Bird Watchers

[Clementine_3]

Love that movie! I watched it about a week or so ago. Again.

 

[lunatic59]

Looks like Bambi became breakfast over the weekend by the office parking lot.

Nature's clean up crew.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

I just want to see that yellow bird in the shurbs again.
It was a yellow finch. Not common to the city but common to my general area.

 

[Unforgiven]

Grackles are passing back through. Mean, ugly birds. Good news is that I have a full size Hairy Woodpecker (~10") that defends the suet by thrusting his beak at the grackles when try to swarm it. He leaves the other regulars alone, just goes after the grackles.

 

[MoodyBlues]

Grackles are passing back through. Mean, ugly birds. Good news is that I have a full size Hairy Woodpecker (~10") that defends the suet by thrusting his beak at the grackles when try to swarm it. He leaves the other regulars alone, just goes after the grackles.

I like all birds! They're all welcome in my yard.

 

[Unforgiven]

I like all birds! They're all welcome in my yard.

I mostly do. In fact I recognize many of the individual birds, especially the woodpeckers and bluebirds, that visit. The grackles are a non-native species, are only here for a few days as they do their seasonal migration, and will blanket my entire 1 acre yard and swarm the feeders trying choking all the others out.

 

[Clementine_3]

Grackles are native birds, do you mean stupid Starlings maybe?

 

[Unforgiven]

Grackles are native birds, do you mean stupid Starlings maybe?

Sorry, confusing myself as last year was the first time I identified either. Yes, starlings. Correct BS, wrong name.

 

[Clementine_3]

I get all happy when I guess Robin right

 

[MoodyBlues]

I mostly do. In fact I recognize many of the individual birds, especially the woodpeckers and bluebirds, that visit.

I love both of those, and had a lot of both at my house in Dallas. And cardinals! They nested in my yard. Even when it snowed, the cardinals knew to come to my patio for black oil sunflower seeds, and plenty of fresh, running water. The bluejays there are different from the ones here, and while ours are beautiful in their own right, I miss the other kind, with the prominent crown. (Being brutally honest, cardinals and bluejays are among the VERY FEW things I miss about Dallas. I loved my house and had some dear, wonderful friends, but this California native was never meant to live in the south.)

The grackles are a non-native species, are only here for a few days as they do their seasonal migration, and will blanket my entire 1 acre yard and swarm the feeders trying choking all the others out.

Hmmm... That's a lot!

 

[Unforgiven]

Hmmm... That's a lot!

Yeah, they are like a passing gang of bullies.

 

[MoodyBlues]

We'll soon be graced with a few families of Western Tanagers, who pass through LA as their migration takes them south. Some winter in SoCal, but I haven't seen any that do.

The families that visit my yard each spring come for its plethora of mulberries; I have at least 10 mulberry trees. The tanagers eat the mulberries right off the trees--unlike the peacocks, who generally just scavenge fallen berries. And then there's their purple peacock poop! (Which is the size and texture of a small dog's; it's not whitish liquid like most birds.)

Tanagers come and go all too quickly; they're here for only a few weeks, just until the mulberry trees stop fruiting. They're beautiful--mature males have vibrant yellow and orange coloration along with black. I love them!

 

[dontpanicbobby]

The seagulls are back! The seagulls are back!

 

[dontpanicbobby]

All I need is a Robin now.
Hard to get when my city cut down my neighborhoods trees.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Saw the Robin leaving my workplace. More like a Golden Ochre breast than Red though...
Boston thing I guess.

 

[lunatic59]

Saw the Robin leaving my workplace.

I hope it punched out first.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

My supervisor takes care of that. Glad he does I forget to sign in sometimes.
Back to birds...
Since I stopped working Downtown I don't see many raptor signs or Raptors for that matter...
Where do big raptors live in the US?

 

[lunatic59]

We live right along a migratory route. We get all kinds ... hawks, eagles, kestrels, kites, etc. The vultures and owls are full time residents.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

A vulture in Boston would probably be called a UFO.

We get big seagulls every now and again.

A bald headed eagle is a rarity confined to the Blue Hills Trail Museum.

 

[lunatic59]

We do see an occasional bald eagle, but mostly red tail hawks, goshawk, peregrine falcons, just to name a few. We have a local lookout on Hawk Mountain that tracks raptor migrations. This past fall they tallied over 1600 red tail hawks and almost 8k broad-winged hawks. And they say people were sighting juvenile bald eagles all the way into December.

 

[MoodyBlues]

All I need is a Robin now.
Hard to get when my city cut down my neighborhoods trees.

What? Why?! Where have they been in the decades since Earth Day started?

Here in Arcadia, we can't touch a tree without city approval. If a tree is dying and needs to be replaced, the city has to approve the type and size of its replacement. (These laws only apply to certain trees/placement of trees.)

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Is a flock of 60 Geese heading South a sign of an exceptionally cold winter? Usually the Geese hang around in Boston all year.

 

[Unforgiven]

Is a flock of 60 Geese heading South a sign of an exceptionally cold winter? Usually the Geese hang around in Boston all year.

Maybe those geese aren't from Boston, but just passing through?

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Well, I've been told they are Canadian Geese but they claimed dual citizenship to hang out here.

They were too high for me to make out any details of plumage.

The more I think about it they were only one football field worth. I've got to get back to the Muddy River and see if that gaggle is still there.

 

[Milo Willamson]

We are out in the country, and do not know how many birds we have in our yard, sometimes I hear like fifty different kinds of them, I have studdied enough of birds inside the bird book, and others are just a bit strange per egg, they mostly nest in our trees we have.