Birdfeeding

[ysabetwordsmith]

Today is cloudy, foggy, and cool.  It rained last night and part of today.  Most of the ice and snow has melted off.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a flock of sparrows and a lady cardinal.
 

Comments

[meridian_rose]

I don't often comment on these posts but I like reading what you've seen. I mostly get sparrows - a flock wait for me to fill the feeders - and blackbirds, but sometimes see a robin, and we have a couple of bluetits that visit a few times a week.
Obviously we don't have the lovely cardinals here but I do like our red/orange breasted robins and various blue/greatits :)

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

I love hearing about birds in other people's yards, because once you cross into a different biome you get a very different selection of species.

[filkferengi]

We have a water oak in the front yard and an almost-bay window that makes for great viewing. I saw a bluebird last week and pine warblers earlier this week. There was also something that wasn't as yellow as a pine warbler, but wasn't a pine siskin either. Then came the flocks of blackbirds passing through over several days--migrating maybe? Finally, I saw some sparrows, but don't know what kind.

If I'd known, I could've looked them up in _Peterson Reference Guide To Sparrows of North America_,which is 2.99 right now across all the vendors, a great deal! From the preview, there're lots of color photos.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> We have a water oak in the front yard and an almost-bay window that makes for great viewing.<<

That's awesome. Oaks are the best wildlife trees in most biomes.

>> I saw a bluebird last week and pine warblers earlier this week.<<

*envy*

>> There was also something that wasn't as yellow as a pine warbler, but wasn't a pine siskin either. <<

I often search for bird ID by color:

https://www.birdzilla.com/bird-identification/which-bird-did-you-see/bird-by-color/

https://donnallong.com/identifying-birds-by-color-a-collection-of-photo-galleries/

>>Then came the flocks of blackbirds passing through over several days--migrating maybe? Finally, I saw some sparrows, but don't know what kind.<<

Sparrows are hard to pin down unless you get a very close look. Sometimes you can narrow it down, though.

https://www.birds-of-north-america.net/sparrows.html

https://birdwatchinghq.com/sparrows-in-the-united-states/


>>If I'd known, I could've looked them up in _Peterson Reference Guide To Sparrows of North America_,which is 2.99 right now across all the vendors, a great deal! From the preview, there're lots of color photos.<<

I use online sources like All About Birds heavily. Other times, I type a description into a search engine and look at pictures to see if I can find a match.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search