Today I consider winter to be on it’s way out. Snow or not in the future spring has started. We had a couple warm days and rain. Yesterday hit 49F. Much of the snow is gone, and the ground is thawed inches deep. This morning we had three different birds that are harbingers of spring. A Robin, three Sandhill Cranes, and one male Redwing Blackbird. I’ve heard a couple others that show up early in spring, but I don’t know the names that go with the voice. I hope the Redwing population is larger this year than last. I like to listen to their calls, which soon will have the voices of mating frogs that have recovered from hibernation. The Redwings moved out after the flood two years ago and only a small percentage came back last year. They’re good at keeping away certain critters and birds I don’t want around.
We had mourning doves mating on the patio this very morning. They’re now eyeing a nearby cypress as a nesting site. The Canada geese are here year round, but they’re starting to act proprietary too. We’ll have full-up nesting soon I predict.
We have robins winter over too, but they’re much more prevalent than 4 weeks ago. The cardinals & bluejays are much more in evidence too. Saw the first red-headed woodpecker 2 or 3 days ago.
Overall the level & variety of birdsong in the morning is waaay up.
Spring it is, and right on time.
I’m so glad you reminded me, I meant to post about last Sunday morning. We woke up to the sound of birds in the yard and there were 11 robin red-breasts feeding on the hill in my back yard.
Later in the day Celtling said “Look at the birdies!” I looked out the window and there were three bright male blue birds in the fig tree outside! But they weren’t “Bluebirds” as I know them. Not sure what the name is, though I defintely feel like it’s one I should know. They were the size and shape of Cardinals, but with mainly blue feathers. Some white bars and black speckles on the wing area. Any ideas?
Whatever they were, it’s really beginning to feel liek there is hope of Spring after all . . .
Those are blue jays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluejay
I saw something small and crested yesterday that I’ve never seen before. I only started paying attention last year, around May so I’m still learning. I imagine it’s (or they’re - I think there might have been a pair) passing through on the way to somewhere else.
I just noticed my first Redwing myself, driving into work today.
I had robins and blue jays eating the leftover cat food on my porch this morning, but I have seen both all winter so I am not convinced that spring will come at all this year.
It is officially spring break for my daughters but the weatherman is predicting more snow still…I think that mother nature has forgotten my neighborhood in her spring sprucing-up this year.
There are two Redwings because I could hear two.
I love red winged black birds. I used to paddle in a marsh and they would be on the reeds telling each other with their unique call I was coming. I miss them since I moved to the city.
I can’t wait to see my first Blue Jay and Cardinal. I guess it is still too early. Please no more snow!
One of my favorite birds, the dark-eyed junco, is back as of a week or two ago. That’s a good sign that spring is around the corner. The nuthatches and several kind of woodpeckers, including a type I’ve never seen before called red-bellied, who have been scarce all winter are showing up now too.
So… there are places where Blue Jays and Cardinals aren’t year-round residents? Those, the black-cap chickadees, and titmice are the only ones we see all winter.
So far only ninja birds here. I can hear them faintly, but not clear enough to identify, and havn’t seen any of any kind.
I hope my friendly Cardinal comes back this year, but since I don’t think he found any action in my tree last year he probably wont.
Yes, They fly to warmer places in the fall. I have mostly chickadees all winter that live in an overgrown Forsythia. Would be nice to see some color at the feeder.
Just saw a swallow-tailed kite today, very much the earliest I’ve seen here (NE Florida). They tend to hang out near a local highway which may be undergoing explosive development in the next 10 years…
Then why don’t ours? Northern winters are miserable, but Blue Jays and Cardinals show up to be feed all winter long.
Could it be THE TUFTED TITMOUSE? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Tufted_Titmouse-27527-2.jpg
I was surprised to see a few of these hanging around our feeder, I have been putting out bird feeders for several years and never saw them before.
We have had all the usual suspects all winter - mourning doves, juncos, woodpeckers, cardinals, and blue jays (who call out every morning for a handful of peanuts).
Robins, juncos, chickadees, bushtits, a hummingbird and scrub jays in the back yard. Most of those are year-round in Portland. Lots of singing birds showing up, though, and I’m sure there is a new crop of waterfowl down in Oaks Bottom that we haven’t yet seen.
I live in Chicago and for the last five years (at least) the robins here don’t leave. You see them all winter.
I asked one of the zookeepers at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo about this and she said that birds are a lot tougher than people think. She said it isn’t cold but food that stops them from migrating. She said, birds can always find little spaces to crawl into and keep warm. As long as they can find enough food, they have no reason to leave.
That’s sad, 'cause I used to look forward to seeing robins in the spring, but now they are always hanging about.
Every spring I try to track down the elusive Woodpeckers that attack the nearby dead trees. I hear them, go get my camera and start filming.
Same thing when I try to get shots of the squirrels playing in the yard.
They tease our dogs mercilessly, but have come nose to nose with each other as well.
On Sunday it was 60F and I heard one frog singing away mid day. At dusk I saw a cloud of about 10 mosquitoes. I whistled one bird down to about 5 feet from me and kept it around looking for the other male. I can’t think of the name of this little song bird right now.