Note to the neighborhood birds: Due to weather conditions, this feeder is temporarily closed. Please visit the adjacent feeder with a cover over it. Thank you for your understanding.
This feeder temporarily closed
1
For the Birds: Surprise sightings await for GBC
For the past two weeks, I’ve written about surprise winter bird sightings such as the catbirds, hermit thrushes, yellow-bellied sapsuckers and purple finches I’ve seen on my recent walks.
It could be shaping up to be an interesting Great Backyard Bird Count this year with all these birds that typically migrate out of New England still hanging around. Who knows what other surprises will show up on the checklists of birders throughout the region, and the world for that matter?
The 27th annual Great Backyard Bird Count takes place from Friday, Feb. 16 through Monday, Feb. 19. Birders of all skill levels may participate in the Count. Simply count birds – alone or with a group – for at least 15 minutes and enter the birds able to be identified and the location at the GBBC website www.birdcount.org. While the results must be submitted online, the birding itself can take place anywhere: a park, backyard, conservation area.
Continue readingMore shots of the sapsucker
Here are a few more shots of the yellow-bellied sapsucker I saw the other day tapping on a tree. Note the aligned holes in the tree shown in some of the photos. Here is the post with the full column.
Wintering bluebirds brighten up the gray days
Before this recent string of sunny days, it seemed like it had been weeks since the sun had shown itself. It was gray day after gray day with some of the days made even more gloomy with cold rain. On a walk during one of those gray days, I spotted a flock of bluebirds darting from tree to tree and from tall grass to tall grass in an adjacent field. While most of the flock kept their distance, this drab adult bluebird didin’t mind my presence and let me grab a few portraits.
For the Birds: More surprises on winter walks
The woods seem to be full of surprises this winter.
Last week I wrote about the gray catbird I have been seeing on my walks this winter. On a walk last week, which was done when it was about 15 degrees outside, I had four species that were marked as “unusual” by eBird, a maassive database of bird sightings. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the birds are rare, but rather they are not commonly seen in New England during the winter. The species were: catbird, hermit thrush, purple finch and yellow-bellied sapsucker.
The catbird, thrush and finch were all species I had seen on previous walks this winter. In fact, it seems as though I typically find a hermit thrush or two each winter in New England. Like the catbird, hermit thrushes typically migrate south of New England before winter, but some remain in our region, opting to tolerate the cold weather rather than take on the risks of migration.
Continue readingFor the Birds: Catbirds (yes, Catbirds) warm up a cold winter day
Some things just don’t seem to go together. Peanut butter and tuna fish. Flip-flops on a treadmill. And hearing a catbird when it is 25 degrees and snowing during a New England winter.
I mentioned in last week’s column that I had seen a gray catbird during a recent bird walk. I returned to the same spot several days later. This time, snow was falling all around, painting the beautiful landscape in a covering of pristine white.
Continue readingRed-tailed hawk on the lookout
Came across this beauty during a recent walk in southern New England.
American robin acrobatics
I got lucky with this photo. I assumed the birds did not like the dark berries in a small tree in the side yard because winter was moving along and nothing was touching them. As I sat at my desk working the other day, I noticed a flurry of activity out of the corner of my eye. It was a flock of a dozen or more robins descending upon the tree at once. I sneaked onto the covered porch by the tree and hoped the robins wouldn’t take off at the disruption. Most of the photos did not turn out well because of distracting branches in the way, but this one turned out pretty well.
I’ve had pretty good luck with birds-eating-berries photos this past week. I’ll post more photos soon. Thanks for checking out birdsofnewengland.com
For the Birds: Get to know a place really well
My morning stroll at work one day last week was cut short because the field I usually walk through had completely disappeared. Well, it didn’t disappear, of course, but it was under several feet of water. There was no grass to be seen, only a huge pool of water reflecting the gloomy sky above.
The adjacent river, which is really just a trickling creek most of the time, was now a raging, angry force that had spilled over its banks and flooded the land on either side. Heavy rains the previous night, combined with the few inches of snow that had been on the ground, turned a usually serene setting into a foreboding, aquatic landscape.
What struck me most was how different everything looked. Flooding obviously can drastically change a landscape in a matter of moments, but it can be quite jarring when you are used to seeing something every day and suddenly it looks like a different world.
Continue readingFemale purple finch in the snow
As promised, here are a few photos of the female purple finch, as seen and photographed in Connecticut during Tuesday’s snowfall. She is eating berries from a silky dogwood, I believe. Females lack the bright colors of the male but are spectacularly designed. They are slightly larger and more decorated than female house finches.
If you missed yesterday’s male purple finch, click here.
Birds of New England.com 