I saw my first Baltimore Oriole today. They are very pretty birds, although my picture is not the sharpest. Ron made me an oriole feeder from these plans. I hung it yesterday and am hoping we'll soon have our own orange & black visitors.
I went on my first "official" bird watching outing yesterday. I am not very good at finding the birds, and when I do find them, I can only recognize a handful, but it is still a lot of fun. I didn't know ahead of time, but the place I went is home to a great horned owl. There were two great horned owl "babies" that were quite visible.
I spent some time this morning watching the birds at a freshly filled feeder at a local metropark. I saw lots of red-wing blackbirds, several brown-headed cowbirds, a pair of goldfinches, cardinals, bluejays, eastern bluebirds, and a red bellied woodpecker. I also saw a tufted titmouse for the first time. It was a cute little bird.
I also revisited the park from my previous post and saw several pairs of tree swallows. The mommy killeer was still sitting on her nest.
We went to the park today, where we saw this killdeer and her little speckled eggs. We also saw (and heard) a large male red bellied woodpecker and an Eastern bluebird. Considering how noisy we were, I felt lucky to see much at all!
In an act of faith, I hung the hummingbird feeder today. I think my feeder was up a good month last year before I actually saw any hummers visit it. Hopefully it won't take as long this year!
This map is a fun reference to watch the hummingbirds' migration.
I saw a northern flicker in my backyard today. They are big woodpeckers! The field guide I used to look it up said they are about 13" tall. It was the first time I've seen him, but hopefully he'll be back soon so I can get a good picture of him.