Bird feeders/watchers

[Katzateer]

Anyone else feed birds and love watching them? What type of birds do you get at your feeders?

[faline]

We get families of cardinals. We also have blue jays, mourning doves, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers and an occasional indigo bunting. Red winged blackbirds are abundant as well.

[Katzateer]

We get all of those except the bunting. Would love to see those!!

Also we have some large hawks and big black birds -grackles?

I am wondering where our golden finches have gone. We have had a big happy group since we moved here 3 years ago. They have been gone since October-the other 2winters they stayed in our yard year round. I know they don't stay the bright yellow in the winter. Wondering where they have gone :(

We also get the house finches and some small (between the chickadee size and cardinals) birds with black feathers on top and some brown underneath. The black looks like a coat covering most of them. Not sure what they are. They come in a group and I don think the females look different from the males.

Haven't identified a few more I think we get some sparrows and thrush.

I am really enjoying the birds-didn't have feeders in Ohio. I put out thistle, sunflower seed and suet. Also some unsalted shelled peanuts the bluejays go crazy over. I put out mealworms but they don't seem very popular.

[Katzateer]

Also, an owl in in the back in some large pines but I have not seen it. Just hear it about 10pm -midnight.

[disneymom15]

We get Orioles and Hummingbirds also. To attract the Orioles, you need to put out grape jelly and oranges. I think husband starts doing this right around the 1st of May.

[Katzateer]

We get hummingbirds too. I have tried the oranges but will try the grape jelly in May. Thanks!

[KODABEAR]

:old::knit:
We get the gold finches in our yard from Dec to April the poof there gone !!!

[jillluvsdisney]

My parents have a few feeders on their patio. They get blue jays and cardinals.

[faline]

We've tried hummingbird feeders with little success but have had them around some of our hanging plants. And, yes, we do get a lot of the finches! But, they certainly do like to fight! We've had a few so involved in their battles that they've run into the sliding glass doors - a few times with fatal results!

Not at our feeders, but we also have a number of hawks - primarily red tails in the area. The birds at the feeders typically disappear pretty quickly when they are around!

[Janmac]

We also get the house finches and some small (between the chickadee size and cardinals) birds with black feathers on top and some brown underneath. The black looks like a coat covering most of them. Not sure what they are. They come in a group and I don think the females look different from the males.



I think the bird you're asking about is a junco. Our juncos are mostly ground feeders. They remind me of nuns, and I don't know why because their coloring isn't really like habit.

We get the cardinal pairs, plenty of gold finches and purple finches. Maybe 20 years ago we did not see gold finches during the hard winter weather. They probably started at the feeders in late February. In recent years they are at the feeders all winter.

We also get tufted titmice, chickadees and nuthatches. Occasionally in December we'll have some late, not yet migrated, blue birds.

Lately the blue jays have been coming back. We used to have quite a few which disappeared about the time of the West Nile virus, but a Conservation fellow told me blue jays weren't affected. It's nice to see them back.

Spring is the most fun, because we'll get lots of unusual birds, as they're traveling through. we've had at least 3 different grosbeak varieties for a brief time in the spring.

The most unusual was an European Goldfinch that was at our feeder twice one afternoon. He must have been blown considerably off course and I often wonder what became of him. I wouldn't have known what he was except that my Peterson's was my mother's and is fairly old - has a 1947 copyright. It has the European Goldfinch in it because at that time, there was a colony on Long Island, NY. It's not there now, so current versions of Petersons don't list the European Goldfinch.

And if it weren't for my grandson's naturalist eye, because he noted the birds' markings in the blink of an eye while I was clueless. He helped me identify the bird.

We only put a sunflower seed/cracked corn mix in our feeders. Everyone, even the thistle eaters, seem to like it. We had to pour the thistles out, the one year I tried a thistle feeder.

We do have a large feeder with bigger perches located away from the smaller perches feeders, so the jays don't scare the smaller birds. Sometimes we put a nut/raisin/sunflower mix in the bigger feeder.

Jan

[Jeff]

I am wondering where our golden finches have gone. We have had a big happy group since we moved here 3 years ago. They have been gone since October-the other 2winters they stayed in our yard year round. I know they don't stay the bright yellow in the winter. Wondering where they have gone :(
.

The yellow finches are gone from my yard this year as well, I put out thistle seed in two feeders and have, in past years, had to refill them ever other day. Now they are gone and feeders have not been refilled once. Cardinals and bluejays gone too!
Still getting sparrows, chickadees and woodpeckers!

[Katzateer]

We got some bluebirds about a week ago- they stayed a couple of days and moved on.

We have a lot of hummingbirds in my butterfly garden. I also got some feeders that stick to glass and the birds come right up to our front picture window. One of our cats sits next to the feeder inside and the hummers just watch him while they feed outside. He doesn't move a muscle- just watches them. Very entertaining.