Last weekend we were sitting out on the deck eating some dinner and watching all the wildlife activity in our yard.  Birds were coming and going from the birdbath but were a little skittish.  They’d land, chirp a few times, and then fly off without really using the birdbath.  That was until our local pair of Cowbirds showed up.  The male boldly landed on the deck rail and immediately plopped into the birdbath:

After sitting in the water for a few seconds, as if he was testing it, he hopped up on the edge of the birdbath.

He looked over at us very quickly then hopped back into the water.  For the next minute or so he was happily splashing away.

Water was flying all over the place. He wasn’t holding back.  There was no way he wasn’t going to get clean!

He finally stopped and flew off after splashing all the water out of the birdbath

We like our birdbath.

A Winter Wonderland

This first picture is of the backyard at nearly the “height” of the storm.  There was a bit of slush/ice on the roads for a few hours.  The snow stuck around on the grass for a day or so and in the shady areas for nearly 3 days.  We ended up with maybe 2″ of accumulation.

Carolina Wren

here is one of our regular Carolina Wrens sitting on the snow covered platform feeder.  You can also see the beak of a male Cardinal peeking out from behind the tube feeder.

Cardinals And Yellow Rumped Warbler?

Here is a picture of a couple of cardinals along with what we think is a Yellow Rumped Warbler.  There’s a little bit of yellow under the wings along with the “wing bars”.  What do you more experienced birders think?

Another Picture Of The Warbler (We Think)

Here’s another picture of the bird we think is the Yellow Rumped Warbler.  See the little bit of yellow on his head?  The only place we didn’t see yellow was on his rump

Winter is on its way out here in Atlanta. March is usually when things start to warm up a bit here in the South so the late snowfall (March 1st) was a nice treat. Pretty soon we’ll be complaining about the 90 degree days with 90% humidity.

Our recent invasion of Pine Siskin is a little unusual from what I understand. I guess they don’t usually appear down here in such large numbers. Here they are on our thistle feeder:

Here’s one of my favorite pictures to date. I got lucky with this guy who was sitting on the bird bath.

Here’s one of the Pine Siskin eating in our “stick on” window feeder.

This Eastern Bluebird was very interested in what was going on in the house.

I’m getting better at this bird picture thing but I still take a bunch in order to get a few keepers. Hopefully you enjoy the pictures as well

When I came home from work there was a lot of activity at our heated bird bath.  I went upstairs to get the camera and when I got back downstairs all that was left were a couple of Mourning Doves:

They looked a little cold, all puffed up and just sitting there. The temperature was about 28 degrees so it was a little chilly. Pam and I get teased by our friends who live “up North” that we are becoming wimps by living in the South. I wonder if “Southern birds” get teased by their Northern relatives just like we do

I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures hoping one of them would be OK.  I didn’t have the tripod so I braced myself on the desk in the upstairs office.  This was the best of 5 that I took:

There is a lot of noise in the picture, due to the low light I suppose, but at least you can see what the bird is.

This makes 10 or 15 species I have photographed at the feeders.  I enjoy trying to photograph the birds in our backyard.  I really would like to improve the quality of the pictures but I think I will need to get a decent spotting scope and good camera adapter to do much better.  We’ll see, maybe sometime later this year we can get a spotting scope and try “digiscoping”.

What kind of camera setups do you use to take nature/bird photos.  Any suggestions for affordable setups that work well?

Swarming The Sweetgum

The birds were all over the seed pods of the big Sweetgum trees we have, hanging upside down on them and pecking away.  I tried to get some pictures but they were too far away and the camera didn’t focus too well, at least on full auto.  Then, all of a sudden they all flew to the platform feeder and began eating.  I managed to get a couple of pictures before they flew off.  Now the question is, what were they?

Bird Identification Time

Pam thought they might be Pine Siskin right off the bat.  I wasn’t so sure.  I uploaded the clearest picture I had to flickr.  here it is:

After looking at the picture and our Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America we both settled on them being Pine Siskin.

Are We Correct

What do you think?  Are these Pine Siskin, or maybe a bunch of Goldfinches?  They seem to have too much streaking on them to be Goldfinches.  But, we’ve only been birdirs for 4 weeks so we very easily could be wrong.   My guess is that once again, Pam’s intial guess is right and I was wrong (as usual)

Birding On The River

After we got our New Years bike rides in and ate some lunch we drove a few miles to where Peachtree Parkway (aka Medlock Bridge) crosses over the Chattahoochee River and parked at one of the many sections of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area to do some quick birdwatching.  We walked along the trail for about 45 minutes or so and saw a lot of the same birds that visit our feeders.

But we also saw a new bird that we can add to the life list and that was the Yellow-rumped Warbler.  Pam and I saw a few of these flitting about in the trees next to the river.  We forgot our Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America so we noted the colors, etc. and checked as soon as we got home.  We’re getting a little better at least in identifying birds.  Both of us narrowed it down to either a warbler or sparrow without the guide.

Activity At The “Bird Hot Tub”

When we got home, around 4PM, we noticed some visitors to our new “Bird Hot Tub” (as my co-workers called it when they saw I was getting Pam a heated bird bath for Christmas).  There was a pair of Eastern Bluebirds hopping along the edge of the bird bath.  I had the camera nearby and snapped a couple of pictures:

They seemed to be enjoying the fresh water. It was neat that the first birds I saw at the bird bath were the same as the 1st bird I saw for 2009 earlier in the day.  It’s funny how things work sometimes.

A Nice Start To The Year

It was a nice way to start the New Year.  We are hoping to see many more birds this year and we are looking forward to sharing our experiences with you through this blog.

We hope all of you have had a good start to 2009!

Sitting On The Deck Minding Our Business

It was a beautiful Christmas day with temps right around 62. We were sitting on our deck watching the birds come and go from the feeder when we heard the familiar call of the Great Horned Owl.  He seemed to be way off in the distance, a few yards over.  A couple minutes later the sound was much closer.  Most of the time we hear them at dusk, when it’s too dark to see anything.  This time it was 3PM and still very light outside so I kept my eyes open in case I might actually see something.

A Big Shadow In The Corner Of My Eye

All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big bird flying to the top of the neighbor’s pine tree.  I said to Pam, “over there” and we looked over in the direction of the shadow to see the owl perch on the tippy-top of a pine tree, about 100 feet up in the air.  Fortunately we had the camera with us out there so I was able to take some pictures:

I had to use maximum (12x) zoom on the camera and crop the pictures quite a bit to get these but they came out great as far as I’m concerned The owl sat up there for about 5 minutes turning his head from side to side to listen to the other owls call. We heard two others besides him. Finally he flew off the tree towards one of the other owls. We saw him again a bit later sitting partway down a tree right before dusk.

Worth The Wait

While it was frustrating hearing the owls for two years without seeing them, it was worth the wait!  We were able to get some good pictures of the Great Horned Owl as well as fantastic views with the binoculars.  There was enough light and it was a nice clear day.  That was the first time I had seen an owl in the wild since I was a kid and the 1st time ever for Pam.  She was very excited to finally see one somewhere else besides the Zoo!

Now that we’ve seen the Owl we hope to see him again very soon.  They are magnificent birds and I think it’s neat that they are living amongst all of us people like this.  It shows how much nature is right in your backyard if you listen, and look, long enough!

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:

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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?