Bird Watching!

Im feeding the birds this winter as I usually do. We had a lotta snow on Thursday and temps have remained cold so very little melting etc. Lordy I say the creatures are TOUGH to survive outside. Heck I haven't even been in LI Sound for 3 weeks, been making do with cold showers :|:
 
Burnham said:
No way a blue jay was the size of a pileated woodpecker, or of a crow either Gary :).

You need younger eyes :D.
Click to expand...
It was definitely bigger than the robins and mockingbirds around it. And looked about the size of the pileated but maybe I was wrong.

Maybe it was the size of a pygmy crow... I just made that up.😁
 
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I set up feeders every winter usually. I tend to have them far from house to avoid potential mice problems but this winter set one up fairly close to a window, lotta fun to watch em all.

We are in the middle of a nor'easter blizzard right now, it is cold, windy, and nasty outside (if you aint dressed for it). The birds are working the feeder heavily, apparently oblivious to the weather. If there's food there, they good!

Impressive and beautiful creatures :dude:
 
That's a pretty decadent feeder stock in the video above. Looks better than some of my breakfasts :^D
 
On our daily ramble yesterday, M and I had the nice experience of seeing an owl snatch a Doug squirrel off a tree bole, then eat some of it before flying off. It was either a Spotted or a Barred...or could reasonably be the cross of the two that some call Sparred. My best guess is Spotted.

Handsome bird. Totally silent in flight, even though very close to us.
 
I could count the owls I've seen in my life on one hand, but they're super cool birds. I was on a job once, and saw an owl sitting on a snag about 7' up. I walked right up to it, and circled it, thoroughly checking it out, close enough for me to grab it. He didn't budge the whole time. After a few minutes I walked away, and went back to my gun. He never moved the whole time I was there. Might still be there :^P
 
The unusual cold spell we are having with snow and all, has brought some rare visitors to my bird feeders:

Long tailed tit and Bullfinch.



Halemejse Fotos, Billeder

Halemejse (Aegithalos caudatus) Fotos, Billeder. Halemejse - Billeder af dyr og natur - lidt tættere på naturen
www.naturephoto-cz.com

naturguide.dk

Dompappen - Danmarks farverige finke. - NaturGuide.dk - natur og friluftsliv

Chancen for at se den smukke finke er størst om vinteren. Her er dompap en flittig gæst ved foderbrættet. Dertil kommer, at den hjemlige bestand får selskab
naturguide.dk naturguide.dk
 
How cold is it now Jim? I was in a teams meeting with someone in MT a couple of days ago and he said is was minus 26 F at the time.
 
No, just some volunteer stuff with the Backcountry Horseman Association. I don't have a lot of involvement with them up here of course.
 
Sunday mornings I do the traditional Danish thing, if it is the mail order bride's week off, and go to the bakery for fresh bread.
Bit of a drive, but well worth it.
Coming back I saw a white tailed eagle. No traffic and it was flying parallel to the road, so I was able to enjoy it for a while.

It is our great success story.
30 years ago they were next to extict, with only 2-3 pairs left.
Since they mainly live off of fish, and the Baltic sea was heavily polluted ( Pregnant women are adviced not to eat Baltic seafood) they had so high levels of Mercury and DDt, that their eggs simply didn't hatch.
So someone got the brilliant idea of detoxifying them by feeding them something else than Baltic fish.
What do we have a surplus of in this country?
Dead pigs!!!!

So feeding stations were set up near the 3 nesting places and it worked great.
Now we have 130 pair of breeding birds and get a couple of hundred young ones on the wing every year.

The feeding stations are history, the Baltic is less toxic and the future for the eagles is bright.

It just totally makes my day, when I see one!
 
That's great! We had the same issue with bald eagles, though not as critical. I was in my 20s before I saw my first eagle, and now they're so common, it's almost boring. Almost. They're still an impressive bird, but tbh, I still find the red tail hawk more thrilling to see, though they're everywhere.
 
Yup, bald eagles are definitely becoming almost common. Couple days ago I pulled over the bucket truck to take a pic of one standing on an icy inlet eating a fish. When it flew off, I was again amazed at how large they are, bigger than any other bird around here.

There's a nest in a big pine about a hundred fifty feet from Route 1 here in CT, and its about a thousand feet from where I park my trucks, so in nesting season I tend to see them a good amount. :dude:
 
'Bout 20 years ago Richard and I pulled over to watch a white tailed eagle eat a swan.
Apparently we got too close, because it took off, carrying the swan in one set of talons.
The lifting power of that thing was so impressive.
 
I don't have pictures, but I saw a Baltimore oriole last week. I think it's the second one in my life I've seen. It's MD's state bird. I've long thought the great blue heron should be the state bird due to the higher concentration of them, and close association with the Chesapeake bay which is a big part of the state identity.
 
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