Today was a good day!
The sun was shining this morning, and when I brought the cams out, I heard a familar song - a Bluebird! Later I also saw a couple checking out the nestbox. It’s been a while, they have not been visiting a lot during this mild and sunless winter, so I was very happy. I could not see any Starlings, so I quickly put some mealers in the bowls and hope for the best. And look at this beautiful BB man in the awkwardly bright winter sun. I have missed this sight. I have begun thinking about nestbox maintenance and will soon get to work to see what I can improve for this season.
It is so easy
to get used to certain things and then feel bummed when they suddenly stop working. I’ve used my Birdsy cams since 2019 now, and when they had a server maintenance yesterday, it was awkward to not see what is going on in the yard. Interruptions happen occasionally but I guess it is extra hard when there is nothing else going on and you are thirsty for excitement 😜 Today, everything is back in order again, and you can watch my (mostly uneventful) streams here and over at birdsy.com. Activity is still low except for some finches, MoDos and a group of Starlings that comes several times a day to check feeders and destroy the bird baths. A hawk has been trying to hunt here too. I am slowly planning spring setups and enjoy spending a little less on bird seed. And the occasional action-packed Starling portrait.
It is funny how much
my backyard birding reports are sounding like weather reports 😆🤪 But here we go. Today was the last more extremely cold day for a bit. It will still be wintery but not to the point where you have to use face cream to prevent frostbite (my middle German cheeks are still sensitive to extreme cold). The wind was icy and blowing, and there was not a lot going on. A group of Starlings came over and wrecked the bird baths and shooed everybody away, but there was also sun and I got these three beauties. Come good into the weekend!
Happy Groundhog Day!
Apparently, there will be at least six more weeks of winter. This is fine by me, I get to wear all my knitted stuff and make more! I do hope that there will be more sunshine than in January, it just makes the cold more bearable. The local resident is happily snoozing in his apartment under the shed but here are some glimpses from the previous years.
During this time
of the year, and I guess always, there will also be the opportunists. And they can be tiny and adorable like the Titmouse but also overwhelming like a group of European Starlings. Well, and the MoDos…
When there is little activity,
even the simplest little things can become interesting. Like the funky colorings of House Finches. Their color is determined by what they eat, and we have all kinds of berries around, red but also orange. These two looked quite cool.
I know that not everybody
has a great time on snow days, especially when the routine involves driving, but I was so happy today to see everything getting covered by a blanket of thick, heavy snow. We got about a foot, and I am not sure how long it will stay, so I am relishing, forgive me. I put on my thermo bibs, snow boots and hat every time I went for refills, and I had the most glorious time tumbling around like a toddler. Snow days are always fun for photos, and today did not disappoint.
I am so happy
to see that the Titmice have found their way back here. They are not just totally adorable but also a lot of fun to watch and listen to. In the spring, you can hear their surprisingly loud PETERPETERPETER sounding through the air. Right now, they sound a lot like Chickadees, making grumpy little noises when they are not happy with the spread or notice competition.
Today finally
we got some snow again, and I decided to take a break from the feeder break and put the cams out. It was still rather calm generally but there were many happy Cardinals. The entire family of the King and Queen of the Yard showed off. I counted four males and at least two females. The light was still murky but here are some of my favorites from today. Come good into Monday!
It was another
dreary day today, and with feeders down, there was of course not a lot going on. I did notice that squirrels really do not like the hot bark butter but scraped the remains off the tree for the night so the Flying Squirrel is happy. And I dug into my folders of photos from the past. These are from a year ago today, and I have never published them. The BBs were visiting a lot because it was cold for a long time. Sigh. Come good into Friday!
Since things are
as slow as they are currently, the overwhelming amount of doves, the larger groups of House Sparrows, Starlings and squirrels visiting, and some Finches that I suspect may have the eye disease, I have decided to pull feeders for a couple of weeks. I will wash all the feeders with a 9:1 water/ bleach solution and let them air dry. I will keep the baths out and also the BB feeder and the peanut butter. It is going to be even more boring than in the last few weeks, but it is a perfect time to do this. Taking feeders down helps the birds to disperse and let nature take its course. It may also be a fun time to go through older photos and post some I haven’t back in spring and summer. Here is a Starling from today.
The sun came out,
it was nice and frosty, and we took the last Christmas lights on the outside down. The Nuthatches, Titmice and Chickadees were happily buzzing around, the woodpeckers were busy, and the Finches were happy. And so were the squatters. They hogged the camera bowls, convinced that everybody needs to see only them 😝
As you may have guessed,
things are still very slow. It is truly a bit depressing, but I cannot change the weather. Here is a House Finch couple from today. They are frequent visitors. I have always loved that particular shade of the lashes of the male and would love some company to make it into a nail polish. How fun could that be, a whole bird line? Come good into the weekend!
A crazy thing happened today,
the sun came out! It feels like it’s been ages. It was a bit cooler too, and there were birds! When I first stepped out in the morning, I could hear a Bluebird, so I put some mealers out in the open bowl, and voilà. What a nice sight after these weeks of barely any fun photos. The Titmice and Chickadees were very vocal and the MoDos feisty as always (yes, that one in the back holds the feathers of the other one 😂 ). Here’s to a good birding week!
I am seeing a lot of ads for
for "THE AI BIRD FEEDER" and things like that, and I would like to state that I am not using any of these birdfeeder cameras. For my photos I use a homemade setup with an action camera, and for video and streaming I use Birdsy cameras. Many of the currently available feeder cams appear to be knockoffs (makers saw products in Kickstarter that garnered a lot of attention and then proceeded to quickly produce lesser quality products and flooded the market with them). They are often pricey gadgets and not the quality they may promise to be. My opinion of this is coming from seeing posts in birding groups, as well as my own research for what is out there and promising. I can only recommend Birdsy so far because it is what I use and because I know there is a solid, authentic and diligent team behind it. My general advice would be - do some research, try to find feedback and don’t spend fortunes on bad products.
If you are a maker of a feeder cam, feel free to send me one, I will put it to the test.
Have a great Friday!
Happy National Bird Day!
I hope you all got to watch some of our wonderful feathered friends today and got entertained by their antics. It has been another quiet day in my yard and I wonder if the Nuthatches, of which there is a good little number, are happy they get to collect and cache so much stuff without any competition. The Redbreasted are one of my favorites. Tame, vocal & aborbable. I think here we have a female, her dark stripe on the head looks more grey than black.
The way things are right now,
I am saving a lot of money on bird food because there is still simply nothing happening. Today was a lovely gloomy day with fog for almost morning to evening, but only few birds visited. This may be a good time to purge for a bit to get the MoDos to move on 🤔 We will see, there is some cold weather coming, and that usually brings birds in.
The year is coming to an end,
and I would like to take the moment to thank everybody who has been following me along. 2022 was an odd year in regards to birds for me, it feels like there was a lot less going on than in previous years. While it is nice to have more time for other hobbies, I am looking forward to a hopefully beautiful spring with an abundance of visitors. With this pensive Whitebreasted Nuthatch I am bidding farewell to 2022 (unless a super awesome bird comes tomorrow 😁).
Be safe this New Year’s Eve, love as much as you can, and see you all fresh and new in 2023. My calendars will still be available for a bit into January, should you decide you would like one.
As someone from the middle of Germany,
I have always loved having four seasons, and Michigan is a great place to be with that. I can see beauty in all four of them, and it is lovely to have them all here. Snow days are fun because there is a bit more activity at feeders, and I love the pale background for photos too. The birds are all slightly more agitated as well, which can produce some fun shots. Here are some from today. It is wonderful to see more of the Titmouse again. The Goldfinches are still quite vibrant, and having the King of the Yard over is always a treat.
