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Author Archives: Mark

Holiday Bird Pictures From Our Feeders

December 25, 2008 – 8:00 am

Merry Christmas

And

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

Here are some pictures of the birds from our backyard bird feeder, our gift to all of you.  Thanks for reading and here’s to a great 2009!

This past weekend we “upgraded” our feeder setup.  So far, the birds seem to really like it.  One of the benefits to this setup is that it is a little easier to take photos of the birds as they sit and eat.  I’m still figuring out how to take the best quality pictures from the 2nd floor bedroom but I got quite a few and thought I’d share some of them:

Cardinal and Carolina Wren

Here’s a Cardinal and Carolina Wren sharing the platform feeder. We have a ton of Cardinals in our yard and they really seem to like the platform.

Tufted Titmouse

This Tufted Titmouse was just about to fly off as I took this picture.

Red Bellied Woodpecker

We have a couple of Red Bellied Woodpeckers that frequent the suet feeder. They are a very pretty bird and fun to watch.

House Finch

We have a lot of House Finches and the platform feeder has become their new favorite place.

Eastern Towhee

The Eastern Towhee stays on the ground and picks up whatever he can that falls from the feeders.

Eastern Bluebird and Cardinal

We have a lot of Bluebirds in our yard this Winter. They really like the suet feeder but for some reason this one was on the ground with his buddy the Cardinal.

Eastern Bluebird

Here’s an OK picture of a Bluebird on the suet feeder. My camera has a hard time focusing on the small area of the feeder so the picture is a little blurry.

I’m enjoying the challenge of photographing the birds that visit our feeders. Hopefully I can get better quality photos by tweaking the settings on the camera.

What kind of pictures are you able to get of the birds at your feeders?

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How Many Bird Feeders Do You Have

December 23, 2008 – 11:46 am

OK backyard bird feeding people, this is for you.  We are deep into the heart of backyard bird feeding season and millions of us lure birds to our yards with all kinds of seeds and other edible morsels. So, if you love to feed the birds and your budget for seed exceeds the family grocery bill, let the world know about your fanaticism! Or, if you like to let the birds fend for themselves we have an option for you as well.

This poll is a very simple one: How many bird feeders do you have?  Count up all of the feeders you have in your yard and check the appropriate button. I’ve started this off with our answer, which is 4 feeders.

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Our New Bird Feeder Setup

December 22, 2008 – 10:58 am

This past weekend Pam and I added to our feeder assortment by replacing a feeder that was falling apart and adding a couple of new ones to the mix.  Hopefully this will give us a wider variety of birds.

Out With The Old

Here is a picture of our old feeder setup. Old Birdfeeder Setup You will see that we had a “tri-tube” feeder along with a finch feeder and a suet cage.  We were getting a fair amount of birds.  In fact, the feeders were always pretty busy.  But the triple tubed feeder was on its last legs.  Most of the feeding holes were chewed away, the result of squirrels getting on the feeder before we raised the feeder.  The seed would just fall out of the holes and the feeder was almost impossible to clean.  The finch feeder didn’t get much action.  We think maybe it was because it was so close to the other feeder and the goldfinches supposedly don’t like that.

In With The New

We set out to get a new tube feeder to replace the one we had.  New Feeder Setup We went to a couple of  stores that sell bird feeders and found one we liked, the BirdQuest Spiral Feeder.  Instead of perches it has a “spiral” that runs from top to bottom.  It is easy to clean and holds a lot of seed.  In addition we got a Going Green Platform Feeder which is made from recycled plastic and should last a long time.  It has a perforated grate at the bottom to help keep the seed dry.  We also pulled a feeder “off the bench” which my parents gave to us a couple of years ago.  It is a tube feeder with a cage around it to keep big birds out and allow the smaller birds in to get the food.  The suet feeder stayed at the same spot.  We took the finch feeder off the feeder pole and put it on a hook attached to our deck, away from the main feeder by about 20 feet.  Hopefully that will help the goldfinches come back.

The Results

We set the new feeders up late Saturday afternoon and by Sunday morning the birds were swarming the feeders.  They seemed to like the feeders, especially the platform feeder, which had a bunch of nuthatches and cardinals all over it.  So far, so good.  Another benefit that I didn’t consider is that the new feeder setup makes it easier to get photos of the birds.  I took a bunch on Sunday and will post some when I can get through them.

So far we are very happy with the new feeder arrangement.  The birds have a wider variety of options which will hopefully attract some new species and the feeders are better positioned for viewing from the house.  We are looking forward to seeing all of the birds that will come to visit.  Now, I just need a second job to afford all of the seed we are buying! :-)

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Life List Poll Results

December 21, 2008 – 3:56 pm

A couple of weeks ago I posted the first poll on the site titled “How Many Birds Are On Your Life List“.  Being new birders we wanted to see what we were up against as far as number of birds seen.

The Envelope Please

Well, we have some results, though not as many as I would have hoped.  But, this was the first, of what I hope will be many, polls/surveys on the site so it’s a good start.

There have been 8 responses so far and here is how it broke down:

  1. 0-50 birds- 25%
  2. 251-500- 25%
  3. 501-750- 50%

Wow, some serious birders read this blog!  I guess I should be flattered, thanks for reading.  Both Pam and I are in the 0-50 bird group and it’s a little hard to imagine having more than 500 birds on our life list.  So, whoever you are that has 500+ birds on your life list, congratulations are in order!  That’s a fantastic achievement and we hope to be there one day as well.

I will keep this poll open so as new readers find this blog (Spread The Word!) they can take the poll as well.

Stay Tuned For More

This was only the first of many polls that I have planned.  There are so many things that I’d like to know about all you birders out there.  I plan on doing another one here in a couple of days.  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for poll questions you’d like to see answered please let me know!

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Researching New Birding Spots

December 19, 2008 – 10:12 pm
Chattahoochee River in Norcross, Georgia

Image via Wikipedia

Now that Pam and I are experienced birdwatchers :-) we figured we’d better expand our regular birding spots beyond our backyard.  So, this weekend we are going to try a few different locations close to our house that should offer us some variety in the birds that we see.

Get Out Of The Woods

As you probably know from an earlier post, our backyard is fairly wooded.  That’s great because we get a lot of birds but we’d like to find a couple of other locations nearby that will give us a shot at seeing some waterfowl as well as field-dwelling birds.  Luckily the Chattahoochee river is very close by as well as a couple of small lakes.  We’re hoping these locations will provide us with some new birds to see.

The Goal

Our hope is that we can find a few different areas, that are close to our house and easy to get to, that we can visit on a regular basis.  Hopefully this will give us the opportunity to see a larger variety of birds without having to expend a bunch of time and energy.

The Plan

Our plan is to take our binoculars with us as we’re out running errands and stop by a couple spots to see what we can see.  We have a couple of access points to the river that are easy to get to (one of them is right on our way to several stores we regularly shop at).  The closest lake is Berkeley Lake which is a little out of the way, but only by a couple of miles.  I ride my bike by, and around it, quite a bit and have seen numerous birds.  If our “scouting expeditions” prove successful we will add the locations to our list of local birding venues.

What About You

If you don’t watch birds outside of your yard, you might want to take some time to investigate some alternative spots.  If you do have regular “non backyard” birding spots, what kind of birding areas are they and how often do you visit them?

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