In my experience cardinals that are fluffed up in the cold can look short ‘n’ squatty like sparrows. If you Google Image search for “cardinal snow”, you will get 10 pages of pictures of male cardinals looking short ‘n’ squatty and remarkably sparrow-like in the snow, instead of long ‘n’ pointy like they do in summer on a power line.
They’re common even in big cities. They are quite common in my old neighborhood in the Bronx, for example.
Besides the finches already mentioned, other reddish birds that could be in the northeast US are the Red Crossbill and Pine Grosbeak, but neither is crested, nor are they as bright red as a Cardinal (and also have blackish or black-and-white wings).
I’ll argue – with a cite! – that betenoir has a good reason to be confused over the relative sizes, because the tits she’s most familiar with are evidently spectacular.
Sailboat
A stray male tanager, aside from freezing/starving to death, would also be in winter plumage, which is yellow.
True for the Scarlet Tanager, but the male Summer Tanager is red in non-breeding plumage as well. But it’s pretty sure the birds in question are neither or those.
The red bird is a cardinal. I’ve topped out at 5 males and 4 females at one time. I had 4 bluejays show up on monday for the first time this winter. The cardinals have a mass about 2/3 that of the blue jay
I have to disagree and say she has ground doves. I thought I had mourning doves for a long time, and after studying them found they were ground doves. The high count on them was 43 one day. I don’t know if you caught my post a week ago gigi, but a hawk came down and killed one of the ground doves at one of my feeders. It raked it’ talons acrros the bird repeatedly. I tapped on the window and it flew 20 feet with the bird to finish it off. I didn’t want it feeding by the bird feeder.
I didn’t hear anything from you about your hawk killing anything at the feeder yet.
Yeah, I thought the same…
Until the big HONKING ADVERTISEMENT obscured the photo! 
No, they are definitely not Ground-Doves. The long, pointed tail makes them Mourning Doves. Also the spots on the wing coverts are large and rounded, unlike the smaller, narrower ones of the Common Ground-Dove (the only widespread one in the US). The bill appears all dark; the base of the bill of the Common Ground-Dove is pale. On top of all that, Ground-Doves don’t occur in the northeastern US.
I can’t find her link to the doves now. Augh. I never used the zoom like I should have.
I have to confess to being pretty ignorant and not observant of birds* until I got this feeder. (I lived in the Bronx too, but would have been able to identify only pigeons!) Mourning doves…cool!
Whoa. I know we talked about hawks in the thread where I was asking for an ID on what turned out to be the Norway rats (subsequently christened Bjorn and Gunnar). I haven’t seen a hawk (yet) but it was mentioned how dramatic it would be if one swooped down on the ratty guys. :eek:
So far no carnage around the feeder.
- Flowers either…I asked my friend what kind of flower a planting was and she looked at me like I was nuts…“Geraniums!?!” :o
I’m surprised y’all get as many birds as you’re saying in the winter way up there.
The birds I get in my back yard down here in Texas are:
Red-bellied Woodpeckers
Downy Woodpeckers
Mourning Doves
White-Winged Doves
Dark-Eyed Juncos (the slate-colored variety)
House Finches
Tufted Titmice (not the black-crested ones though)
Carolina Chickadees
Carolina Wrens
Brown-Headed Cowbirds
Great-Tailed Grackles
Red-Tailed Hawk
Some unidentified owls
American Goldfinch (sometimes, in winter)
Brown Creepers (winter)
Blue Jays
American Robins
Red-Headed Woodpecker (less frequent)
Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker (less frequent)
And I have seen once each:
Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet
American Redstart
Northern Mockingbird (very common in the area, but not in my back yard)
Also, Western Kingbirds are common in the summer in the area, but I’ve never seen one in my back yard, which is heavily wooded.