DAILY BIRD PICS VOL #376

A pair of House Finches enjoying the sun.

A Cooper's Hawk watching my feeders.

A Western Meadowlark.

An American Pipit found at the wildlife refuge.

And an American Wigeon also found at the refuge.

Awwww, Duc, the Brownheaded Cowbird is pretty. I saw them gathering on sidewalk when I visited Ca. last year, they can be pretty tame around people. The cooper hawk is quite a handsome lad. But the Western Meadowlark is as cute as can be.

Just before the day ends yesterday, I was lucky to capture some of the pictures of this Great Blue Heron with its final meal for the day;

This is what I woke up to this morning, I tweaked it and it came out beautiful! I don't know whether it is snow or ice, but it was pretty.

duc, I second the meadowlark - nice pic, love the hawk as well.

teddy - brrrr!

Lily, So good you could catch the Heron with that nice size meal!

Duc, Nice ones! Love the Meadowlark.

Lots of snow here today and coming down much heavier tonight!

Welcome back Susan! Any butterflies yet? LOL.

Duc, I am still so jealous of the variety of birds you are seeing both at home and in your area.

Rian, love seeing birds from your neck of the wood too!


So, continuing on my peanut theme yesterday.

Female cardinal got in on the action.

And here's a blue jay that found some peanuts further down in the tree.

Another Blue Jay taking off for a lower destination.

all wonderful shots ,love the preening ,blue jays are beautiful.Just love them all.

Good catch on the Cardinal Mrs Ed!

Ooh I think someone maybe able to help I.D. the Heron's catch? Wild Rose, do you think this a shad? Or is that a small catfish?

Mrs. Ed, your Jays and Cardinals are so industrious! 2/3 of my raw peanuts from the feeder is gone--to the squirrels and none of my birds has gotten to them. I'm so blue.

Got this pretty female cardinal a while ago.

Do you think that you can use the Squirrel Stumper with peanuts as well as mixed seed and sunflower seeds? I am running out of seeds, and I would like to feed the wp some peanuts but don't have the money to buy another feeder. Already have the Squirrel Stumper, suet cake, and platform feeder, don't have room for another one, so do you think it would double as a peanut feeder?

I see you guys/gals been busy. Been so cold and all the watering holes are frozen so I have not had much luck lately.

Well, I'm finally back - my old Dell Dimension computer crashed. I bought me a brand new super-duper custom assembled one from a computer shop here in Columbus. It is taking me a while to get used to WIndows 7, it is a lot different than XP. Man, so many programs to re-install.

Way too many great pix for me to comment on like I usually do.

I have some pix to share from before CC (Computer Crash).

Thankfully I had Mozy.com. Got all my stuff back.

Hack

My first one back is a Pine Warbler.

And here's a male Downy.

Gold Finch.

I like my little Chipping Sparrows.

This message was edited Jan 26, 2011 7:15 PM

Oops, new computer, lol
Hack

This message was edited Jan 26, 2011 7:17 PM

My last one for now is one of my ever-present male Cardinals.

Bye,
Hack

Wooohooo, Hack, I like your super dubber new pc. lol. Welcome back. Please tell me if this is a shad the Heron has gotten?

Forgive me, the pix is so blurry.

Welcome back Hack, it took you long enough!lol! I had my ever present Cardinal today and my little wren was back. So here is the Cardinal.

And here is the wren. He likes to hide under the top of the birdbath.

This guy I call Mr.Piggy, he made sure all the coated seeds were gone and he sat on the platform feeder getting the ones that were on the bottom.

I need your expert advice Hack, I have the feeder called squirrel stumper, do you think if I put broken up peanuts in that feeder it would work? I don't have money for a regular peanut feeder and no room either. I went to several web pages and they told how to make a peanut feeder, but I don't have the tools to do it with, so can you give me some suggestions? Any suggestions, I want to attract more woodpeckers with more than the suet cake and seeds. Thanks in advance. This is the feeder.

teddy, I do believe that if you somehow chipped the peanuts into smaller pieces, lots of birds would come.

Hack

Peanuts are not really regular bird food, are they. I am surprised that so many people use them. We have a basket feeder & suet feeder with long board underneath so wp can brace thie tails agaist it for balance. We are out of suet at the moment & with all our snowstorms have not bother to drive to the feed store for more. I think that suet is helpful in this cold weather, but the nuthatches & t. titmice like it as well as the woodpeckers.

iris, I would not feed them to birds exclusively. Here, read this:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080127161924AAFfr9O

Hack

This message was edited Jan 27, 2011 2:09 AM

The peanuts and sunflower seeds are both high in fat and bad for their liver. When we first got our parrot the vet told us to get him off of that type of diet which we did.

Domesticated Parrots are different because they live so many years and eat exclusively what we give them.

Wild birds diet consist mainly of insects, fruit and then whatever they eat at the peoples bird feeders. The numbers I've heard is that wild birds diet from bird feeders only consist of 20% of their diet. If that is still true that isn't too bad.

BTW, the fungus mentioned by the second poster in that link comes from the shell of the peanut.

Cape weaver - pics grainy - but check out the eye!

Cape bulbul and Black or Amethyst Sunbird

This is a female Black/Amethyst Sunbird

I thought this pic (grainy) was also a female, but then realized I saw a bit of purple there - and to complete the family a juvi MALE Amethyst Sunbird