DAILY BIRD PICS VOL. 354

If anyone is interested, the series GREAT MIGRATIONS starts on the National Geographic channel tomorrow. Check your local listings.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/

I wasn't able to get a pic, but a first of season host of Chipping Sparrows showed up in my backyard this morning! I guess the cooler weather brought them in. Woo hoo! I love winter birding.

The little stinker squirrels broke down 3 suet feeders from the tree's. Two were in regular suet baskets and another was in an upside down suet feeder. All were filled with Hot Pepper suet.

I guess they must be hungry but they broke the chains on both of the suet baskets so now I only have a hanging log suet feeder in the tree that they haven't disturbed yet. I did put an extra suet feeder on the baffled pole system for the birds but I know they prefer the ones on the trees, I won't be replacing them as it will just happen again but this will certainly save me a lot of money as I can use cheaper or homemade suet on the pole system.

Fantastic pictures everyone.
Pelle, that's a beautiful leucistic hawk at Cape May. We had one here a couple years ago, but I never got to see anything but a photo.

I'm way behind on my photos, but here's an Oak Titmouse.

And a Spotted Towhee.

Wonderful shots duc! Love the Oak Titmouse!

Oh that is too bad pelle!

I love that Oak Titmouse...such a cutie!

My Hairy Woodpecker must have heard I was missing him....he showed up late today!! :)

Had a Yellowed-bellied Sapsucker today too! ;0)

Thank you nanny_56, I have seen this bird on our suet cake twice and could not identify, it is a yellowbellied sap sucker! I have never seen him or her on anything else but the suet cake, we have finches, woodpeckers, nuthatches,and occasionly 2 Blue Jays,and of course squirrels. We had older feeder and the squirrels knocked it down and broke it, then we got another one, this one is called Perky Pet and so far they have not figured out to get into this one, they have been trying and one fell off the bottom and hit the ground with a thump! They are very determined creatures!!! I am not going to say that it is going to stop them from trying, but hopefully it slows them down. I have a question, why are Blue Jays so mean? I mean something so pretty to be so mean, can anyone tell me why.

Got up on the wrong side of the nest?

I feed the Bluejays whole raw peanuts in an area not too near the other feeders and they don't bother the other birds. Maybe you could try that.

Glad you were able to ID your bird, kc!

I can't answer the Blue Jay question. It has been discussed here before with lots of folks having that problem. The personalties do vary in individual birds of course & I also imagine the availabilty of food influences behavior.

I live in a rural area with lots of wood around with natural food plus I provide a variety of foods so I have not really had the issue of bully jays. Mine make a racket when they come in but don't bother any of the other birds. Maybe in part because I use an open platform feeder plus pans on the ground with cat food for them & the crows.

This guy passed thru the other morning, when I took this shot. Had one this morning too, so will have to download the camera later. I am really hoping they will come during the winter this year since they skipped spring this year. Had a flicker this morning too!

Pileated Woodpecker



This message was edited Nov 7, 2010 11:01 AM

Thanks, I was so sure that the bird was a sap sucker, but when I went to the bird page, it did not look at all like what your picture was. So I am still confused, it looked exactly like your picture, and it loves the suet cake, but it does not come over very often. I have only seen it twice, it is not a regular visitor, maybe it was just passing through. And it only eats suet, I have not seen it on any of the other feeders.

I had a very rare and unusual visitor for this part of the country. Oddly, the female is more flashy than this male Rusty Blackbird.

Great photos everyone! I just love all those in the woodpecker family! They are so much easier to spot in winter, and we get several visitors at our third floor balcony! Hubby and I are in the process of getting our balcony ready for winter, with natural perches for the birds so we can take lots of photos!

Wonderful about the piliated wp.

Love that good old Massachusetts humor, iris!

Our posts came in at the same time, iris. I meant humor about 'wrong side of the nest,' not about pileateds.

KC, it might help to look at several photos. They always don't match exacly in color depending on area, age of bird, time of year etc. The sapsuckers are occasional visitors here too. More so during the winter then other times of the year.

Tigerlily, congrats on your new bird! That is a great photo!

I found out it was a juvenile sap sucker, that is why it was so confusing to me. All I could find was adult birds, and they don't look anything like what I had. They are so pretty, he don't come very often like I said, unfortunaltely I would like to get a pic of him, but as soon as I open the door, he flies and I don't see him anymore for quite awhile and when I do, I don't have the camera. I saw a nuthatch eating a peanut today, I did not know that they liked peanuts! But they do, I am learning a great deal about birds. I enjoy this page, like I said I am learning new things and more birds to look for. Wintertime brings a lot of new birds so I am going to start a sort of bird diary to write down when we have a new bird.

Great idea to keep a diary! You will be surprised how fast you get to add birds I bet. Lots of birds enjoy peanuts, especially during the winter. They provide a great source of fat & protein for birds.

Got the picture sform this morning downloade. The Pileated this morning was a female!!
That was nice since we get the males much more often.

The Northern flicker was a very handsome male....

Here's lookin at you! :)

I love the flickers!

Congratulations tiger! That's a great one to have.

Nanny, I am so envious of your Pileated.

Wonderful pics guys!

It is so odd the different behavior on different days, one day I will get up and look out and there are birds all over the place, get up another day and no birds whatsoever. I guess it might be a hawk somewhere or a cat or maybe not hungry. The new feeder is really cutting down on how fast the seed is going, instead of filling once or twice a day, now we don't have to fill it quite so often, so it goes further. And seed IS expensive!!! I have a camera which looks outside and I can see that the birds are coming back now. Who knows why they do that, maybe they have to take a siesta too, can't eat 24 hours a day, have to rest a little.

Would love to see what feeder you are using. Any chance of a photo?

Wow, I sure missed a lot of great photos!

We always see the Western Bluebirds in our neighborhood, but yesterday several of them decided to come up to our upper deck for photos.

Here's one more. The birds were trying to get some berries from a vine on the fence below but a nasty Mockingbird kept chasing them away.

The rain came yesterday and with that I can always count on the raptors showing up. A pair of Bald Eagles kept me busy for a while.

This one came at me and I tripped backwards, but got my shot before it went over the house.

I will try to get a picture of the new feeder, if you go to the Perky Pet feeder page, you will see the feeder, it sells for $34.00 or a little more. I love watching the squirrels try to get in it, the acrobatics they perform are amazing sometimes. It has 8 holes for the birds to eat at and it is surrounded with a metal frame that deters squirrels. I was watching one the other day and he was really trying his best to figure out how to do it, and he finally gave up and went up on the trellis and was barking and chattering because he was so mad! We also have a big red-headed woodpecker, he is huge! I was watching him on the suet cake the other day, he was hungry! I will try to get pics of our birds, if they will stay still long enough:)

One more to share...

My my Duc that Eagle was close. Wonderful shot!!! The Bluebird are lovely too.
Nanny the flickers are really nice, love the expressions, Would love to see both Pileated and Flicker in my yard.
Tiger, congrat on the Rusty Blackbird.

It's been raining for 2 weeks, so tired of it. This Bohemian Waxwing pic is from Oct..28

Same for this Bluejay.

The Black-capped Chickadee showing off his seed.

Love the Eagle and Bluebird shots Duc!!

Burn, Sorry about all your rain. Love the Bohemian Waxwing! You will find this interesting, an Evening Grosbeak (female) was seen in Southern New Jersey today.

Nice pics, especially love the Eagle shots. Just one pic from me, heard a new bird voice this morning and it was this lone Robin, first for the winter.

Wow on the eagle duc!

I bet that robin will have company soon GP! We hadn't seen any in the yard for a while but last week we had a few pass thru getting water and then were off.

Seems everyday we have a few more Dark-eyed Juncos around.

Just had a titmouse up here scratching on the window screen....about jumped out of my chair! lol

Seems like there is always a White-breasted Nuthatch out back somewhere!

or a Carolina Wren acting like a nuthatch! lol