Do you see any interesting birds this year?
@desertdarlene (8910)
United States
September 21, 2010 3:27pm CST
I started birdwatching a few months ago and I have been learning about all kinds of birds in my area. So far, at one lake-park, I've found about 80 plus species there. I also saw a lot of babies.
Interesting birds I saw this year were Greater Yellowlegs, soras, golden eagle, cooper's hawks, starlings, grackles, ravens and crows, gadwalls, tanagers, kingbirds, Say's phoebes and wood-ducks to name a few.
What kinds of birds have you seen?
1 person likes this
6 responses
@GardenGerty (160642)
• United States
22 Sep 10
I always have cardinals, blue jays and robins in my yard. Mourning doves come visit as well. Grackles and cowbirds and blackbirds and starlings. Sparrows, and barn swallows and finches and wrens. We see lots of redtailed hawks when we drive. Occasionally we see vultures circling. There is a big trend toward seeing Mississippi Kites, and they will live in the city and get rather aggressive. They are a bird of prey.
@desertdarlene (8910)
• United States
22 Sep 10
I think kites like to catch the smaller birds. I don't see any kites around here, mostly we have American kestrels which eat the same thing that kites do, mostly.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (160642)
• United States
22 Sep 10
They first came to this area about ten years ago, and we would see them a lot flying right after mowing. When I looked them up it said that they eat large insects, as well as small birds and mammals. I always figured mowing stirred up some large insects like grasshoppers.
@desertdarlene (8910)
• United States
22 Sep 10
I just discovered grackles this year and I did not like them! For one, they will attack my favorite bird, killdeer, and kill them! Fortunately, that hasn't happened so far and many of the grackles "moved on" after breeding season. Some were given the shove when a Cooper's hawk decided that they tasted good and began hunting them. But, they're still around, but only a few. The killdeer avoid them and even do alarm calls sometimes when they go by.
1 person likes this
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
22 Sep 10
This would not be on most people's interesting birds list, but I saw a rather majestic raven. This is a bird fabled in literature but one I had never gotten close to before. Curiously, I had just looked up a friend's celtic horoscope and saw that his bird was the raven and then I went on a short trip with him and this big black bird came right up to him. I took a photo!
I have not seen any wood ducks lately, but when I was a little kid there were many hatchlings in the trees around my home and sometimes a nest would fall down and I would get to rescue the baby wood ducklings. They were so very cute. I hand fed them oatmeal.
@desertdarlene (8910)
• United States
22 Sep 10
Awww, baby wood ducklings! Someone had a nestcam with a wood duck and she had 14 ducklings who all had to jump out of the box when they were a day and a half old. All of them made it, too!
I've known a couple of people who kept wild ravens as "pets", but I wouldn't be able to do that because they eat killdeer chickies and ducklings.
@animegirl334 (3263)
• United States
22 Sep 10
Last week on my college campus I saw a small gray colored bird with an orange belly. It had a small peck and jumped really fast. I'm not sure what the species is and I have never saw a bird with those two colors before so it was nice seeing one. I don't go bird watching on purpose but it's nice to see some cool-looking birds when I'm out.
@desertdarlene (8910)
• United States
22 Sep 10
There are a lot of pretty birds that I don't know the name for, either. I use a couple of sites like Whatbird.com and All About Birds to look them up. But, I find a good old hand-held birding book to be the best resource.
@gitfiddleplayer (10362)
• United States
21 Sep 10
Since we moved to Hawaii I've seen a lot of different birds. There are many species over here that come from the East since we're right in the middle of the ocean. There are a few bird watching groups but I haven't thought about joining them, we mostly see pigeons at the beach and some other birds that feed off the leftovers of people.
@desertdarlene (8910)
• United States
22 Sep 10
Cool! It seems like pigeons are everywhere. Did you know there's one from London on Twitter. He's funny, he tweets about normal pigeon things.
@strikeshado (61)
• Canada
21 Sep 10
I live in an urban center right now so I don't really see too much wildlife. But I've seen yellow finches, blue jays, ducks (are those too ordinary to count?) herons, morning doves, and a red-tailed hawk once.
@desertdarlene (8910)
• United States
22 Sep 10
That's cool, I live in the middle of the city, too, but it's San Diego and we have a lot of canyons and open areas around us, so we see a lot of different types of animals and birds. It's almost like living in the country, except we still have the city noise and small lots!
