Taken by my cheap, old digital camera on Sunday during the bird counts
Purple Finch - distinction from house finch is the bars on the chest of females and the red on the back of males with the notched tail.
Male Downey Woodpecker
Some sort of Sparrow - I want to say it is a chipping sparrow, but there is not enough info for me to say it definitely so (had a bunch of these)
The wild birds have gone into the pre-winter feeding frenzy. Where during the summer, I rarely had to refil the seed dispensors, now the hanging feeder is filled every 3-4 days.
In addition, the leftover Birdie seed that I place in a platform feeder, used to feed squirrels and the occasional bird. Now, the squirrel don't have a chance because of frequent visits of the avian kind.
I won't cry for the squirrels just yet. I am not aiming to feed them. However, it seems that we have had a total acorn failure this year - I have seen 1 acorn in my travels, so it may be a hard winter for them and other wildlife.
Saw a tom and his hens crossing the road at Deering Town Hall the other day when I was headed to a job fair.
The tom was all fanned out and there were 10-15 hens. You can only see one hen to the right of the nearest tree, but trust me, there were a bunch there. They were crossing the road as I was getting the phone out to take a picture.
I got a peanut feeder in an attemp to keep the multitude of squirrels off the birdfeeders on the back ramp. It is working as long as I keep it filled.
Since we are just now getting thawage down to the ground, there are no flowers yet. Humingbirds start appearing in April so I made sure to get a feeder out for any early migrators. I had to get a new pole to put the feeder on and chose one that I could attach to my railing so it will be close to the house - both for viewing and for a bit of protection by the roof from predator birds.
I'm loving the area I am in as there is a large variety of birds that use the trees in the backyard and the shrubs in the swampy area just to the side of my property.
Had a cardinal visit the other evening. He was sitting on the crabapple surveying his kingdom.
Now that both the NH Audubon Society Winter Bird Count and the Cornell/Audubon Great Back Yard Bird Count are over, I can share my excitement over what I was able to record. For both counts, birds only made an appearance on 1 day (even the GBYBC, which last 4 days - they only appeared on Sunday).
Ror the Winter Bird Count, I was excited to have White Breasted Nut Hatch, Juncos, Cardinals (1 male and 1 femal) and the greatest sightings were cedar waxwings (3) and Eastern Towees (5). The Eastern Towess are rare for winter and I supplied photos to help confirm my identification. The towees were infatuated with my crab apple (or cherry - have to wait for summer to identify). Sorry the pictures are crappy, but they were taken thru plastic covered windows and at a high digital zoom, so you gets what you gets.
For the GBYBC, I had chickadees, titmice, the WB nut hatch, purple finches, juncos, downy woodpeckers (male and female) and another 12 Eastern Towees, 1 red bellied wood pecker and 4 chipping sparrows (rare for winter).
I was thrilled the birds showed up as I don't seem to have regualr visitors so far. The red bellied woodpecker was a surprise at the end of my watching yesterday and attacked the suet feeder with gusto (much to the woodpeckers' chagrine).
This bodes well for my summer bird watching, expecially since there is running water just over the property line which will help to attract them.
Just a couple of pictures of things that made me smile:
A baby snapping turtle crossing the parking lot at work. I saw him during my lunch time walk. He was almost to the grass, so I let him be.
Saturday morning, while cleaning Birdie's cage, I looked out the slider and saw turkeys - 2 hens and a bunch of young. They didn't stay long, but that is a sight we don't see at the house; they usually stay in the woods out back.
Hope the pics gave you a smile too.
It tells me how little I have been posting over the last month that I have gone back in my picture files and found pics from the 1st week in June that I wanted to share.
I am unsure why the purple finch was in this posture. It was a warm day, but not overly so. I was also thinking that perhaps one of the area hawks was in the region and the finch was hding the best he could (actually that looked to be an excellent position if he couldn't fly to a more sheltered spot in the woods.
The purple finch seemed to be healthy, and later flew off, so although I didnt' see or hear a hawk, I figured that must have been the issue.
So remember back in January when my old birdfeeder was finally retired and I got the new one?
And remember two weeks later when I showed how the squirrels were trying to pry off the heavy metal lid (it has locking mechanisms so won't just slide).
Well, they have a new tactic that is working for them. They have managed to bend the metal wires close enough to the tube, that they either chewed, or clawed the bottom off of one of the ports; How it should be (and is on most ports):
How one of the bottom ports is now (it wasn't that way when I filled it Friday evening):
That is some heavy duty plastic, embedded into PVC tubing that they have mutilated. Now the seed just spills out onto the seed catcher and the squirrels can easily scoop it out with a paw.
Who needs bears when the squirrels are this determined?
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