New Feeders

It's been such a long time since my last post. I even had trouble finding my blog! After a few moments of panic, it turned out I had signed in with a different account. PHEW! I have quite enjoyed reading back through all my bird discoveries, and now I have new ones to share, in my own front yard. More on that in a moment.

It's a cold, blustery, snowy day out there today. And it's not even Thanksgiving yet! We've gotten about a foot of lake effect snow these last three or four days. I LOVE it. (As long as I have a nice warm house from which to observe it, and nice warm clothes to put on to go out into it, and great back-country skis with which to explore it...   I do count my blessings in times like these.)

Anyway, in this blustery weather, the birds have discovered a new bird-feeding paradise at our house...our feeder of the last few years on the blustery bay side is all but abandoned...because (drum roll, please) we have THREE NEW FEEDERS ON THE FRONT SIDE OF THE HOUSE!!

And it's all because of the cat! More on that in a moment, too.

I don't know why I never thought of this before. Here we have this one feeder, faithfully filling it with food all winter for the birds, but what a bad location! The wind howls in from the bay, the feeder sways wildly, the bone-chilling gales attack unimpeded, the poor birds--sure, they have food available--but what they have to go through to get it!

Picture now the other side of the house. Yes, the house, an enormous wind-block. An empty space with a few small trees, then a bank of evergreens blocking the view of the road. Into this empty space my friend Nan and I installed two bird-feeding stands, one of which has two hooks and one of which has the cutest little house. On one of the hooks is a double suet feeder, and on the other a squirrel-proof feeder...ingenious, really, as any creature too heavy (that's you, squirrel) causes the bottom platform to lower, blocking access to the food.

So where does the cat come in? Well, first of all, our family has expanded to include one lovely little calico cat, Belle. She came from Cherryland Humane Society (another story...I was helping my friend Kimberli take photos of all the new animals, and there she was, this VERY nice little cat, quite exceptionally nice, and knowing Mark is a cat person, and with the amazing fact that I have somehow lost my allergies to cats, and with over 40 cats at the Humane Society needing homes, and with Belle still there when I went to walk dogs two weeks later...what the heck? Okay, cat, you're busting out of here with me!).

So I took Belle to the vet a few days later, and what do they have at the vet's but a window with a bird feeder RIGHT OUTSIDE. And it was FILLED with birds! Yes, Dr. Harrison said, that's why this is the CAT ROOM (entertainment for cats!) and the other side (windowless) is the DOG room. Well, I had never been to the cat room, having only had dogs this whole time. V-e-e-e-r--r-r-y interesting!

So I got Belle all set up in her room upstairs (another story...it turns out Zoey, our little terriorist, has quite a strong prey drive, and we are taking it slow with the dog/cat interactions) and I'm looking out the window and thinking Hmm. Belle needs some entertainment up here! Because she is going to be an inside cat (with claws, but an inside cat).

Off I went to Wild Birds Unlimited, where they were having a 27% off sale on all bird feeders due to their 27th anniversary in business...and presto, we have bird-feeding paradise right in front of our house! And, incidentally, in front of the kitchen window, too, which is SO NICE!

But now I'm so distracted by all the new birds that I can't walk by the kitchen without stopping and gaping.

It took them about a day and a half to find it, but boy are they there now! And new ones! So here are the sightings this morning:

red-breasted nuthatch!
dark-eyed junco!
white-throated sparrow!

These are all new ones for me.

We also have our usual cast of characters, looking so beautiful in the falling snow: Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, some blue jays, a lot of titmice, chickadees, mourning dove, even a crow balanced precariously on top of the house. I can see I'm going to have to fill that little house frequently. It's the most popular bird restaurant. So far no squirrels, though I don't really mind if they do get into it. Heck, they have to eat, too.

So where are the pictures??? Well, that brings me to my other news: we have an exchange student from Thailand staying with us this school year. And she took photography at TC Central High School this term, and she needed a camera. So my camera has been with her. The trimester just ended, though, and I got the camera back, but after snapping just a few pictures this morning, the battery went dead, so it is now recharging and we will be back in bird-photographing action shortly. Stay tuned!

Out and About

Our household now consists of Mark, myself, our 16-year-old dog Maggie, and a 7-month-old puppy, Zoey. Yes, a grandma and a baby...well, more like a teenager now. Walks with Maggie have been reduced to saunters at best, but with Zoey, I find myself out and about a lot more, ranging far and wide. And on these trips I am mostly remembering to bring my binoculars and do some bird-watching at the same time (as much as you can do with a noisy puppy along). I've been pretty lucky lately; here are a few of my recent sightings.

From a walk by West Bay:

House sparrow

Unknown! ID needed.

The unmistakable red-winged blackbird

Handsome fellow

Caught mid-song!

Mrs. Red-Winged Blackbird

Only saw him through the leaves, but here he is: the rose breasted grosbreak!

From a walk behind Building 50 (the old state hospital grounds), one of my very favorite places to go:

Indigo bunting!!

Song sparrow

So sweet!

Another view of the bunting

A walk at Center Road Natural Area, just a mile and a half from our house...

Pileated woodpecker

We were very close, but Zoey didn't see him at first.

Oh, now she sees him!

We went to investigate what he had been eating. Maggie, too (she's at the top of the photo).

Later, in the meadow, we observed some crows pestering a red-tailed hawk.

Finally, back at home, we had some excitement, too:

The common grackle has found our feeder. I think it's uncommonly iridescently beautiful!

Sighted yesterday about four houses up on our street. Wow!

Northern flying squirrel at the suet feeder! What the heck?

Not a bird, but does "fly."

Porcupine spotted out for a midnight walk by Rite-Aid Pharmacy.
We were driving home and Mark's excellent eye picked him out along the road.

Maggie was actually along for many of these excursions. Come to think of it, bird watching and sauntering go quite well together.

Chipping Sparrow

Out at the park near my house recently I saw two new birds.  Both had rusty caps, and one had yellow streaks alternating with maybe white or brown? along the head and neck.  Two yellow streaks, I'm pretty sure of it.  And a streaky breast.

The other had a rusty cap and a black eye line and a non-streaky breast.  This turned out to be the chipping sparrow, confirmed by my handy Sibley app on my phone which played its call, matching what I was hearing.

So I went back with camera in hand a few days ago, and managed to take a few pictures.  It's a little blurry, but definitely a chipping sparrow!

I still don't know what the other bird was, and can't find anything like it in my books.  I haven't seen him or her again.

Here's an old friend at the feeder, caught in the sunlight with her eye ring matching the bay:

Spring Has Sprung!

A lot has happened since last July, but I am going to have to just jump in with the present and fill in the rest later, as time allows.  Because this morning I saw a brand new bird!  A Baltimore Oriole!  Being from the Maryland area originally, I was particularly excited.  Plus, we just hardly ever get new (to me) birds at the feeder.  I've pretty much accustomed myself to the usual cast of characters: chickadees, titmice, cardinals, the occasional house finch and blue jay, sometimes a woodpecker (red-bellied, downy, very rarely a hairy) or two. Oh yes, and mourning doves.  (That doesn't count the birds in the water...mallards, mergansers, Canada geese, mute swans, ring-billed and herring gulls.)

But there he was, startlingly different! Flaming orange chest, black on top with white on the wings...yep, Baltimore Oriole.  Fortunately, I happened to have the binoculars out and got a good look; unfortunately, he didn't stick around long enough for the camera.  It's usually one or the other; I can see why two partners, one with binocs and one with camera, work well together (Jane and Randy; Deanna and Wilfried).

But here are a few pictures I have managed to take in the last few days...yesterday was the first sighting of goslings:

And a few days ago, I observed a conversation between two seagulls, which turned into something more:

Which brings to mind a question: why do I never see little seaglets running around? Where do they keep them until they're grown? 

And finally, our old friend the cardinal, looking particularly dapper:

Pigeons of Turkey

Okay, I'm not even going to try and make you guess.  I went to Turkey in June.  (I have been very fortunate to have been able to travel a lot these past few months!)  While the scenery was INCREDIBLE, the bird life was not so dramatic.  Of course, it didn't help that I didn't have a field guide to Turkish birds.  But even with my limited bird knowledge, I could recognize our friend the rock pigeon when I saw him.

Bonus white dove(?)  in this photo.

Other birds seen in Turkey include the following sparrow-like varieties:

Then there was this fellow, looking out of a pipe:

Interesting head shape!

Here we have some kind of swallow, I believe.  There were a whole bunch of these sitting on a wire at the ruins at Patara.

A few more unidentified avians to round out the sampling:

So there you have it!  I did see many swallows flying around, but they were hard to get a picture of.  And I think the Turkish people are raising pigeons for their poop for farming purposes...hence the plethora of pigeons.  Here is the exotic home of these pigeons:

Let's back up a little to get the bigger picture:

And even more, for an idea of the landscape:

Not bad digs, eh?

We passed these bags on one of our hikes...

...which we surmise are filled with pigeon poop, thus lending credence to our pigeon-raising theory.

Finally, just for fun, here's a photo of me and my traveling companions, friends Claire and Gillian:

It was a wonderful trip!