The sun was out today,
and the birds seemingly posed with proudly-swelled chests. It is still cold and gets below zero at night but the days are undeniably getting longer, and spring is starting to fill the air with bird song. Now that the darkest time of winter is over, I am pretty much ready for spring to begin, the summer birds to arrive and getting my hands dirty in the garden again.
I have recently ventured
into experiments with night sky photography, and have been enjoying the excitement of discovering and learning something new a lot (I know this is not perfect but I am having a lot of fun!). I have been putting a camera on the ground, with settings set for low light and timelapse night after night. It is fun to see what happens in the sky over night, it is beautiful and fascinating and mysterious. I have been compiling videos as well as photos, and today, since bird activity is still lackluster, here is a sky photo. Early this morning the clouds vanished and revealed a beautiful carpet of stars. I did have two Redwinged Blackbirds visiting yesterday, and the Robins are still hanging around, so with March approaching, I hope activity will pick up soon. Here's to a great week!
Winter has returned
with quite a bit of snow this morning, and it was awesome watching the Cardinal share the food bowl with a cheeky American Tree Sparrow and some Juncos.
The last week
was so mild, one day I even had the windows open all day. Spring was in the air. Now we have more snow in the forecast, but it feels like everybody is getting ready for the next season anyways. These two here are definitely give that impression. The first thing I heard when I stepped outside this morning was the wonderful PETERPETERPETER of a Titmouse. And a Chickadee has been busy checking out the nestboxes all week too.
Regardless of that, bird activity remains low, so I am using this time to pack my work schedule. Migration may be already underway and busy times are upon us soon.
The sun was out today,
and the Red-bellied Woodpeckers were very frequent visitors at the food bowls. There are several individuals around but especially this male always sticks out because of the “line” on his forehead (he is in the second and third photo). The female is a beauty as well with her big blue-grey forehead. I love that these guys are hanging around, especially since I do not put suet out (I don’t like how bonkers the Starlings get over it and the woodpeckers always came regardless).
I don't believe
that we will get an early spring but signs of it have begun to emerge. It is not just the Starlings that have started to change their plumage, the Goldfinches show specks of more vibrant yellow as well, turning into their breeding colors. They are the most plentiful right now, along with House Finches (the sun came out yesterday!), Pine Siskins, Juncos and MoDos.
There may not be
as much variety here this winter as in previous years, but the Juncos are making up for it with the coolest color combinations. The ones with lots of brown are sometimes almost looking like mini Towhees, they are youngsters from last season. Must have been a good year for them.
The snow has thawed
and since things have slowed down again a bit, I decided to take the chance for a little feeder break to make the Starlings move on. Here are some of the last photos from snow day. The two Cardis are different individuals. The first one still has some orange spots, so I think he is a young male from last summer. The other one looks more mature, also note the slightly broken beak (which I hear grows back). The other two are a Mourning Dove and a Starling that is seemingly already far into the transition to breeding plumage.
Yesterday has been
a rather mild day. The snow started to melt, leaving a sludgy mess on the ground. This was great for bird photography because some of the ones who like feeding on the ground came up to the photo setup. And the prettiest of them all was this gorgeous Cardinal lady. Her hair game is top notch!
It is always nice
to get a little recognition, and this time around, it happens across the pond in the UK. The Daily Star, the Daily Telegraph and The Times have published one of the angry ones today.
The tiny ones
are very animated and adorable right now. Juncos and Goldfinches are a bit feisty with one another, resulting in lots of blurry photos when the SD card cannot compete with tempo and cold.
Another cold day,
but some beautiful little ones came to visit the feeders. I am happy about the Juncos and the Tree Sparrow, they usually feed on the ground. The Titmouse looked adorable as always. American Tree Sparrows can be easily confused with Chipping Sparrows, but one good ID sign is a spot on their chest.
They haven’t been visiting in a long time,
but along with the cold and snow, a large group of Starlings has found its way to the yard too. I do find their photos quite entertaining but truth be told, I could live without them pooping all over the place, trashing the bird baths and eating everything in sight… They kind of remind me of the Bumpus Hounds from A Christmas Story 🤪
Against the snow,
the Cardis continue to shine. There are several couples, and I think one of the males may be a youngster from last year, he has quite a bit of yellow/ orange still in his plumage.
We are now
in a nice stretch of very cold winter weather, with temperatures that make the inside of your nose feel funny when you go outside. It won’t be for long, so I am thoroughly enjoying. The snow makes for a great background, and there are lots of birds visiting. Each coping in their own way with the cold. A couple of Cowbirds have arrived, and yesterday I also saw a Grackle!
Finally a snow day today,
and since I knew things would thaw later, I got up really early. I was rewarded with sights of the new pretty Cardinal lady. She has so much red on her. She is in the first and last two photos. A male and another, less vibrant female, are in the other photos. I love the color combination of the female Cardinals, they are such elegant beauties.
We didn't get
any snow today but there is a lot of rain and temperatures are forecasted to go to freezing. The bird avalanche I was hoping for did not come but the week is not over yet. A good time to show off some Blue Jays from a couple of days ago. I love their expressions and patterns.
Happy National Bird Day
A new visitor this morning... The Birdsy AI identified and recorded the clip. I was in a meeting and only saw it later in my Birdsy account. What a magnificent bird! Apparently it is a she, a Sharp-shinned. And she left hungry.
A word about Birdsy... I have been using their cameras since 2019, and I love the convenience of using a camera that is AI driven rather than unsing motion detection. My photo setup is motion activated, and it takes me a lot of time and computer storage to handle and edit the photos. I have used security cams to get close to wildlife before too, but I found it very time-consuming to sift through the footage to see if they captured anything fun. The cool thing with Birdsy is that the AI is trained on wildlife and captures exactly that so you do not end up with tons of “empty” videos. You also don’t have to install emulators or wonky software in order to watch your clips or livestream. With Birdsy, you get an app as well as an online account in which all your videos are saved and sorted by ID and date. And you can share your clips and livestream with others or embed it on your website, like I am doing here as well. In my opinion, nothing beats the convenience of this system as opposed to trail cams or security cams. No SD cards needed, and you are not tied to a setup like the gadgety smart feeders that seem to be all the rage now. You can build your own setup. Check it out on their website birdsy.com. I am streaming there too 😊
Continuing the color scheme
was this much-beloved visitor today, one of the resident male Cardinals. There are several couples around but they usually stay on the ground or go to the bigger platform feeder that has no camera. After having been so low on variety recently, it is really nice to see my favorites back on photo.
