Bird Watching

One of the fun things to do when you travel in the great outdoors is bird watching. We start with a good pair of binoculars. I like the binocular style that you can adjust for your eyes and for distance. Some binoculars are automatic but may be too powerful to focus on a closer bird or set for a distance too far away. A digital camera with a good zoom feature is a nice tool. With it you can instantly delete the empty pictures where the bird flew away just before the shutter opened. You can download the good pictures to a computer and crop and size and print them to suit your fancy. Next you will want a birdfeeder full of seed to attract them close enough for your camera to be useful. A tripod could be helpful but since birds are not very predictable, it helps to be able to move the camera quickly. Now we are set to photograph the birds and the various ways they express themselves. It also helps to have a good bird field guide to help identify what you see.

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Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

These wild birds seem to be very intelligent. This feeder was designed for small birds so the larger ones had to use some ingenuity to get the seed out. Some would hang from one station and eat from a different one. Some would hang backwards and grab seed, some would be upside down getting their share.

When I let the feeders get empty one male cardinal would begin calling loudly until it was refilled.

The Blue Jay and Ladderback woodpecker took turns at the feeder. These birds are colorful and quite fun to watch.

When they are at this distance the binoculars come in handy.

The Acorn woodpecker is a comical bird to watch. They are wary but unafraid

The Acorn woodpecker s are quite aggressive to other creatures getting near its food source.

One grey squirrel stopped by to check out the feeder and a couple of these woodpeckers sent him scrambling away. He didn't come back. Those beaks have points.

This Jay wanted a particular nut that was in the mix. I watched it throw out many seeds until it finally got the nut it wanted to the hole in the feeder. It grabbed the nut and took off with its prize.

At least the red squirrels and the other ground feeding birds benefitted from its persistence.

The female cardinals would usually wait to come to the feeder when no other birds were there.

Once in a while another bird would join them on the other side of the feeder and they didn't seem to mind. They just wanted it all to themself to start. The little chickadee was unafraid of the larger birds and helped himself at will.

The whitebreasted nuthatch visited quite frequently. It liked the nuts in the mix.

The male cardinals would wait on the side for a while then come with a rush, sending most of the other birds scattering to safety, then he would eat until he was finished. With his powerful beak he crushed the sunflower seeds. There were many small birds feeding below picking up the tidbits of seeds as he dropped them.

Some of the birds will feed side by side with other species with no problem .

Such as this finch and sparrow below.

Sparrow.

Grab your camera, this one is colorful.
This Finch and Crossbill (below) are two of the interesting birds we have observed on our travels.

Crossbill

This gold finch, in its winter plumage, kept us entertained for hours as it squabbled with the rest of the flock for feeding rights. It 's colors matched the ground with sticks and grass streamers so well, it was hard to count how many were on the ground at a given time.

I watched this stripe headed tanager with its yellowish breast pecking at the back of other birds feeding where he wanted to be, or peck at them from the side, trying to drive them away from the feeder but feeding peacefully with other goldfinches.

Some birds such as the black crested titmouse and tufted titmouse (below) were very wary. They would quickly grab a seed and head back to the safety of a tree.

tufted titmouse

Of course, where there are bird feeders there are squirrels figuring out a way to get an easy lunch. This one we caught in the act and put up a baffle to save the feeder from destruction.

This clever creature quickly turned his attention to the suet feeder and cleaned it out.

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