New England is bracing for a major snowstorm on Wednesday evening and into Thursday. In the meantime, we got a little preview on Monday with a coating of snow. Here are some shots from Monday with thoughts for better snow photos coming soon. Feel free to send your snowy bird photos to birdsofnewengland@gmail.com and I’ll include them on the Reader Submitted Photos page.
A fun bird photo to get you in the holiday spirit.
Here’s a random happy bird photo to kick off your Labor Day Weekend. It’s a female downy woodpecker between salvia stalks. Salvia is an annual that is good for attracting hummingbirds with their red, tubular flowers. Have a great long weekend!
For a cold February day, it’s been a pretty good day at the feeder. In all, 14 species showed up already and it’s not even noon. The pileated woodpecker was in the side yard, not at the feeders. I took the photo through a dirty, hence the poor quality. Here’s some photographic evidence of the busy day: Continue reading
The word typical can have a negative connotation. It is usually used to describe something boring or mundane. Or worse, as a word of exasperation to draw attention to a recurring negative behavior: “Oh, that’s so typical of him.”
But I’m going to use typical in a positive way here. Yesterday, all the typical birds showed up at my feeder. And that’s a good thing. My ‘typicals’ include chickadees, titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, and blue jays. You can throw juncos in there, too, in the winter. Other birds come from time to time, but those are the birds that are always there. Many people write to me about a lack of chickadees at their feeders lately. It’s definitely a trend to keep an eye on, but thankfully, I still have plenty of chickadees visiting my feeders.
Not that I’m boasting about my feeders. There are some obvious bird species that I hardly ever see. Cardinals, for whatever reason, are Continue reading
Here’s a downy woodpecker getting peanuts from the homemade feeder I mentioned in yesterday’s post.
It’s funny how birds prefer their food offered in different ways. White-breasted nuthatches and downy woodpeckers are all over this feeder. They typically perch on the feeder and peck away at the shell to expose the nut inside. My other peanut eaters — blue jays, red-bellied woodpeckers and tufted titmice — barely touch this feeder and prefer to grab their peanuts from a platform feeder and fly off with it.
This apple birdfeeder has been green, yellow and now red. The birds don’t care what color it is as long as I put my home-made suet in it.
Most birdwatchers I know have a self-reliant, practical side. They don’t necessarily long to live off the grid in a small cabin in the wilderness, hunting for their food and cutting down trees to stay warm, but there is a hint of that spirit in a lot of us.
Luckily, there are many do-it-yourself projects for birdwatchers that may be done in the comfort of our heated, electrified, and well-stocked homes. The projects will save a few bucks (no pun intended) and result in that satisfaction only a good DIY activity can deliver.
The easiest project is making your own hummingbird food. It is inexpensive and requires almost no skill. In other words, perfect for someone like me.
Simply mix four parts water with one part sugar and you’ve got hummingbird food. I usually double the recipe to eight cups of water and two cups of sugar so it lasts longer. I like to bring the water to the point at which it is about to boil then turn off the heat and add the sugar. Most of the sugar will dissolve itself in the hot water, but a minute or two Continue reading
Photo by Chris Bosak
A male Downy Woodpecker eats from a homemade platform feeder in Danbury, Conn., fall 2016.
Here are a few more photos that I took in 2016 that never saw the light of day. These photos are good for showing the difference between male and female Downy Woodpeckers. With many woodpeckers, the male shows more red than the female. In the case of the downy (and hairy), the female lack red altogether.
Photo by Chris Bosak
A female Downy Woodpecker eats from a homemade platform feeder in Danbury, Conn., fall 2016.
Photo by Chris Bosak
A White-breasted Nuthatch checks out a new bird feeder in Danbury, Conn., March 2016.
As promised, here are a few more photos of birds using the feeder that my 12-year-old Andrew and I made last week. Here’s the original story in case you missed it.
More photos by clicking below.
Birds of New England.com 