My backyard birds

[calzephyr77]

Hi birdlovers, I don't have any lovely photos of birds to share, but I do have cool stories to share.

Regretfully our neighbourhood has all the regular birds you would expect in a North American city - sparrows, robins, house finches, magpies and crows. Ducks and Canada geese fly overhead. Occasionally I spot a small hawk or merlin.

I live next to

Comments

[anonymous]

aw :) glad you're enjoying birdwatching! It's one of those rare "anywhere, almost any time, needs no special prep" kind of hobbies.

[calzephyr77]

Truly - it's a hobby you can take with you worldwide :-)

[jehoshabeath]

Thank you so much for sharing these observations and stories :) I love watching the birds here, too. We don't have magpies in this area, though. What are they like? And what do they look like?

Best wishes, Megan

[_lyra_b]

Magpies are black and white birds with a longish tail. The most common one is found in Europe but there are a couple of species found in the northwest United States and Canada. Much like crows they are very vocal.

Cornell University has an awesome website called allaboutbirds.org and you can look up just about any bird and find out all kinds of info.

[jehoshabeath]

Thanks so much - I appreciate it.

[calzephyr77]

That's a great website! Thanks for sharing it.

[klia]

Thanks for sharing! It's always fun discovering new birding spots, and it's great that you found one so close.

I have my favorites (like the Steller's jays who showed up a while ago, but have since been aggressively chased away by the scrub jays; I still hear them occasionally, but, sadly, they're no longer daily visitors like they were), but I've always been more into bird behavior than anything, so I just enjoy watching whoever shows up in my tiny yard. :)

[calzephyr77]

It's funny how the different species have their little communities :-) We used to get more robins in our yards and then the crows really ramped up - litter in the park attracts them, I think, and I try to keep it tidy. But, maybe about six years ago, crows and magpies were really hit hard by West Nile virus, so it's great to see them bounce back. There was a really noticeable lack of crows and magpies there for a couple of years!

I would love to have jays of any kind around. I guess we can't pick and choose our animal visitors - this week I discovered I had baby hares on the side of the house :-D

[klia]

Baby hares -- how cool! I just heard a very noisy family of raccoons trundle through the ivy bushes, and when I opened the door and shone the flashlight outside, the mom growled at me. :D

I've been really lucky here. Aside from the usual suspects, I've seen everything from thrashers to Townsend's warblers to hermit thrushes to cedar waxwings to Cooper's hawks. It's a fantastic little spot for birding.

Btw, the Steller's jays stopped by yesterday, very briefly, then snuck in fairly quietly today, not once, but three times. Totally made my day. \o/

[eringryffin]

It's amazing how well herons can blend in, just by standing still! Once they move, it's a bit of a, "Wow, how did I not see that huge thing?" moment. :)