Lets Do The Great Backyard Bird Count !!!

Have some nice numbers today in the yard although a Sharp-shinned Hawk keeps breaking up the party.

More reports coming in from New Jersey seeing over 200 Grackles in backyards. At least I'm not alone. I keep banging on the windows to get them to go away because Grackles can empty bird feeders in no time at all.

Quiet here, but was super glad to have reported a carolina wren yesterday. I only counted for about 1/2 hour yesterday but I must have picked the right hour!

Counted a single tufted titmouse on Sat. I am peeved as there were always 5 or 6 on the feeder earlier. DH heard them singing so they have probably scattered to nest.

I've had the same thing here with Titmouse and Chickadees.

I also am bummed. Just a week or two ago I had over 40 evening grosbeaks at my feeder and only saw a measly two over the weekend. As a matter of fact, the whole weekend was pretty darn quiet compared to some days. We have snow in the forecast now, so I am sure the activity will pick right up again, too late!

Here is my list for today.

Canada Geese - 11
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1
Dark-eyed Junco - 5
Dark-eyed Junco (slate colored) - 18
Northern Cardinal - 4
European Starling - 7
Red-winged Blackbird - 5
Common Grackle - 63
Mourning Dove - 2
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
Blue Jay - 2
Carolina Wren - 1
House Finch - 15
American Goldfinch - 1
Carolina Chickadee - 1
White-throated sparrow - 3

Has anyone checked back to see the counts from their areas or states?

not yet...will do that tomorrow!

I have. It's interesting to see that the number of people doing this is increasing here.

I checked the count & they said that no one from my town counted--so looked down the line & found a similar named town (which doesn't exist as far as I can tell) with one person & 12 birds which should be me. Afterall they do have the zip code so should of had it right. Very peeved.

There were 5 lists from Conway but most of the birds were just from 1 list (mine). One thing that stood out was 3 lists for a total of 28 Red-headed Woodpeckers. St. Louis just had 7 of them so I'm curious to see if the number holds.

I was also looking into certain species of birds. In this first case I looked at Pileated Woodpeckers. Seems Florida had the most counted.

http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/report?cmd=showReport&reportName=SpeciesLocation&species=pilwoo&year=2011

My town had 32 checklist, 3 of which were mine.

There were 6 from Coatesville...2 were mine this year. My day 3 list got mislaid somewhere so I did not get it reported.

In 2010 there were 4 list reported and 3 were mine.

Wow, some of you sure have a lot of birds. Are those counts for one day? I just put my feeder out last week. I have a pair of cardinals that come everyday. I have safflower seed in the feeder. I had a suet cake too but was not getting many birds, just squirrels. Then I noticed the cardinals really snapped up the droppings from it on the ground. I think they couldn't reach through the cage to the cake. So lately I've been crumbling some of it onto the safflower feeder and they really snap it up. Getting a few other birds too. I had a red headed woodpecker, and something I can't yet identify. It might be some kind of woodpecker. Black with a very definite white stripe (about 1/4 in all down the side), and some white on the head. I didn't see any red on it. I also put a pencil through the bottom of the feeder and now the cardinal perches there frequently instead of ground feeding so often. I think the feeder was not too good for the bigger birds, but is better now since I created a perch.

yup...one day!

Hi coleuslover, Those are some great ideas you had for the suet and perches!