BIRDS

[Ron Scott]

Great picture!

[Autocar]

Here in west central Ohio flat farm country and the small farms are about a thing of the past. Every farmer around here all have a track hoe and bull dozer so creek banks and fence rows are being torn out . We have lost our travel routes for wildlife and song birds are far and few between. I have feed the birds for years but the price has went so high that next year I am only going to buy cracked corn at the feed mill. Fifty dollars for forty pounds is just to much suat I will make with lard. Only thing we have when it comes to birds is eagles, red tail hawks and turkey buzzards. Have seen one turtle dove and sparrows I do have different woodpeckers on the suat. Pretty sad we have lost box turtles and springers in my neighbor hood I dug a swamp in my woods and have gotten frogs back. Not a big deal to most folks but first the critters go then the humans.

[thecfarm]

hilltop,yes nice picture!!
I have fed a steady diet of suet this year. I buy it by the block, a couple pounds in a packet. I cut it up about an inch thick. It fits is the feeder that way. Most times I only have to cut it one way. Seems it never too wide. Then I freeze it.

[Bricklayer51]

sunflower seed dropped 7 bucks for 50 lbs
 

[KEC]

A couple days ago I went to a place near Sherburne, New York to see a Barnacle Goose. Mostly they winter in the Old World, but a few will show up in Eastern North America in winter. It was in with a few hundred Canada Geese. Took some time to pick it out of the crowd. Distance too great to get a photo.

[woodroe]

Its a little odd to see Bluebirds this time of year but despite the 20* and 3' snow 
a pair were out at sun up this morning checking out the bird boxes. 

[thecfarm]

I saw that on the news!!!
None checking out my bluebird houses.

[Hilltop366]

Some immature eagles, ducks (common merganser and black duck) and geese around the camp this past weekend.



 

 

 

If you look at the immature eagle's feet it kind of looks like he is "flipping me the bird"....I guess that is the immature part? ;D 

[SwampDonkey]

Saw one the other day fly past the dormer window, and main porch.

[KEC]

More nice photos, Hilltop. Yesterday I drove out to Geneva, NY to see a Tufted Duck, an old world duck that sometimes shows up in North America. You would have surely gotten good photos if you were there. The sun was at my back, but so bright that I couldn't see it in the viewfinder and it kept getting lost in a crowd of scaup and other ducks. But I got good views with binos. Also there were Redhead, Greater Scaup, American Coots, Bufflehead, and Fish Crows.

[Hilltop366]

I had seen a couple of eagles around the house earlier in the week, there were two following a hawk around in the wind for a bit then parted company and went their separate ways. I got a picture but not a very good one. I must have been older than these ones because it is starting to get white on it's head and a yellowish beak.

[SwampDonkey]

21 turkeys just now moved in where they plowed around dad's old barn.




Some of 18 in the back yard from the other day.

[Mooseherder]

There's something they like over there. ;)

[KEC]

That something is bare ground. Around my yard there are patches of bare ground where the snow melted off and the robins and starlings are on those patches getting earthworms and winter cutworms.

[Walnut Beast]

Here in west central Ohio flat farm country and the small farms are about a thing of the past. Every farmer around here all have a track hoe and bull dozer so creek banks and fence rows are being torn out . We have lost our travel routes for wildlife and song birds are far and few between. I have feed the birds for years but the price has went so high that next year I am only going to buy cracked corn at the feed mill. Fifty dollars for forty pounds is just to much suat I will make with lard. Only thing we have when it comes to birds is eagles, red tail hawks and turkey buzzards. Have seen one turtle dove and sparrows I do have different woodpeckers on the suat. Pretty sad we have lost box turtles and springers in my neighbor hood I dug a swamp in my woods and have gotten frogs back. Not a big deal to most folks but first the critters go then the humans.

I definitely don't like to see that happening!! It's been bothering me a little about cutting  some of my big Walnut trees down and know the Owls and other wildlife use the trees plus how old they are.  But thankfully there are plenty of trees of all sizes on the creek for the wildlife

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, I think several flocks of them turkeys have amassed at my cousin's camp just down the road. There's been 40 or more around there. I think his boy might be feeding them. But they also plow around the camp as if they are making a parking lot, so there is bare ground around the place. They like to pick around on bare ground. I doubt they find many bugs in winter, maybe under a leaf. They eat a lot of burdocks. I did see a separate flock a few miles away the other day to. And a flock hangs out near the neighbour's chicken barn up the road. I've counted 12 there.

[SwampDonkey]

The other day snow shoeing in the woodlot, I looked up in the top of a birch, because I do look for partridge that way, and sure enough one was eating birch catkins. He was on alert because he froze. I waited for him to fly off. When he flew he went 50 yards and headed for the ground under the fir trees. They are a lot more wild around the settlement than they are back in the wilderness. :D

[KEC]

I "subscribe" to "Birds of the World", an online resource available from Cornell Universitys' Laboratory of Ornithology. You can find a lot of info on birds there. Just recently I read that grouse are big on eating those birch catkins this time of year and there is a lot of nutrition in them. Just a few days ago, I watched a robin probing into the lawn exposed  when I blew the snow along the driveway. Most of the ground was covered with snow. I was amazed at how many winter cutworms and earthworms that robin pulled out of the ground.

[Otis1]

The Cornell Lab has a smartphone app called Merlin Bird ID that has a real-time sound identification tool and other resources. I'm not very good at IDing the small birds, especially by sound. 

[Walnut Beast]

It's amazing how terrified turkeys get if a eagle 🦅 is in the area

[beenthere]

Speaking of birds, time to put up the bluebird box for nesting.

A flock of robins showed up today, must have been a dozen flitting in the trees close to the house. And the Canadian geese are gathering on the frozen ponds in anticipation of claiming a nesting site.

[SwampDonkey]

I usually get bluebirds here any time after April 10th. I've seen them as late as the 23rd. I've seen robins here once in awhile all winter, not flocks, just a bird or two. They were around old crab apple trees on the fence row until mid January. But not flocks yet, won't be for 3 or 4 weeks. No bare ground up here yet. As soon as we have a patch in a field with water the killdeer arrive, that'll be next month to. Their numbers are very low in recent years compared to 30 years ago.

[SwampDonkey]

Grouse in a birch for context. ;)




Robin when still lots of snow. I guarantee no worms are in that snow. ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Best I could do through a window screen and the break of dawn. One ruffed grouse in the photo in a cherry tree and 2 others have flew over to a neighboring tree. I was wondering where the trio was this winter, been seeing 3 in the back yard for the last 4 winters.



There is a big old yellow birch near there full of catkins.

[KEC]

I went out back tonight at dusk and saw at least 1 woodcock that did its' courtship flight. Killdeer are back, as well as Song Sparrows.