Snow and cold weather means more cozy days at home (well, that + having a car in the shop all week) - and more time for birdwatching! Both boys have loved learning about and watching birds all summer, so once the cold came, we cleaned and filled our bird feeder, expanded our setup, and moved some feeding spots closer to our back porch. We made pine cone bird feeders and hung them all over our tree. We have had a LOT of winged visitors since we started getting all of this snow. The boys love seeing the birds (many of them now have nicknames). We have several bird identification books in our home library, but we found a few books from the library just about winter birds.
Feeding Wild Birds in Winter by Clive Dobson
Backyard Birds of Winter by Carol Lerner
Since we are in a residential neighborhood, we mostly get Juncos, Mourning Doves, and American Goldfinches. We have been reading a few books (and looking up online) and learning more about the birds. We plan to make some other feeders which are in the books - suet and rice cake types. It will be fun to see who else visits us this winter! We might even keep track.
"Dover" checking us out.
NOTE: I realized that some images were broken in IE and Safari while they showed in Firefox. Bizarre--I had a hard time with blogger last night so something must have been funky. I have reposted images so hopefully everyone can see them now!
4 comments:
Oh, you're so lucky! I miss the bird sounds here, most of them have left for the winter. The only ones I've see are magpies (always here) and a few Northern Red-Shafted Flickers.
Dover the dove, cute. We've mostly been watching (& feeding) the squirrels around here. Man you should see this obese one that comes around, and the one that likes to lay on the fence. Not sit, lay. Nature can be so "interesting" sometimes.
Now I can see, thanks! The dove is great, we can't get them anywhere near feeders here. I have a special fondness for the doves.
Cami-We had flickers in the summer, but it was the only time I've seen them here!
Chole-It is so odd to me that we rarely if ever see squirrels here. There is a coyote close by, so maybe they stay clear. I just haven't lived anywhere before without them--and those I had in Chicago were like that. Fat, bold, cranky... ;)
Lizz--Lots of doves here. Dover is solitary (the rest all in pairs) and is pretty territorial on our feeder. :) I think it is the same dove from last winter too...
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