BIRDS

[Chuck White]

I agree KEC, I have a lot of houses out and they get claimed/occupied by both Bluebirds and Tree Swallows, depending on who gets there first.

[thecfarm]

The bluebird will not fight for a home.  :( 
Same thing at my place.

[Bricklayer51]

went and got sunflower seeds couple days ago went from twenty dollars to thirty two 50lbs

[WV Sawmiller]

Bricklayer - that is still a lot cheaper than cat food. (I call it the self-help program. :)

  This morning I looked out and some little bird is building a nest on the center beam of our log home. He had found about a 16" piece of monofilament fishing line I had no doubt cut up somewhere and was using it for nesting material. I laughed at him for several minutes as he was on my bannister and he tried to position it in his mouth to use. He looked like he was jumping rope sometimes as the line would twist and flip and get wrapped around his feet and he'd step out of it and start over. He is about the size of a Towhee but I don't recall what kind of bird he is.

[KEC]

For anyone who is concerned about Tree Swallows using their bluebird boxes, there is a guy in NY who used to have hundreds of bluebird boxes that fledged hundreds of bluebirds some years. As he said, bluebirds start nesting earlier than tree swallows and can hold their own. The swallows nest once a year; bluebirds nest 2-3 times and often times use boxes after the swallows are done with it for the year. WV, is the bird building a nest on your house an Eastern Phoebe? Inquiring minds want to know.

[WV Sawmiller]

   This year it is eastern bluebirds again. The bird skipping rope with the monofilament may well have been a Phoebe but he is building on a house beam and not the bluebird boxes. 

   I can't find where I posted the picture (I thought it was here) last year but someone suggested it was a swallow and that matched the pictures I saw on line. They did raise one clutch and one of those young died. I probably should have cleaned out the old nest sooner but the bluebirds had nested in the next box in the back yard about 75-80 yards away and that may be too close for 2 pairs to use the same territory. All is good this year and actually the swallows were neat to watch too.

[Walnut Beast]

went and got sunflower seeds couple days ago went from twenty dollars to thirty two 50lbs

Same here 29.99😂

[Chuck White]

Two weeks ago I picked up two 40 lb bags of Black Oil sunflower seed and was surprised it was $62.00

Like most things, if you like it enough, it'll cost you, and I get lots of birds!

[thecfarm]

Chicken food has gone way up too, well any grain has.  

[woodroe]

Took the bird feeders down last week.
Over run with squirrels, 4 grays, 4 reds hanging around.
Its the red ones that cause trouble.
Had a red squirrel baby fall down into my truck cab air circulation fan
last year. What a racket that made and spent an hour getting it out. Never did find the nest
so a smell lingered for some time. Rotting babies maybe ?
So when I see them hanging around
now I remove the attraction quick.
Birds can fend for themselves in the spring. Insects start moving.

[KEC]

I am a volunteer working on The New York Breeding Bird Atlas III, a project to map the breeding ranges of all the birds that nest in New York. Mostly, volunteers go out and look for birds and evidence that they are nesting, but some birds can be very difficult to find. I would like to hear from anyone on the forum  from NY that knows of any nesting owls, especially Barn Owls. which have become rare in NY. Right now, Great-horned Owls are nesting and they oftentimes use nests made by large hawks. You might see the owls' head with ear tufts sticking above the nest. Thanks for any help with this.

[Chuck White]

I noticed this morning that the Gold Finches are changing from their green winter to the yellow summer plumage.

[ron barnes]

Saw my first Hummingbird of 2022 this morning.  We spend a lot of money on sugar for them.  Love watching them.

[thecfarm]

We saw a pileated woodpecker last Wed. It was beside the road chewing on an old tree. Stopped to get a picture, it went on the back side of the tree. As they always do.

[SwampDonkey]

I saw a pair of bluebirds this morning in a maple, sitting on lower limbs in a neighbour's yard, when I was out walking. I was 20 feet away so no confusing them with their blue feathers. ;D A little early, but not by more than a couple weeks I'd say.

There was hummingbird sited up here in the capital a couple weeks ago. No idea what they were eating that early, no flowers here until the end of the month. Maybe sap from sapsucker holes in maple?

[KEC]

A hummingbird up in your country 2 weeks ago is highly unusual. Maybe something other than a Ruby-throated.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, very unusual. It was reported by birders. I've never seen one around here until May. I'm guessing the only way it could survive is on maple sap, even then I would think it would freeze to death.

[SwampDonkey]

A neighbor the other day pointed out an eagle's nest in the crotch of a white pine, on the bank of the small river below here. We see an eagle fly up this way once in awhile throughout the year. This winter they had a dead cow carcass to chew on not far from here. But it's cool to see one fly across in front of the big dormer window of the house.

Been geese here for 2 weeks, they do fly byes as well. ;)

[Chuck White]

The Hummingbirds usually show up here between the 7th and 11th of May.

[Chuck White]

I saw a Male Bluebird on the backporch rail just a few minutes ago!

That's telling me to make sure the birdhouses are cleaned out!

[KEC]

A couple years ago a Rufous Hummingbird showed up near Syracuse, NY in early winter. A couple residents keep feeders up for it and it was around in December and, I think, January before it disappeared. These hummers summer in Alaska and return early and can survive cold temperatures. I went to see it and it and it was uncanny to see a hummer with snow and cold.

[SwampDonkey]

Tappan Adney wrote of the Rufous hummingbird up on the Klondike in Yukon Territory in the warm season 1897-1899, where it is now said to be rare up that far. I doubt it was that rare, if one could see one from their log cabin. At a time when a town was just born, not a town that was around 300 years. He has a chapter in his book "The Klondike Stampede", where he talks of the wildlife and birds. He's buried 30 miles from here in Woodstock, NB. He was from Ohio I think and his wife is from up here, they met in university in NY city.

[KEC]

I forgot to mention that hummingbirds go into a state of torpor at night, their body temperature drops, breathing and heart rate slows like a mini-hibernation.  Helps to explain how they can survive cold. I know that ruby-throats pirate sapsucker sap wells and sometimes they tag sapsuckers wherever they go. I suspect that maybe when it is cold the hummers find insects in bark crevices.

[wisconsitom]

Ever notice hummingbirds have mad eyes?  Videography of one working a flower...always notice those big dark eyes   Must be one of the largest eyes to head size ratios of all animals.

[KEC]

The better to see you with. Probably important to be able to look for danger when they are reaching deep into some trumpet shaped flower.