I’ve started identifying and learning about the birds that come within sight of my property, and it’s remarkable how much I’ve been enjoying learning the names and habits of these birds, and how excited I get when I see one I haven’t identified yet. I’ve only been doing this for a week or so, but so far I’ve identified the following (I’m sure this is a pretty boring list for any seasoned birdwatchers):
Northern flicker
Common starling
Northern mockingbird
Blue jay
American Robin
Sparrow (not sure yet what kind)
Northern cardinal
Carolina wren
American crow
Common grackle
We have a bird feeder on the way, hopefully it will attract more types.
Anyone else gotten into birdwatching due to quarantine? Any other interesting birdwatching stories/input?
My dad has always been in to feeding the birds and subsequently got me interested in it, and we spent a lot of time identifying birds. Just at the feeders and the woods, though. But I’ve become pretty familiar with our local birds. I got an app from Cornell University to help me identify things I don’t recognize.
This year I had two bluebirds hanging around the yard, not at the feeders (I just have finch feeders). I got super excited and bought a bluebird house and put it on my fence post right about where I’d been seeing them.
Alas, I was about a week too late. I never saw the bluebirds after I put the house up, and a pair of house sparrows moved in. I don’t mind, though, as it’s been pretty enjoyable watching their progress. The house I got has a plexiglass viewing window so I can see their progress on the nest and hopefully the eggs. I can’t actually see that far with my stupid eyes but I grabbed dad’s binoculars so I can see them better.
We’ve had a lot more cardinals and blue jays than usual around so that’s cool. My feeders are always full of goldfinches which are DELIGHTFUL birds. So pretty!
A friend of mine here in Panama who lives a few blocks away is keeping a list of birds he has seen from his apartment balcony. He’s up to 64 species already, which is great considering we are in the middle of Panama’s largest city. He has a spotting scope and has been able to pick up some seabirds on the waterfront a couple of blocks away and in fairly distant trees.
I haven’t been so consistent, but I enjoy seeing the parrots and parakeets that frequent the street in front of my house, as well as hearing the thrushes and mockingbirds singing all around. There’s a male Grey-breasted Martin that starts singing loudly just before dawn near my bedroom window. He and his mate must have a nest on the building. Fortunately they seem to have moved a few yards away this year so he’s not quite so loud.
I’m sitting in front of the house and so far today have seen a male spotted towhee, what looked like a grackle (unusual for this neighborhood) and a murder of crows. Normally there might be some Stellar jays, California scrub jays, Anna’s hummingbirds, Northern flickers, chickadees (often Carolina), bushtits, and recently, starlings. It’s a bit late for robbin’s and early for wild turkeys. There are turkey buzzards most days, and the occasional red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks. Earlier we had a ruby-crowned kinglet, a red-bellied sapsucker, and some Townshend’s warblers. I can hear my neighbor’s chickens, but domestic birds don’t count.
We regularly have breeding mockingbirds, sparrows, and the invasive ring-necked dove in our yard. Other regular visitors that spend time on my property are cardinals, blue jays, grackles, chickadees, white ibis, herring gulls, laughing gulls, pileated woodpeckers, night herons, rufous and black-chin and ruby-throated hummingbirds(depending on the time of year), whistling ducks, and an unidentified owl.
Birds that mostly just fly over are turkey vultures, cooper’s hawks, swallow-tailed kites(there’s a nesting pair in the vicinity), roseate spoonbills, and various herons and egrets.
My favorites are the roseate spoonbills when the sun shines through their wings and gives that beautiful pink glow. The same is true for the ibis(and they are here all the time) but the color is not as vivid as in the spoonbills.
I get a pretty decent morning chorus as I abut a small regional park. Since sheltering started:
Bewick’s Wrens
Northern Mockingbirds
Lesser Goldfinches
House Finches
Hooded Orioles( recently arrived )
Anna’s Hummingbirds
Allen’s Hummingbirds( recently arrived )
White-crowned Sparrows
Golden-crowned Sparrows( recently departed )
Song Sparrows
White-throated Sparrows( recently departed )
Dark-eyes Juncos
Spotted Towhees
California Towhees
Mourning Doves
Eurasian Collared Doves
Ruby-crowned Kinglets( recently departed )
Scrub Jays
Western Bluebirds
European Starlings
American Robins
Hermit Thrushes( mostly recently departed, hoping for the recently arrived and opposite season Swainson’s Thrushes, but haven’t seen any yet )
American Crows
Ravens
Turkey Vultures
Ospreys( raising chicks right now, I can just barely see a nest out on the SF Bay from my sun-room window )
American Kestrels
Great-horned Owl( heard )
Barn Owl( heard )
Short-eared Owl
Turkeys( roost not far from my bedroom window, got to drive slow around home as they stubbornly clog the roads and are noisy as hell + poults running about right now )
Red-tailed Hawks
Cedar Waxwings( mostly recently departed )
Chesnut-backed Chickadees
Bushtits
Wrentit( heard, skulking little buggers )
Yellow Warblers
Wilson’s Warblers
Bronze-headed Cowbirds
Oh and Columbian black-tailed deer are also ubiquitous on the property. A doe gave birth to twin fawns on the planted hillside directly below my place a couple of weeks ago. Cute as the dickens. A few days after they were born a neighbor’s toy spaniel of some sort got off its leash and went excitedly running up into the dense brush where they were sheltering, yapping all the while. Then suddenly there was a violent shaking from the bushes, a very loud terrified/painful yelp and the dog came running back out at full speed with momma deer hot on his heels trying to stomp the life out of him. Dog ran into its owner’s arms and momma pursued a fair ways right up within a few yards of the pair of them and gave them the evil eye until they retreated. Quite a show :D.
Learn to recognize them by voice, which will remain rewarding even when you are too busy to watch. My neighbor in Missouri had an unkempt back lot, and waking each morning, I’d hear the same 15 species join the chorus, always in the same chronological order.
What’s exciting or not varies a lot by location! Living in England, I’m always so very envious of those getting hummingbirds.
My neighbours have a feeder (my flat’s on the top floor, so I don’t), but I live by a busy road. I see a lot of the common local species. Rather too much of some, like that *$~@ collared dove that sits right by my bedroom window and starts singing at 5am, and just doesn’t stop. It’s a lovely sound in the distance, for a few minutes, but close up after a few hours, I’m ready to abandon 15 years of vegetarianism and start looking up pigeon recipes.
As well as the obnoxious dove, common starlings (in considerable numbers during winter), house sparrows, jackdaws, wood pigeons, herring gulls and blackbirds are almost always around. I also often see robins, dunnocks, goldfinches, wrens, buzzards, crows, bluetits, and the odd raven, and right now the swifts have just arrived. There’s a family of tawny owls living not far away, presumably in the wood up the hill; I often hear them at night, though I’ve not seen one yet.
Yes, I have! I already knew about the Robins and Mourning Dove(s) in and around our house by their calls, and the Robins seem like the first to wake up in the bushes around 4:30am with their quiet tweets growing in mass and volume as they all start waking through the neighborhood.
I have noticed other birdsongs when the windows are open on cool days. My curiosity has gotten the better of me during this quarantine, and I began looking up birdsongs online and watching YT clips to see what others I might identify by sound. So far I’m convinced there’s a House Finch or two hanging around, plus an occasional Blue Jay, Crow, and others.
I’m not quite “watching”, but rather listening. Each time I hear a new song, I’m secretly thrilled that these delicate creatures are randomly sharing the same space and making themselves known. Each time a rare one shows up, I feel like I’ve “collected” another precious specimen in a loose, collection in which they remain free to fly away. A welcome gift for me!
Oh, and odd thing happened the other night. At about 3:30 am a Robin woke up extra early and stared doing its neighborhood call, which was loud in the dead of night. I was “concerned” why it was up so early (usually they start quietly tweeting as they wake up around 4:30-5am. I’m like, “Shhhhh, be quiet, little bird. It’s too early for you to be up this early and tweeting so loudly!”
Then I leaned into the window screen to see if it was out on the fence top (like they do at dusk), but couldn’t see it. But I listened closer and could hear other Robins throughout the neighborhood calling back, so they were all getting up extra early for some reason.
Birds are truly my favorite right now. As I’ve grown older, I can really appreciate the beauty they bring to the world (not thinking about birds of prey, just the cute ones hopping through the grass and pulling worms out of the ground).
Not going for numbers - a hummingbird has built a nest in the potted tree right outside my office window. I watched her build it, lay 2 eggs in it, and now I’m watching her feed the chicks as they grow like weeds. Quite a show just 3 feet away. She’s gotten used to me talking to her, too.
A House Finch couple built a nest on my porch awning, so I installed an IP camera that I wasn’t using to keep a close eye on their activity. It’s been rather exciting. There were several days of an attempted nest takeover by a sparrow, and at some point a cowbird dropped of an egg in the nest. The babies hatched a few days ago and it’s been interesting watching them grow up. I have a raspberry pi set up to push the video to YouTube live when things get interesting.
My kids gave me a bird feeder for Christmas. I’d never had one. It has been endlessly entertaining. Many species, and of course the transition from the wintering-over birds to the migrants coming north for the summer has been exciting. Today our special visitors were the Baltimore Oriole, just the male; although the female used to show up I think she’s setting now. And our Indigo Bunting! I am so pleased to see him. A chipmunk has set up housekeeping under the feeder but the squirrel barrier has discouraged other rodents so far. We have lots of nests around the farm, the ones we can easily check on are the barn swallows (in the barn), the Eastern Phoebe (in the eaves) and the Robin who built on a low windowsill of a shed. Very blue eggs, those.
