Seems to be a great year for bird watchers

[Clipper]

I have never seen so many various varieties of birds in our yard. We don't even put out feeders other than a couple hummingbird feeders and yet we are inundated with beautiful, colorful birds this year. I can sit on my bench in the backyard while the dog is doing her thing and watch robins, cardinals, bluejays, sparrows, hummingbirds, blue birds,and recently gold finches.

I had notice a pair of bluebirds frequenting the yard earlier this spring so I put up a bluebird house on one of our fence posts. It was immediately occupied. The pair nested, laid and hatched their eggs and the babies have fledged and left the nest. I put up a 2 bird houses on the back fence line because that is where I have had house wrens nest in the past and it seems to have kept them away from the bluebird house. House wrens have been known to raid bluebird houses, pierce the eggs and take over the nesting place.

Bluebirds are my favorites. We have always seen one or two occasionally but this year I see 6 of them, probably 3 nesting pairs, almost every morning, flitting about the back yard, feeding and perching on the fence. It is past the normal nesting season but they must have nested nearby somewhere.

When we first moved here I put up feeders. Truth be known all it did was draw the birds to crap all over the vehicles so that little project was quickly abandoned. There is plenty of food here year around for birds to forage for

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

[BHU]

Jun 20, 2022 10:26:11 GMT -5 Clipper said:

I have never seen so many various varieties of birds in our yard. We don't even put out feeders other than a couple hummingbird feeders and yet we are inundated with beautiful, colorful birds this year. I can sit on my bench in the backyard while the dog is doing her thing and watch robins, cardinals, bluejays, sparrows, hummingbirds, blue birds,and recently gold finches.

I had notice a pair of bluebirds frequenting the yard earlier this spring so I put up a bluebird house on one of our fence posts. It was immediately occupied. The pair nested, laid and hatched their eggs and the babies have fledged and left the nest. I put up a 2 bird houses on the back fence line because that is where I have had house wrens nest in the past and it seems to have kept them away from the bluebird house. House wrens have been known to raid bluebird houses, pierce the eggs and take over the nesting place.

Bluebirds are my favorites. We have always seen one or two occasionally but this year I see 6 of them, probably 3 nesting pairs, almost every morning, flitting about the back yard, feeding and perching on the fence. It is past the normal nesting season but they must have nested nearby somewhere.

When we first moved here I put up feeders. Truth be known all it did was draw the birds to crap all over the vehicles so that little project was quickly abandoned. There is plenty of food here year around for birds to forage for

We have a feeder here but we get mostly red wing blackbirds. We alway had cardinals but we rarely see them this year. We also see woodpeckers & an occasional Blue Jay. We gave up on Hummingbirds. We put a feeder out the past couple years but never attracted any so we didn't bother this year.

I figured out how to keep squirrels off the feeder which we hang from a sheperd's hook. I ran a Slinky up it anchored on both ends with a cable tie. The sucker's can't climb it without going ass over teakettle. Lol

[Ralph]

   We stopped feeding ours, stopped putting out the bird bath as well.
The neighbors that lived next door had taking to feeding stray cats, which of course started hanging around for the free eats and the "all you can eat bird buffet" in our yard.

Last year, we hardly had any coming around, so we stopped.  They moved out a few months ago, so maybe we'll start again later in the year, if I can find the backyard again. LOL!  

.

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

When my Grandparents on my fathers side owned there house on Meeker Ave in Utica they had several bird feeders in the backyard. They also had a real nice working butterfly garden. As a kid I was always amazed at that. My Great Grand Father was a serious bird watched just like those guys and gals in the gif above. Could identify all of them and had the large book we could look up the birds for additional information. I always liked the Blue Jays and Pileated woodpecker.

[Clipper]

Several years a go a neighbor had several cats and they roamed free at night. I never was able to confirm whether it was those cats or a hawk that hung around the area that seemed to prefer mourning doves above other species and they would eat everything but the wings. I would frequently find a pile of feathers and just the wings of a dove.