Baby wrens

In May Dan moved the wren house to the oak tree in the middle of the back yard. We did have baby wrens last year, but I couldn't stand having the wren house so close to the bird garden and the house. The mama and papa wrens are so protective they chase away any other birds and just about dive bomb anyone coming near the bird house.
So we seriously wondered whether that would be an acceptable location, but we did hear at least one wren singing constantly for all of June. Now as I sit in the family room (with the window open) I can hear the baby wrens chirping up a storm, waiting for mama and papa to return with food. I do wish we could watch as they leave the nest and learn to fly, but the tree is a very good hiding place!

Baltimore Oriole

A very quick sighting.  It flew from the little oak tree to the bird garden and then off.  Dan id'd it.

Our favorite woodpecker

The red bellied woodpecker is beautiful.  He's a regular at the suet this summer.  

The birds are driving me crazy

Worst are the starlings.  Maybe they're grackles.  So noisy, squabbling over suet, which they gobble down.  Ingrid and Sharon were quite amused yesterday, however, watching an adult feed suet to a full size baby.

Now there's a swarm of starlings, squawking away; feels like a scene from The Birds.

Amazing - our favorite woodpecker, the red-bellied, who's a regular at our suet feeders, just tried to scare away a starling by HISSING at it.  what an amazing noise!  Alas, the starling and his offspring won out.

The wren is warbling away, hour after hour.  We assume it's a male trying to attract a mate to the birdhouse.  This spring Dan moved the wren house from the bird garden down to the oak tree in the middle of the back garden.  I couldn't stand the wren couple taking over the entire bird garden last year during the time they were on the nest.  Very aggressive about their territory, not allowing any other birds to come to the feeders.

There is a robin soaking in the birdbath, not moving much, not ruffling up its feathers like it usually does.  He thinks it's a spa.

White crowned sparrows all over the ground

White crowned sparrows are so cute and round.  I love having them visit on their way north.  They stand out from the mulch by their black and white striped heads.

The tufted titmouse is visiting the suet feeder, which has a seed -filled suet.

The poor downy woodpecker isn't quite smart enough to move to the other side of the suet feeder; there's plastic on one side, which he's working hard to peck through.  the other side would be very easy to eat!

Chipping Sparrow

• This is another of our favorite sparrows.  It's very easily identified with its rusty colored cap.

  
  

  Size & Shape

  The Chipping Sparrow is a slender, fairly long-tailed sparrow with a medium-sized bill that is a bit small for a sparrow. Learning the shape of this classic Spizella sparrow is a key step in mastering sparrow identification.

• Color Pattern

  Summer Chipping Sparrows look clean and crisp, with frosty underparts, pale face, black line through the eye, topped off with a bright rusty crown. In winter, Chipping Sparrows are subdued, buff brown, with darkly streaked upperparts. The black line through the eye is still visible, and the cap is a warm but more subdued reddish brown.

  http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chipping_Sparrow/id
  

Sparrows: White-throated and White-crowned

We are currently seeing all of these in the garden.  The white-crowned is larger, and is quite impressive.  

White-crowned Sparrow

Adult white crowned
Similar to adult White-throated Sparrow

No yellow lores and no white throat patch

Orange or pink bill
Clear gray cheek, nape, and breast; browner flanks
Bold black and white head stripes with wide white middle stripe
© Linda Williams, Liberty, MO, February 2008

White-throated Sparrow

Adult white-striped
White throat and head stripes
Yellow lores (between bill and eye)
Gray face and unstreaked breast
Streaked brown back, wings, and tail
Gray bill
© Byard Miller, NH, Pittsburg, June 2008

Adult tan-striped
Often-seen alternate form has tan head stripes
Still has white throat and yellow lores
Often shows indistinct dark spot on breast
© Jim Paris, October 2008

from: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide

learn bird songs

chipping sparrow: http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=11

chickadee: http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=12

robin: http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=1

cardinal: http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=3

blue jay : http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=5

yellow warbler: http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=17

goldfinch: http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=23

rose breasted grosbeak: http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=36 similar to robin

slate colored junco: http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=37

Affectionate cardinals

Watching the cardinal pairs at the feeders last week, I saw a male and female touching bills several times. Isn't that sweet? I thought he might be feeding her, but now I think not. I think it was just an acknowledgement.

Rose breasted grosbeak

This is such a beautiful bird! I'm happy to see him back at our feeders. Now I need to keep a look out for the female.

		© Steve & Dave Maslowski/Photo Researchers, Inc.
		This handsome grosbeak is one of the most conspicuous birds before the foliage comes into full leaf in early May. It is beneficial to farmers, consuming many potato beetles and larvae as well as weed seeds, wild fruits, and buds. description 8" (20 cm). Starling-sized. Heavy pinkish-white bill. Male black and white with conspicuous rose-red patch on breast and underwings. Female white above and below with heavy brown streaking; prominent white eyebrow; yellow wing linings. This material provided by eNature.com.

Peanuts for bluejays

Yesterday Shannon helped me refill all the birdfeeders, and she put a generous number of peanuts (in the shell) in the mini-wheelbarrow. Before the day was done, the bluejays had taken all the peanuts!

First robin of spring!

Today we cleaned out the birdbaths. Very soon our first robin of spring appeared and took a bath. I love the way robins splash around and get water everywhere!

Where are the squirrels and bluejays?

Dan put out some peanuts today. The bluejays and squirrels still haven't found them. Maybe they're hidden on top of the thistle seed shells.

Black squirrels in the bird garden

squirrel time

This morning a confluence of squirrels - little red one in the feeder, gray squirrel, fox squirrel and black squirrel all scolding each other and trying to rule the bird garden - very exciting!  It's warmer today, and as the snow melts, more seed layers appear.  

A second red squirrel is threatening , keeping a fox squirrel busy while the gray and black make hay!

no birds.  it's squirrel time.

a black squirrel

This morning a black squirrel was in the bird garden when I first came in.  It was quite shy, and when it saw me moving around in the sunroom, it ran away.  The fox squirrels are certainly braver, and one came close to the door, begging me for peanuts.  Instead it had to make do with what it could find as it bulldozed through the snow with its nose.

Where do they go?

Where do all the birds go when the weather is so severe?  It's cold and very gusty, blowing the new fallen snow around, making it feel like a blizzard.  There are no birds in our garden.  Where do they go for protection?

Squirrels

We do have a variety of squirrels, and in the interest of calling them by the correct names, I wikied them.  

The first photo is a fox squirrel.  The next two are gray squirrel.  You can clearly see the gray coat.  The next is a red squirrel in the bird feeder.  It is the only one small enough to fit inside!  

The last photo is a Eurasian red squirrel.  This is a photo from wikipedia.

http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/Landowners_Guide/Species_Mgmt/Squirrels.htm

This website gives great descriptions of the squirrels we have in Michigan.

Eastern gray squirrel - "occupies most of eastern North America within mature mixed hardwood and conifer forests and was abundant in Michigan when the first settlers arrived.  

. . . overall silvery gray body, generally white belly, and tail hairs that are white-tipped.

. . . Black squirrels are simply melanistic phases of the gray squirrels.

. . . The gray squirrel lives most of its life in and around a single nest tree moving no more than 300 yards in a season and is the least social of all tree squirrels.

Fox squirrel - "heavier than the gray and is also longer." . . .  The fox has a buff to orange-colored belly, a back of tawny brown, and a long plumed tail of black brown with rust-tipped guard hairs.  Fox squirrels prefer small woodlots of mature trees throughout the Lower Peninsula. " *

Red squirrel -  "lives throughout the state.  This small species prefers a forest of conifers or conifers mixed with hardwoods, where it can find both hardwood mast (nuts) and pine seeds."

Flying squirrel - I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild, but I do remember a few years ago when I was in elementary school and Mother took me to visit Mrs. Drew, my first and second grade teacher.  She raised flying squirrels, and had them in a very large cage - as I recall, it took up most of an attached room.  

*"Before 1850, the fox squirrel was concentrated around grassland openings in oak forests of southwest Lower Michigan.  As the forests were cleared for agriculture and timber, fox squirrels used fence rows as travel routes to expand their range.  By 1925 the species was found throughout the Lower Peninsula.

Bluejays and peanuts

How do bluejays know that we just put out peanuts?  They arrive as soon as we get in the door.  Do they smell them?

Purple finch vs. house finch revisited!

I found a beautiful website with photos:

wildbirds photo gallery by Bob Moul at pbase.com

http://www.pbase.com/rcm1840/wild_birds

Cardinals at dusk

Why is it that cardinals are the only birds in the garden at dusk?  

Their chirping has Zenith glued to the window.

Clean birdbath!

We took advantage of the one-day thaw today.  It actually topped 40 degrees!  All the ice in the bird bath melted, so Dan carried water, and I scrubbed the birdbath, then refilled it.  I'm sure the wildlife will appreciate it, as they've been enjoying the water frequently.  It's made me feel bad, to see them bathing in the dirty water.  So now it's clean.

The naughty squirrels have just about wiped out our supply of sunflowers, raiding feeders that we thought were squirrel proof.  New strategies are required.

House finch vs. purple finch

I've always had trouble remembering which finch we see more often, and what the difference is.

House finch is the common one around here.  (around the house, maybe)

It looks like a goldfinch with some red on it.  

Purple finch is rounder and redder.

Who's visiting today

The bird garden was a very busy place when I got up at 10 am.  The seeds are going fast, and we need a new bag of sunflowers.   The bird bath needs a good cleaning.  Suet is almost gone - but we do have 2 full cases in the car.  At the rate the finches are going through it, the niger seed will be gone soon.  I'm glad Sharon and Dan are enjoying bird watching as much as I am, so they'll help!  

A naughty squirrel is trying to finish off the suet, after foiling the baffle, but is somewhat deterred by the way we put the suet in the feeder: hang the feeder at an angle, with the suet cake still in the plastic container, with the open side of the cake facing down.

So far today I've seen:

cardinals

pine siskins

goldfinches

juncos

house sparrows

bluejays

red bellied woodpecker

downy woodpecker

white breasted nuthatch

tufted titmouse (don't see it very often)

house finch

Nothing new; these are all regulars.

Dan just put out a new suet feeder with 2 cakes of suet, trying to hang it in the right way to foil the squirrels.

He also topped off the niger seed feeders and through out some peanuts.  The good squirrel is happy as a clam, chowing down on peanuts and seeds on the ground.  The blue jays are quite frustrated - they've tried to scare him off by squawking, but he's not buying.  The light on the ground near the squirrel (and peanuts) but the don't quite have the nerve to get close enough to him to swipe the peanuts.  They have to make do with sunflower seeds.

  

I decided to get with it and start a blog.  As Sharon told me, most blogs are dull, dull, dull, so this will be primarily a journal just for me.