Show me your feeders!...Part 2....

Oh Becky! My nice big picture window is 1 foot wide, lol. It's all in the line of vision though. It took me years to find just the right spot to take fairly decent pictures without disturbing them, or myself being in the elements, (heat & cold outside).
That's a great Hawk! I am not sure what kind, but i love it! Wonder if someone else in your area feeds birds(?) hum
.. If you put feeders, they will come... even more if they have a good place to hide (thorney bush in my case), and dodge the Hawk. I wouldnt worry about him though, he can only eat one at a time. There is safety in numbers, and the feeder birds will come for good seed, etc.

Here's Mocker, again....

LOL you asked, and I was posting this pic at the same time.... er go mealies in Mockers mouth up there^^^
Meal worms.


Orange-crowned Warbler had some too...

Deb - You have a regular smorgashborg (sp?) in your yard! Do you charge them to eat at your house? LOL No wonder you have so many birdies. Looks like gourmet bird food to me. If I was a bird, I'd be at your house!

So...... I take it that mealies are worms? (Oops we were posting at the same time.) So what kind of store would sell mealies? A fishing bait store?

My neighbor three lots down from me feeds the birds, too. She is the one who gets the colorful Buntings in her yard.

This message was edited Jan 16, 2007 11:16 PM

Then we have our little Kinglet acrobat this morning on the insect suet..

This little guy is about 3"long, including that sassy tail>>

mrs_colla,
I think your id request was overlooked. Try this link for the California Thrasher. If that isn't it then look at brown creeper, flycatchers, or just page through the photos. It looks like in your picture it has a crooked sharp bill; hopefully you can get an id.
http://www.birdphotography.com/

Thank you Sheila, I will check it out!

I have been looking too Christi,
It's hard to ID up in the tree like that..Can't see the whole wing or the tail. If you think it comes to your yard often..You could set some meal worms out in a place where you can get a close up. I can tell by the beak they like mealies, and flies. I've looked through one of my books, and now I will look at the other 2..I'm stumped so far.

I bet Resin would know, right off the bat!

You can post a new thread in this Bird Watching fourm and you will probably have your answer in less than 24 hours...These guys are good!

Becky, Everything looks great! The birds will come soon. If the Hawks there everyday be sure to keep us posted.

The mealy worms can be bought at any wild bird store, Petsmart or online places.

Wow that bird of Christies in the tree has a large beak. Yes Resin will know.

I was thinking Thrasher too, but could it be Crissal's? The distribution comes close to Christi, but a lot of that is changing.

http://www.utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/Profiles/CrissalThrasher.htm

No, not Crissal. Crissal's beak is longer and more decurved. She took the pic *here* in Arizona a few days ago. In the Phoenix area. Where I live. :-) Crissal's thrasher is very rare and not in this locale.

I love bird watching. Can anyone tell me what camera or lens they use to get great shots of birds and wildlife? I live near a wetlands and even have pileated woodpecker families close by. My camera is just not doing the job.
Thanks,
Teresa in KY

You go magpied! CB looks like it might just be the one...Another picture would help for sure. ((Certainly it *couldn't* be Crissal's, lol.))

We have about an inch of snow this morning, and it is still coming down. I hope this little one found a warm place to curl up.

Orange-crowned warbler Vermivora celata...

WONDERFUL pic deb!!!

Thanks Pelle! Thank you Resin!
This morning everything is covered with snow.. a little seed, and the few (frozen now) mealies from yesterday. Little OC Warbler lit on that same branch again.. So I rushed out and replinished, but the snow is still falling at 25*f. I will probably go out again and stir them up a bit..LOL!

Robin came for a quick survey of everything and a drink..

This message was edited Jan 17, 2007 8:24 AM

Bluegrassmom, I think you would hear quite a variety of cameras and lenses! I have a Sony SLR and use a 300 mm lens (it's actually 70-300 and of course it depends on how close I am). Be sure to share your pics when you get a new camera - your wetlands with the Pileated families would be wonderful to see!!!

Grackle mob coming in for buttermilk cornbread, lol. "Hey lady, can you defrost this, please??"

bluegrassmom,
Here is an example of a DG thread someone started about choosing a Digital Camera. If you add Photography to your forums in preferences you will see a lot of talk and proof of what cameras do, how much they cost, etc... This is a very helpful place!!

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/621389/

May I show my todays shooting hours?
Birds I have never seen before, I'll try to look them up before I bother all of you again!
Christie

pretty bird!

two more...

Last one. The other pictures are on my website, the "January" folder.
Thanks for looking :-)

Christie

Last one is a Downy Woodpecker, nice pics. I'll check the others.

Pelletory,
a woodpecker?! Great, I didn't know they can be so little!!!
You are too kind, looking up all "my" birds, I appreciate it sooo much, thank you!

The one on the branch might be a Yellow Warbler.

Great photos Christie! Do you take your photos through a window? Or do you have a really good zoom lense on your camera? They are so clear and close-up!

The others are (lesser?) goldfinches & of course a way cute *robin*.

Edited because I'm not sure of the lesser part. I'd have to look up whether other goldfinches could be in your area at this time.

This message was edited Jan 18, 2007 6:13 PM

Becky, I sit on my front porche. Compared to the area in front of it, it must be dark to them. I wear brown clothes, and they don't seem to see me. I use a Nikon D50 with a tele lens.

Was 34 degrees this morning!

Magpied, double YEAH for me; I love Robins, because they eat the caterpillars off my Brugmansias, and I had a dear canary get lost last summer, and if the finches and warblers survive, I think he might have too!

Thank you all birdpeople, this is the funnest thread for me. I love birds, but being from another continent, I know nothing overhere...

Christie - Oh my! You sit in the cold and wait! WOW! Now that is a die-hard photographer! How far away are you from the feeders? I'm just curious since I just put feeders up in my yard and want to try to get some photos, too. Dark clothes. That makes sense. The butterflies in my yard don't pay much attention to me when I wear green. LOL

I agree with you, Christie! This is a great thread!!!!

No problem. The Downy is the smallest and most common of our woodpeckers. I just love them, their very brave and you can get real close to them before they fly away.

Oh dear, I'll have to show my "European feathers", I only know meters... So, I am about 3 to 6 meters away, and the front porch is a bit higher than the ground.
The titmice, now that's another thing. They are SO fast, impossible to get a crisp picture!

We have quite a few tufted titmice coming thru right now.....absolutely wonderful little birds and rather shy here...getting just a single seed from my feeder and flying away with it, lol :)

Melanie

Christie - great pictures!!!!

I'm really bad about picking up my camera, but I have a landscape & feeder that seems different from the ones posted so far.

This is looking out my front deck toward the river at dawn a few days ago ... I only have a suet feeder, on the left shepherd's crook, and the Victorian-style seed feeder on the right. I get every kind of woodpecker in my birding book, including the nuthatch (not really a woodpecker, though, right?). Except haven't seen a pileated yet. We can't build fences & nobody here has heard of an understory, so they just mow everything, but I DO have huge, gorgeous trees: oaks, maples, tulip poplars, spruces & pines.

This message was edited Jan 18, 2007 9:30 PM

Wow! That is absolutely glorious - what an incredible setting you have there!

And here's a closeup of the seed feeder. It was pricey, somewhere between $120 & $150, but I loved its looks. Not knowing anything about birds, I got lucky: Not only does it provide a protective cage for the small 'uns, it is nearly squirrel proof. This spring, an enterprising baby would get in there & chow down, but he quickly got so fat that he couldn't fit through the cage. One morning he could, one morning he couldn't! So he gnawed on the metal for awhile but got nowhere.

I don't mind the squirrels like most people do but my dog probably keeps them in line.

Occasionally, this seed feeder gets water in & I have to clean out the seeds, and I've repainted parts to stop rust, but in retrospect it was a great investment.

We really get the birds here. That A-frame you see is actually a squatter's shack on the island; there's more river on the other side. To the left, you can see where the island peters out --- in the summer there's a gigantic sandbar there where everybody pulls their boat up & the kids & dogs frolic in the shallows. We all have pontoon boats.

It's a VERY shallow river, so quite warm in summer. Last winter it froze over but this winter we've just had rain after rain after rain so the water is several feet higher than normal.