Morning Bluebird.

While walking this morning---

Bluebird with lunch.

VERY nice trois!!

Wow Trois!

Lucky you! I love Bluebirds! Please post more pics of them when you can. Thanks for sharing!

Great photos!

Marilyn

Thanks, pelletory. I will try to set up a bird cam there tomorrow and with a fill flash, maybe some better shots. Hopefully.

I will try, Marilyn. There are a lot of them around, but they usually stay in the heavy brush.

oh i love the Blue Birds

According to the experts, there are none living in Galveston county, where Ilive. We see them every day.

i have tried and tried. No blue birds for me yet. Used to see one in the neighborhood. No more. Im still hopefull and trying tho.

We live not too far from a golf course. In the winter the bluebirds around here band together and go hang out there. On nice days they come back into the neighborhoods - I think they go looking for spring time real estate then lol. When we were on our trip up north I got a new pole and bluebird house to replace the one I had in the front yard last year. The old one was on a post and my neighbor's cat figured out how to climb up and sit on the roof of the house! While it was down and before the new one went up I would see the blue birds now and then, come by and look for it. Here's the new one. I'm thinking of putting a second one up on the other side of the front yard as there are always very dramatic fights each spring for the ownership of this house. I have one in the back too.



This message was edited Jan 6, 2007 9:00 AM

Here's a picture of the male on top of last year's house.

GREAT pic Susan!!!

Very good!

Gorgeous photo!

Thanks for sharing.

Marilyn

Thanks guys! I'm hoping a family takes up residence and I can get more shots this summer.

Lilyfan,

If they do, try and get shots of the young ones too.

Marilyn

Oooo, Susan, where did you get that pole and baffle? I love the looks of that. Dont tell me NJ....

Hi Halo! I got it at a Wild Birds Unlimited store in Pa. I love it. I wish I had gotten two of them. The nearest WBU store here is an hour and a half away. The house came from Walmart though! It even has a plexiglass wall where the door swings open.

Lilyfan,

Do you know if snakes can 'get around' that baffle?

I would guess that they can't but don't know for sure.

You are so lucky, trois! I didn't know that we had bluebirds here in Texas....sure wish that they would visit the Hill Country. :) Great photos..!

Melanie

Melanie, I have seen a couple in Austin. I didn't get a good look as to color, but the flying pattern was unmistakable. Each species of birds has a distinctive flying motion. I can recognize most at a great distance by this alone. I learned this when I was young. In Bermuda I worked with the Woods Hole birders doing Ids from radar returns. It was fun.
We are lucky. Lots of people think I have super eyesight because I name a distant bird, and when it nears they also can Id. Bluebirds hide in dense brush much of the time.

Does anyone have mountain bluebirds?

Long story, but this bird was in my neighbor's aviary. I took the pic when I went to determine if it was releaseable. (It was.) We don't have them in our area; this one had been found injured in much higher elevation in northern Arizona.

Magpied,

Beautiful bird! Great pic! Thanks for sharing.

When I was growing up on the farm in Oklahoma, there were hundreds of mountain Bluebirds in the coldest weather. As they flew and turned in sunlight, it looked like a blue flash of lightning.

I have blue birds in our Slidell, Louisiana yard. Does anyone have a problem with them flying at and pecking at your windows? I haven't figured out whether they are eating bugs, of which I don't see any, or are them reacting to their reflections. The strange thing is that it's always the same window on the opposite side of the house from feeders and bird houses.

Probably their reflection. I have never seen any bird other than Cardinals do this. They keep the mirrors on my car messed up all spring every year.

Here's a female Pileated Woodpecker peeking in the neighbor's front window ..... or admiring her hairdo.

GREAT pic Linth!!!

Wow! Great Pic! I wish they wern't so fearful here. There are a lot of them around, few seen.

Thanks, pelletory and trois. I had a wonderful and unforgettable experience with the Pileated Woodpeckers in 2004 and 2005 that I have shared on Dave's Garden in the past. The Pileated Woodpecker is my favorite bird.

Trois, as you mentioned they tend to be fearful most of the time. But, in those two years, I was allowed to get within a few feet of them. They loved my cars (reflection) and hung around my house for almost a month.

At some point, I will start a new thread and re-introduce some of these Pileated Woodpecker photos for the benefit of some of the newer viewers.

I am looking forward too seeing your pics!

Wow!! I love that pileated photo!! And I remember your posts and wonderful photos of the pileated looking in your car's side mirror - I ws just FASCINATED by those pictures and looked at them many times! They are wonderful. The picture you posted above looks other-worldly. They really are amazing looking. It makes you believe tht birds are descended from dinosaurs (or pterodactyls anyway lol). I can only image what an ivory billed looks like as they are even larger aren't they?

Fabulous photos, as usual!

Magpied, the bluebird is beautiful.

Linth, the Pileated Woodpecker shot is awesome - the odds of catching such an 'event' must be about a million to one! I too look forward to seeing more of your woodpecker pictures!

Oh trois, I am so green with envy. I have put out feeders, birdbaths and bludbird houses and I still cannot entice them to visit. I just don't have enough open space :o(

Linth, the pileated woodpecker picture is one of the best I have ever seen! I cannot get them to visit either.

Oh well, I will just have to look at y'all's photos. So, please post more.

Kim

It took amost a year to get birds to our feeder.

One morning I heard a tremendous hammering noise right outside my garden gate. Everyone around us that had hurricane damage is pretty much finished all their rebuilding but some are still doing olds and ends. The noise was so loud I thought it was my neighbor hammering away. I stepped out of my back door and spotted a pair of pileateds pecking away on my garden gate. I stayed quiet to see how long they would stay. It lasted about another 30 seconds before they spotted me. They flew to a nearby tree then flew away. I had never seen them down this low before. I have seen them in the pine trees in the front and rear yard on a regular basis. Usually in the early morning. I would have loved to see one at my window.