You know Nanny, I THOUGHT I was seeing less juncos too. Well, it's sad to see them go, but then soon I'll get my house wrens and hummers and robins back.
2008 Backyard Bird Count Plus Photo Contest
Here is my list from yesterday. As I said earlier I counted off and on all day and reported the most I saw at a given time.
American Goldfinch 218
Junco 60
European Starling 125
Northern Mockingbird 2
Bewicks Wren 1
Carolina Wren 1
Cardinal 25
Brown-headed Cowbirds 125
Downy Woodpecker 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
White Breasted Nuthatch 2
White Crowned Sparrow 20
Purple Finch 10
Red Tail Hawk 2
Mourning Dove 13
Tufted Titmouse 1
Carolina Chickadee 3
Fox Sparrow 2
House Sparrow 1
American Kestrel 1
Canada Goose 21
Great Blue Heron 1
BlueJay 3
Eastern Meadowlark 3
Song Sparrow 3
They are all still in a feeding frenzy today...supposed to rain later today and perhaps they are storing up!
Happy Counting Everyone,
Rose
Rose, thank you for setting me straight on the counting method. I must have misunderstood last year, and I didn't even look this year, but you are so right. It's much more fun that way b/c I can include all my favorites although I'm not going to have the kind of diversity that you have!
A yellow-rumped warbler was just outside my window. I tried taking a photo, but it's dark. I decided to sneak outside and use the flash. There's no sneaking around warblers however. I took this one of a white-wing drinking from the pond instead. Yes, another white-winged dove photo. I think the way that they stick their whole face in the water is just hilarious. Look how the flash made it look like I took it at night. Guess I can't take pics until tomorrow.
We're supposed to have a big storm too. I'm actually kind of frightened. They don't usually use words like "supercells", "tornadoes" and "large hail" a full 24 hours in advance. I'm hoping for the best for all of us and our bird friends.
This is so much fun!
Things are starting to get better now.
2 Turkey Vultures
2 Red-tailed Hawks
1 Coopers Hawk
1 Sharp-shinned Hawk
50 European Starlings
15 Dark-eyed Junco
5 Black-capped Chickadees
3 Northern Cardinals
1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
5 House Finch
4 Mourning Doves
2 Carolina Wrens
3 Blue Jays
2 Common Grackles
2 American Goldfinch
1 White-throated Sparrow
I'm still counting. :-)
Elpha, I hope the storm doesn't appear. Pelle
Elpha, I think we are suppoosed to get the same storm that you are going to get. The birds haven't stopped eating all day (except for running for cover when the Hawks do a flyover)! Really cute pic of the Dove...never seen one of those!
Way to go Pelle!!
This is a fraction of the Cowbirds and Starlings that won't leave!!
We just went to another location just 10 minutes away from here so I added
app. 1,000 Canada Geese. Have to get the rest identified.
Wow! How do you even count 1,000 birds?!!! That must have been an awesome sight!
What part of H-town are you in Elphaba? I'm down in the Clear Lake area. I saw a huge flock of cedar waxwings yesterday and couldn't believe it, first time to see them. I was jumping around like a kindergardener. Have you seen them around here before?
I've been seeing the Yellow rumped warblers here each evening for weeks. They never come to my feeers, but they chat away in the trees. And how about the white winged doves? Wow! I didn't know we had them and you seem to see them a lot! I have tons of the Euro-collared. Sometimes they outnumber the mournings!
BTW - How do you guys count so many birds at a time (100's???!!!) - they fly off too fast!
Did you guys see you can check on each state for tallies of individual species?
Notice the European Starling was the most numerous bird from all the reports.
http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/top10
That is very scary about the Starlings.
I just did a bird survey count this morning, and didn't get a single Starling at all . . . . can I have them back, please!
Resin
What do y'all do when you see a bird that is not on the list? I have a Virginia Warbler that has been coming to my pond for a bath everyday for a few weeks now. It took me forever to identify him since he wasn't in my eastern birds book b/c despite the name he's a western bird. I couldn't find him on the list, so he didn't get counted for Friday. I'm waiting to enter yesterday's count until I find out. Western visitors should get counted too!
rntx22, I'm just north of the Heights on the other side of the north loop-- really close to downtown, but in an old neighborhood with lots of trees! I've seen the Cedar Waxwings before but not often. I jump around when I see them too! I've started planting trees and bushes to attract them. They haven't noticed yet! The Clear Lake area has such great water fowl. I was driving down there to visit a friend and a Roseate Spoonbill flew low over my car. You have to love that!
Counting the waxwings was hard. Some flew away before they were counted, but most sat pretty still as I counted in groups of 5 like a mad woman! Today with the weather as nice as it is, I can just snap pictures and then count what I get in the pictures!
Last week before this bird count started, I had a Hitchcock's The Birds moment with the White-winged Doves. I counted 45. I haven't had near that many during this bird count. Maybe today!
Hope everyone came through the storm all right. The wind was just ferocious, but I didn't have much damage.
That is cool to checkout pelle! Gee, I'm the only one from Coatesville counting!! lol
I don't actually live in Coatesville, it's just that post office that is we are assigned for mailing address.
Resin....I would be very happy to send you all of our Starlings as well as the Cow-birds!
Elphalba, did you see that there is a place to check for an expanded list (rare sightings). Your bird might be on this list.
If it's not on the list, add it to the comment box
Here's a hint for backyard birdcounting--keep the cats in, LOL. Nary a ground feeder out there, usually have lots of song and white-throated sparrows. So far, my biggest bird count is of the vultures, egads. Got one cat in, the other is still AWOL. I don't have as many feeders as y'all as some were just too easy for the cats. Need to work on that.
I did just see see the vultures chasing a hawk. What caught my eye was that it seemed like it was the same size as the vultures but noticeably lighter in color, even from quite a distance. Couldn't get a positive id, probably just a red tailed, but hmmmmm.
This morning, I sat out in my neighbor's front yard in my pajamas taking 130 photos of a hawk sitting in a tree. I don't know why b/c I don't need to win the contest. I don't need binoculars. Apparently, I do need a new camera, b/c none of my shots turned out! Here's one of the less blurry ones b/c I feel the need to share. Also, I'm having trouble with ID. He was huge. Picture doesn't do him justice. He looked really large in flight. Seems to have thin black bands on tail (there's a shadow on the tail in the pic) but definitely to large to be a Cooper's Hawk and flew more like a red-tail. Could be Broad-winged or Red-shouldered, but seems to light underneath? When I saw him flying, I thought he was a red-tailed hawk.
Looks like Red-shouldered to me - the paleness I think is just due to the bright light, the shaded strip down the breast looks normal.
Resin
Today I did a 45 min. walk around my neighborhood and this is my list for today.
6 American Crows
7 Cardinals
1 Blue Jay
42 Canada Goose
8 Junco
1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
3 Downy Woodpecker
4 Carolina Chickadee
3 Titmouse
2 White-breasted Nuthatch
2 European Starling
This message was edited Feb 17, 2008 2:09 PM
Mrs. Ed, thanks for pointing out the expanded list. Not only did that work, but it was so cool. When I added the Virginia's Warbler, it came back saying that it shouldn't be in my area at this time and asked whether I was sure. I went through pictures and desriptions of all the warblers and decided that it must be an orange-crowned warbler! Neither is in my bird book, but apparently they are nearly identical but the orange-crowned does winter here. Its crown was hidden most of the time like a kinglet, but I could see it clearly and photographed it when it was bathing. Thanks again.
Elphaba…Nice! You are quite welcome.
Coo… Kept the cat in, but let the dogs out to chase off the squirrels!!!!
It's a rainy, mushy mess here today!
I turned in my count Sunday night for Saturday and Sunday bird watching. It was so much fun that I would like to try it when they have the GBBC again. Does anyone know how often they have the GBBC? It seemed like everybody who reported their count here was about the same as my count....House Finches first and American Goldfinches next.
Hope everyone had as good of an experience that I had.
Thanks,
Chuck
Well, I don't know… but I see that there is a year round watch through ebird.com and then of course the winter long feederwatch. I think it will be fun to do it in the summer when there are different birds around.
Hey all! Check out the photos in the 2008 GBBC gallery
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/gallery/2008
Neat! I like The Coopers Hawk, Pileated& Gray Jay.
Wow theres 20 pages of pics!
This message was edited Mar 12, 2008 8:42 PM
Some really interesting birds in there. I thought of you, Pelle when I saw the "Coopers Hawk vs. Sharped Shinned hawk."
Did you see the albino chickadee? All sorts of neat birds I've never seen before. Check out the Horned Larks.
Yes I did! Did you notice he had a light colored beak too?
He's cute. Must have been an exciting spot!
WOWIE!
Beautiful shots!
oh wow beautiful Gary!
Oh!!!! Ha! perched right at the top. I tried to keep looking at WHO the posters were. Any others of "ours"?
One of them is mine, but it's probably one of the worst shots in the gallery! Gary, yours is FABULOUS!!!
My obsession with the White-winged Doves proved fruitful. The White-winged dove on page 12 is mine. I accidentally uploaded the wrong picture but it made it to the gallery anyway. I should have cropped it so you could actually see the bird since I didn't zoom in on it! Live and learn. Next time! I'm excited that it's in the gallery with all of those really amazing pictures!
That's a nice picture. Is that YOUR pond? : she asks enviously:
Yes, it's my budget pond. I used cheap plastic from home depot instead of pond liner, so it wasn't a very big piece of plastic. Because it was so small, I made the pond shallow in most places, and the birds love it. I've had the pond for years now and the cheap plastic is still holding. I put in a bog filtration system, so I wouldn't have to clean and replace filters, and I got the rocks super cheap ($40) b/c someone had ordered a weird size and then never picked them up. I feel pretty lucky!
Nice! I was especially admiring the rocks.