow the link to All About Birds for the nuthatch, listen to the Pacific song and that is exactly what this bird sings to me just about every time I head outdoors.
We really enjoyed our counting of birds today since the sun was out and the air was warm. We have new binoculars for this year’s count and we all took a turn at scoping out the backyard feeders from the window. We were surprised to see the hummingbird, but it has not been totally unusual to see one or two at the feeder off and on all winter.
For the most part, all of these birds are permanent residents. The robin was singing so perhaps this is his home territory. We did not see our Nuttall’s woodpecker that comes to our feeder just about every day which is disappointing that we can’t count him in our tally. We will be counting again tomorrow so perhaps he will make an appearance then.
When were out for our walk today, Mr. A saw a red-tailed hawk. I saw two Canadian geese. They both are year round residents in our neighborhood.
Today we identified a new woodpecker in our yard…really exciting stuff.
He was hopping between the tree and the feeder, but I was able to snap a few photos to share with you.
Nuttall’s Woodpecker Picoides nuttallii
“The only black and white, zebra backed woodpecker with a black and white striped face normally found in California west of the Sierra. Males have red caps.”
Habitat: Wooded canyons and foothills, river woods, groves, and orchards.
I just love the unexpected nature study that happens along with real life. When you have to observe closely to identify a bird, you learn all kinds of things in the process. We learned that the Downy woodpecker that we normally see is very close to the Nuttall’s woodpecker but he has a big white spot on his back. Now we will be able to tell them apart quite easily.
We decided that woodpeckers are very beautiful birds. The two kinds we see most frequently are Acorn woodpeckers and White-Headed woodpeckers and although they are mostly black and white, they are truly lovely to look at.
“The clown-faced Acorn Woodpecker is a common bird of western oak forests. It lives in extended family groups, and all members of the group spend hours and hours storing thousands of acorns in carefully tended holes in trees and telephone poles.”
This tree is at my dad’s house and it has about a zillion holes in it from woodpeckers. He is plagued with woodpeckers pecking on the side of his house.
I found this old nature journal entry made for our backyard woodpecker….makes me smile.
We don’t have as much variety in our feeders or yard at this time of the year. The bird variety picks up as the winter marches on and by the time of the Great Backyard Bird Count, we are in full swing.
No woodpecker sightings this week but we enjoyed watching the birds we did have in our yard.
