Friday, May 19, 2017

Bird watching

with putting the bird feeders and bird water-er (is that a word?) out in our backyard we are seeing lots of variety of birds. I like to know what they are (except for the damn crows, I already know what they are!) but it's kind of hard to figure out.

One is a small-ish black bird with a bright red stripe on it's wings. So I googled that description and what do you know - the bird is called a "red-winged blackbird" (how original!). The google page also showed pictures of the female "red-winged blackbird", which looks absolutely nothing like the male bird. It's brown in color, but describes a bunch of other birds I've seen just like them.  There's another bird I've seen a few times that is a pretty blue. I have no idea what that is (not a bluejay, like we used to see at our old house).

This picture doesn't show the red in the wing, looks more yellow (there is a little yellow, too). But I'm pretty sure the other birds must be the females. I also listened to the distinctive sound they make online and definitely it's them.

The hummingbird feeder attached to my office window is a busy place and I'm seeing what looks like about 4 different kinds of hummers. From my googling it looks like I'm getting Calliope, Roufus, Anna, and maybe Broad-tailed. They are so fast, and they seem to change color as they move, so it's been a bit harder for me to learn to identify what they are.

At my old house I loved listening to the mourning dove up in a tree nearby. They sound like a owl. DH swears he's hearing them here, but while it does sound like an owl hooting (during the day) it doesn't sound like the mourning dove call. But, we have seen some birds at our bird feeder that look just like them, so maybe they just sound a bit different here? The call is "ahoooo....hooo-hooo-hooo" and these birds just do "hooo-hooo-hooo"  Funny, DH's neighbor buddy said the other day that he's up really early and keeps hearing what sounds like an owl hooting in the morning and said he's never ever heard them before. DH told him what we think they are and that I must have brought them with me, LOL.


5 comments:

  1. How wonderful! We cannot wait to get that going at our new place. As for the hummingbirds, the only year we ever put out the food - one hummingbird guarded it with his life and would not let any others get to it - even the females. This lasted for 2-3 months! Have y'all ever watched Big Year? It is one of our favorite movies!

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    1. they are definitely territorial over feeding! We have two feeders. They rarely sit on them more than one at a time, but do seem to take turns. I'm thinking of getting a 3rd one, since I have quite a few birds coming to drink.

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    2. and I'll have to check out that movie!

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    3. It is all about birds! And funny! Owen Wilson, Jack Black, Steve Martin My husband wanted to start bird watching because of this movie!

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    4. it's gotta be funny with those 3 guys! I will definitely have to watch it.

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