Hi there. All of you w backyards w, or w/o bird feeders - what kind of birds are you seeing now....

[electric_blue68]

An acquaintance of mine in more southern California has got ?12 swallows nests. She just posted a video of under the roof with nests, and birds flying about!

Meanwhile a cousin in NJ had a vid earlier this week with a nest of baby birds. Maaaaybe robins.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

1. The usual

Doves, wrens, cardinals, mockingbirds, blue jays, woodpeckers. I saw the other day that a robin took the nest in one of our trees that birds have been using since we moved here 20+ years ago. Every spring--robin in the tree. It's like clock work.

We also have some red-tail hawks.

At night, I'm still hearing the owl who hangs about. It was so cute a few years ago when "Hootie" had a baby. We'd hear hoo-hoo in the standard pitch. Then this little-bitty squeaky return of hoo-hoo. Obviously a youngster.

Further afield, we have the usual rodents with wings--er, grackles and pigeons. The buzzards are perennial sentinels on the light posts gracing the busier roads surrounding us. We're in a spot with some remaining patches of wilderness, so local wildlife doesn't fare too well against cars.

I'm not really much of an outdoor person, or a bird person, but I will notice if an unusual bird comes around when I am out. Haven't seen anything unusual this spring.

[electric_blue68]

18. Buzzards? Oh, my! 😄 I learned to identify at least the main cardinal

call when I lived in Brooklyn.

Love your owl story. 🥰

[Easterncedar]

2. Far fewer of every bird

I’m in Maine, inland. The morning chorus isn’t half what it used to be. Robins, song sparrows, jays, cardinals and chickadees are are here, but not in great numbers. The phoebes, I am happy to say, have returned to nest in their usual spot.

I haven’t heard a woodcock in 5 years. Juncos are gone. Even the invasive English sparrows and starlings are scarce. The catbirds that used to frequent my yard aren’t here this year.

The sandhill cranes have returned; they are a relatively new population here.

[peacefreak2.0]

4. This.

I’ve been noticing the sharp decrease also.

[electric_blue68]

19. Oh, that's sad! Pesticides? Climate change in also reference to sandhill cranes...

moving in?

Cranes must be pretty

[claudette]

3. I'm seeing

Cardinals. Sparrows. Morning doves. Huge black crows. Mallard ducks and even a rare sighting of Canada geese over here in western NY.

[electric_blue68]

20. Canadian Geese are rare where you are?

[claudette]

27. Western

New York. Only twenty minutes from Lake Ontario. Not originally from this state and found out really fast that they are called Canada geese in these parts. Not Canadian!! LOL

I’ve taken photos of them to send to family when they come to eat up the bird seed that falls to the ground under the feeder. They are a noisy bunch when flying overhead!! I love seeing them.

😊

[electric_blue68]

32. One of coolest bird experience I had was while on a big bus traveling we'd stopped a rest stop...

There a bunch of Canada geese out on the lawn.

As I bus headed out they took off, so I got a close look at that

[claudette]

36. They are

amazing to watch and I found them very protective of their young. One day we were walking past a group of them on the grass and they started squawking when they thought we were too close to a little one. They are beautiful 😊

[mnhtnbb]

5. Hummingbirds showed up April 2

to join robins, bluebirds, cardinals, goldfinches, doves, wrens, house finches, sparrows, crows, blackbirds, a resident red tailed hawk or two, along with the Canadian geese and ducks that visit the retention pond behind my house. I've also seen a heron and snowy egret back there occasionally.

Last year on Mother's Day, while my son was cooking brunch for us, the hawk dropped in to my courtyard for a visit!

[electric_blue68]

21. Nice pic! My sib lives up at the north western end of Manhattan

Last edited Sun May 14, 2023, 12:33 AM - Edit history (1)

by a big Park that includes original forrest! Red tail hawks do live there. One landed on her fire escape. She did get a pic. 🙂👍

You've got quite a 'parade' of birds!

[multigraincracker]

6. I'm back to trying to make friends

with a local crow. Slow progress. He only waits 15 or 30 minutes now to fly down to see what’s for breakfast. Third year, must not be doing it right. Watching him now getting the peanuts I just put out.

[electric_blue68]

22. Awww. Very cool birds

[MissB]

7. Steller's jay, junco, robin, towhee, owl, bald eagle and plenty others

I have a feeder right outside my office window so I see lots of birds all day long.

Just off our covered porch is a greenstalk tower planted with Hood strawberries. A junco couple has a nest in one of the pockets. We moved the section up a level a couple of weeks ago to keep the dogs from peering in. Mom and dad junco still fly in and out. I’m hand watering the tower, carefully avoiding the pocket with the eggs. I’d rather be hitting the tower with the watering system but I can wait a few weeks and see if they manage to hatch the eggs.

Our porch rafters are often home to robin nests in the spring. One industrious robin couldn’t decide which rafter to build on so they built about 12 nests a couple of years back. I keep meaning to get a ladder and take them down but then it’s spring and I don’t want to risk it.

A pair of small birds - chickadees maybe?- are using the birdhouse on the porch.

The towhees build their nests on the ground, usually in our long stand of bamboo.

A pair of bald eagles fly by daily to see if our chickens are accessible. Sometimes we see them on the branches of a fir.

We have this lovely Port Orford cedar near where Dh parks his truck. One recent evening we saw an owl sitting one one of the low swooping branches. I’ve heard an owl for years but never saw one, so that was a treat. It was pretty much at the level of the top of the truck bed so very low.

[jmbar2]

10. Oregon coast (Newport)

Stellar jays, robins, swallows, eagles, osprey, goldfinches (very sweet songs), crows, cormorants...

and of course, seagulls.

[electric_blue68]

23. Glad you're being careful w the juncos. No free meals for the eagles!

Cool to see an owl.

Looked up the Port Oder Cedar - lovely tree.

[Paladin]

8. Squirrels.

Or, as we commonly call them, "fucking squirrels."

[mnhtnbb]

11. I go out and chase them away

from my feeders. I need to get out my squirt guns, load them, and keep them by the doors.

[Paladin]

13. Chasing them away is our dog's favorite sport.

He's never caught one, and the squirrels enjoy it more than he does.

We need to re-position our feeders if the birds are ever going to have a chance. Such is life in a squirrel-heavy neighborhood like ours.

[electric_blue68]

34. I've seen cartoons about dogs chasing squirrels. 😄

I guess you'll have to move the "Free Lunch" bird feeders!

[electric_blue68]

35. It's that time of year!

[electric_blue68]

33. Heh. I understand!

[CTyankee]

9. My humming bird is gone! Maybe because we had to replace a lovely flowering bush that they love.

Now we have big bees that visit during the blooming period of whatever flowering bush we have now.

[electric_blue68]

24. Sorry about the hunmer! Well, at least the bees are doing their pollinator work

[CTyankee]

38. But they've been a yearly occurance on May 1 for YEARS....

but those big ole bumble bees are sure busy. They are REALLY at it!

[Emile]

12. Opened up the picture window curtains this morning and I had a

young deer 25 feet away staring at me.

Birds, all kinds. I have a small pond in my front yard and get ducks, geese, crains, etc.

I have buzzards, crows, occasionally an eagle, blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, chickadees, robins, Baltimore Orioles, woodpeckers, wrens, etc etc.

[electric_blue68]

25. Baltimore Oriole- nice! Cranes - very nice. Love baby ducklings!

[Fla Dem]

14. It changes but right now, a couple of pair of Cardinals, Blue Jays,

a bevy of Mourning Doves, as many as 6-8 at a time, Red Headed Woodpecker, Tit Mice and other small birds that just stop in on their way through. Also had a pair of Painted Buntings for about a week, then they moved on. I was absolutely ecstatic each time I saw them at my feeders. Oh and I can't forget to mention the 4-8 squirrels that enjoy my back yard or the raccoon, although have not seen him lately.

Every early spring my back yard is filled with huge flocks of Robins on their way North. It lasts only a couple of days but is truly spectacular (and messy).







Disclaimer: Not my pictures. From the internet.

[electric_blue68]

28. Wow on the robin's heading north! Is that bottom one a painted bunting?

Yes, up get in NYC, NJ, CN seeing the first robin is a sign of Spring.

We had mourning doves around the hedges in Brooklyn in front if the apt building.

Such a soft coo.

[lark2]

15. We have tons of birds in this old growth oak forest in NE FL by the St. Johns river.

Mocking birds
Blue Jays
Woodpeckers - tons of them
Cardinals
Egrets
Hawks
Ravens
Crows
Vultures
Blue birds
Robins
Bald Eagles
Ospreys
Terns
Seagulls
Ducks
Geese
Ibis - coming back now
Screech Owls
Horned owls
Doves

There's probably lots more, but those are the ones I know and see regularly.

[electric_blue68]

29. Big list! Ibises coming back that sounds wonderful. We get egrets ..

up in the northwest baylet where the Harlem River turns westward, and merged with The Hudson River.
Wonderful to see.

Horned owls, and pretty little blue birds

[lark2]

39. The blue birds were out this am during our walk.

Such pretty little pops of blue!

Our dog adores the ibis's, loves to chase them, especially when the flocks get huge. We unleash him and he flies, lol. Sometimes they will just go down a bit and land again and he's gotten at many as 3 major chases in 2 blocks. He gets very proud of himself, it's a sight to see. Oh, the dog is Finley and he's an Aussie Shepherd.

[Ocelot II]

16. The usual suspects: A lot of goldfinches, house finches,

blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, house sparrows, juncos. For a little while I had white-throated sparrows but they were just passing through. Right now I have a squirrel on one feeder and a chipmunk on another. I live near a bird sanctuary, and I walk over there several times a week to see who's turned up, and in the past week I've seen brown thrashers, pileated and downy woodpeckers, white-throated sparrows, a parula warbler, a least flycatcher, ruby-crowned kinglets, mallards, geese, turkeys, red-winged blackbirds, a great blue heron and a kingfisher.

[electric_blue68]

30. How nice to get an extra batch of birds sightings beyond your own extravaganza in

your back yard.

I've seen the red-winged blackbird in Brooklyn's Botanical Garden. It was like - "oh" did I just see that since it flew by quickly but there was that red area on the wings

[electric_blue68]

17. A Quick TY to you all Will post individually later. As an artist birds are often lovely to look at.

[LudwigPastorius]

26. In addition to the usual doves, blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, and chickadees...

we had a pair of downy woodpeckers this morning, and what I think is a female pyrrhuloxia hanging around for about a week and a half.

[electric_blue68]

31. Kind of fascinated with the woodpeckers many of you see. Maybe from cartoons where they show up...

and peck away at the tree.

Other than maybe at the zoo, not seen one.

[lark2]

40. Woodpeckers nest in our oak trees, so we always have a ton of them.

There was an old stump in the backyard that's been there for over 34 years. One day a couple of weeks ago a mature woodpecker landed on it and went to work for hours on end. By the time he left, the stump was decimated, down to a few sticks of wood. It must have been full of grubs or something yummy. Hubs and I sat on the deck and really enjoyed the show.

[LudwigPastorius]

42. I've seen downy, red bellied, and ladder-backed woodpeckers here in north Texas.

In the morning, I can usually hear them working on the willow tree in my backyard.

When they eat off of the platform feeder, they like to hang off the edge almost upside down.

Would love to see a pileated woodpecker around here. Those suckers are big, and kind of prehistoric/pterodactyl looking.

[jmowreader]

37. I only have one kind of bird until summer

I have a flock of quail living in each of the shrubberies in front of my house.

Come summer I’ll have robins for three days. That’s all the time it takes the little bastards to completely clean off my cherry trees.

[beaglelover]

41. We have a fountain in the backyard. It attracts a LOT of hummingbirds throughout the day.

Also some other small birds come by to take a drink. But I love watching the hummingbirds the best.