Bird Watching - The Outdoor Directory for Birding

Robins, Robins and More Robins

2010-02-24T03:23:01Z

I was walking the other day and was awe struck by the number of robins I saw. Every tree and I mean every tree had 8 to 12 robins in the still leafless branches. Half a dozen more robins were running around on the ground below. Any shrub with last years berries was soon un-berried. A large movement of robins was underway. Chirping, whistling, singing, trilling and clucking sounds came from every tree and shrub. What to call such a glorious event? A flock of robins is too tame a description. A gang of robins has a sinister sound. A hoard perhaps? That brings up images of pillaging and destruction. I suppose if the enormous number of robins took a violent turn of mind they could have carried away dogs and cats. I did not see any air borne cats hoisted off the ground by robins but I did see hour after hour of robins on a memorable afternoon walk.

Migration Season Again

2010-02-24T03:06:46Z

Our birds that migrated south last fall and early winter are due to be returning soon. About half will not have lived to return this spring. Bad weather and predators take their natural toll. Habitat loss due to logging, urban sprawl and other human causes like collisions with tall buildings and automobiles also reduce migratory bird populations.

You can help by landscaping your property with native trees, shrubs, grasses and fruit bearing trees. Landscaping that is dense enough to provide cover from predators and provide hidden nesting sites for the birds is essential. Water sources and bird feeders are helpful though not as vital as good landscaping for our feathered friends.

Spring weather brings people out into their yards to garden and clean up weeds, leaves and yard debris from the winter. remember a too tidy of a yard is not good for our birds who need some "overgrown" shrubs for cover, leaf piles that harbor worms and insects for food. Your local Audubon Society chapter or Nature Conservancy chapter and garden store can provide landscaping tips birds, butterflies and other wildlife.

Conservation Birding Tourism

2010-01-18T20:25:11Z

The American Bird Conservancy has launched a new website, www.conservationbirding.org, that has been created to help plan your birding trips to South American bird reserves that the Conservancy has helped established or expand. Birders traveling to such reserves helps fund the reserves which protect our tropical birds. Check this new resource out for your next birding adventure. There is information on birding routes, lodges, google maps and travel companies. Links to other useful websites and trip reports are included

Birding Crazy

2009-12-28T03:40:42Z

A friend of Birdingguide from Brazil, who has been bitten by the birding and bird photography bugs simultaneously, wrote us recently about one of his birding trips in Brazil. "We woke up at 5AM, left at 6AM and walked for eight hours in the forests looking for birds, then after a break and dinner we went back out to take photos of owls and other night birds." "I did not get to bed until 1:30AM", he continues."Then we got up again at 5AM for another day of birding."

Yes birding can become a form of craziness, but what a great affliction.

Happy Birding and Best Wishes for the New Year from everyone at Birdingguide.com

Bill

A Winter Hummingbird

2009-12-05T05:39:30Z

The red and golden leaves of falls last show of color have fallen. What leaves that were not raked up by the industrious have now all blown away by recent wind storms. Bare twiggy branches spread and fork again and again reaching out to the low and cold sun. Nighttime temperatures have been in the low 20's and are expected to drop to 10 degrees by Sunday night. An Annas Hummingbird is busy flitting through the leafless branches of an ornamental plum tree above my head. All the Rufus Hummingbirds left late August but the Annas, not so fond of travel, will winter here through the snow cold days ahead and hold forth the promise of spring. I search in my coat pocket for my gloves.

Trivia About Birders

2009-11-16T02:12:38Z

The average birder in the United States is 50 years old, female, college-educated, well-paid and more likely to live in the urban south or Midwest.

Backyard birders number 42 million and about 20 million take bird-watching trips away from home.

About $36 Billion dollars is contributed to the US economy from bird-watching.

For more information about bird-watching and birders in the United States see the 2005 survey at http://library.fws.gov/Pubs/birding_natsurvey06.pdf

Happy Birding
Bill@birdingguide.com

Winter's A'Coming

2009-11-09T04:26:56Z

Winter's a coming and it is time to clean all your backyard bird feeders for your winter birds. Bird feeders can accumulate bits of old feed that is a breeding ground for harmful molds that make birds sick. The damp cold weather of fall and winter make it especially important to have clean feeders for our feathered friends who keep us company at our backyard feeders. I have just finished taking apart all my hanging tubular feeders, washing and re-assembling them. A stiff blast of water from the garden hose is good for flat feeding trays followed by brushing with a stiff brush and soap. If you do not have a simple bird bath warmer now is the time to buy one. In the winter birds need access to unfrozen water even more than bird food. We stocked up today on black oil sunflower seeds, cleaned the feeders last week and now feel ready to enjoy all our bird visitors this winter.
Happy Birding

Bill@birdingguide.com

Diane Kook and the Lewis's Woodpecker

2009-09-26T06:15:53Z

The Lewis's Woodpecker like other woodpeckers and many other birds nest in cavities in trees. They are very dependent on old trees and snags for their nest sites. When logging, snag removal forestry management policies and other pressures on the Lewis's habitat result in the loss of their natural nesting habitat the results can be devastating for the species. The Lewis's Woodpecker, for example, is one of the highest priority bird species for conservation.

Diane Kook, in Bend Oregon, along with the East Cascade Bird Conservancy, has pioneered the use of bark fronted nesting boxes in the Ponderosa Pine forests of the eastern side of the Cascade mountains. Although the Lewis's prefers natural cavities for nests, Diane and her volunteers have discovered the Lewis's will use the nest boxes. This discovery can be of tremendous help in aiding the recovery of the Lewis's in areas of nesting habitat loss. Check out the East Cascade Bird Conservancy's website for drawings for the nest boxes. Hats off to all involved in this wonderful project.

Red Crossbills, Osprey and A Mountain Lake

2009-09-09T05:11:14Z

Just over 5,500 feet in elevation Oregon's Summit Lake is 6 miles of unmaintained dirt road west of the more accessible and touristy Crescent Lake. "I'm having the time of my life", eight year old Marcus shouted as he hit his head against our truck door window for the third time. Bouncing in and out of deep ruts and around rocks protruding out of the dusty volcanic ash road we drove towards our evening camping site at Summit Lake on the edge of the Diamond Peak Wilderness area. The unique call of Osprey perched in the tops of the trees greeted us as we set up our tents. The air temperature dropped quickly with the setting sun. A warm campfire warmed us and kept the children entertained. Poking a fire with long sticks and throwing small bits of wood into a campfire is plenty of fun for kids. The night fog over the lake shimmered with the warming rays of the rising sun.

The warm morning sun also brought in a flock of Red Crossbills with their uniquely shaped bills designed for prying the seeds from cones. The Red Crossbills landed in the ashes of our cold fire pit. attracted by the minerals of the wood ash the birds flew in and out of the pit eating bits of ash and charcoal from the nights fire. I took many photos of the Crossbills. "This is the easiest bird photography I have experienced in a while", I said to my grandson. "I'm busy. Look ground squirrels", he said aiming his point and shoot digital camera at a pair of ground squirrels checking out our camp site. "You know the difference between a chipmunk and a ground squirrel? ", I said. "Sure, ground squirrels don't have strips on the side of their head. Chipmunks do. You told me. Don't you remember?" "Smart Alec.", I replied.

Sparrows Everywhere!

2009-07-13T05:18:27Z

Leaving the house in the morning there was a Violet Green Sparrow fledgling on the porch steps and another was on the walk by the garage. Both fledglings chirping away and looking skyward in expectation of a meal. They had left the nest box on the garage. Two siblings were piking their heads out of the box. The day before there were three other fledgling sparrows on the deck by the kitchen window. They had jumped out of the nest box under the house eve above the dining room room window. Fluttering their wings these young sparrows move jerkily along the ground until they build enough strength to fly. The adults swoop low over the ground, much lower than when feeding, encouraging the young to take flight. I am careful where i walk for fear of stepping on the fledglings. My two nest boxes have been home for two broods each of Violet Green Swallows this year.

Lawn Chair Birding

2009-06-08T01:50:42Z

At times I feel like an apostle for comfortable lawn chairs as an essential tool as important as good binoculars for birding. I felt a bit weary at the end of a busy week at work. Dealing with the issues of placing an aged relation in a good assisted living home added to the weeks fatigue. I decided to just sit for several hours in the woods this weekend in a very comfortable French made folding lawn chair and simply waited quietly to see what birds Idi could see. Over 16 species of songbirds, a red squirrel and several chipmunks approached within 5 feet. I also spotted several larger birds in the distance like turkey vultures, red tail hawks and a bald eagle. People moving around upright make all creatures not just birds cautious. When we sit or recline quietly we have assumed an unthreatening posture and nature's creatures feel safer to go about their daily routines foraging for food in close proximity. i also take my folding chair to the ocean and the mountains for lawn chair birding. Try it!

Songbirds on the Move

2009-05-11T04:53:05Z

The tens of thousands of migrating shorebirds and waterfowl I saw on the coast a couple of weeks ago comprised the highlight of this years birding for me. This weeks cloud of songbirds that descended upon my yard and bird feeders here in the woods of Western Oregon made up another highlight. Can you have two highlights or are they mutually exclusive? The trees are so filled with the songs of so many birds that there is not much space left in the air for oxygen for anyone to breathe. A lung full of bird song seems as nourishing as actual oxygen.
The bird feeders are emptied so quickly of black oil sunflower seeds that I found it easier to spread a trail of seeds along the top railing of the deck. This gives an easy place all the birds large and small to land without the crowding at the hanging feeders. A 40 foot row of birds eating seeds on the railing also makes for very enjoyable bird watching.
So who has been falling out of the trees to dine? Innumerable Pine Siskins that move around in large groups, American Goldfinches, Evening Grosbeaks so brilliantly colored in black, white and yellow and Purple Finches. The resident Towees, Juncos, Nuthatches and even the larger Stellar Jays have stayed away from the feeders. They only mange to dart in occasionally to grab a seed or two when the visiting hordes fly up to the tops of the alders and birches to chatter and sing before descending back dsown again to the feeding rail. Even the Red Squirrels, much larger than than any of the birds, are intimidated by so many competitors that they are staying away from the feeders. I wonder what will be the next birding highlight of the season?

Spring Shorebird Migration

2009-05-04T18:05:03Z

We spent the weekend of April 24-25 along the Washington coast in the Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay area watching the migration of shorebirds and geese northward to their breeding grounds. Clouds of birds moving across the mud flats, bay shores and coastal marshes were a thrilling sight. I was able to take some close up photographs which pleased me. Many times the birds are to far away for very detailed photos but this weekend we found a few good locations for photography. Dunlins, Western and Least Sandpipers, Marbled Godwits, Short Billed Dowitchers were on the move by the tens of thousands. Also Black Bellied Plovers and Semi Palmated Plovers were mixed in the flocks of birds Greater Yellowlegs in smaller numbers were a treat to see. Ragged flocks Brandt Geese were on the move too. I stopped counting at 10,000 geese on Sunday afternoon alone.

Canon's 1DMark111 camera performed very nicely enabling me to get some good sharp photos of Sandpipers and Dunlins in flight. With other cameras i have been able to get good photos of the larger birds in flight but never the smaller birds in flight. I am happy with this camera for birds
Some specific areas that were good shorebird locations this spring were Tokeland and Shoalwater Bay, Westport and Ocean Shores, WA. I did not have time to explore the Long Beach Pennisula but in past years that area has been fantastic for shorebirds. The Sandpiper Trail boardwalk near Bowerman Airport in Grays Harbor was great for seeing the most variety of shorebirds in a single location but the boardwalk keeps you too far from the birds for good photography. The vibrations of the boardwalk as people walk by make using large telephoto camera lens problematic.

]]> Late July the breeding season will be over and these birds will be returning. I hope to be able to them again this summer on their trip back.

Spring Cleaning For Backyard Birders

2009-04-06T04:02:07Z

Spring has finally come to our woods although nighttime low temperatures are still hovering around 23 degrees F. The daffodils are showing signs of blooming. The Turkey Vultures have returned and are cruising the winding old logging road that passes our house. We have had many weeks of gray skies and rain showers. this morning i awoke to clear, blue skies and warm temperatures.

I have procrastinated cleaning our nesting boxes of last years nest materials and debris. A mild sense of alarm at my tardiness caused me to get out the ladder and clean out the nest boxes we have around our home before I had any breakfast. None too soon for by mid afternoon the Violet Green Swallows were landing on nest boxes and peering in the oval opening to check out this springs nursery.

Now is the time to clear nest boxes if you did not do it last autumn. Clean and replenish hummingbird feeders and bird seed feeders. Our bird friends give us so much it is important we give them clean and healthy feeding stations and nesting boxes.
Happy Birding!
Bill@birdingguide.com

Its Spring And Birds Will Be On The Move

2009-03-23T17:31:04Z

Its Spring and there will be bird migration activity in many places to keep birders happy and on the move themselves to enjoy the bird migrations. I always look forward to the the shorebird migrations along the Northwest coast here in Oregon and Washington. The Grays Harbor Shorebird Festival celebrating the peak of the shorebird migration occurs this year from April 24-26, 2009. Grays Harbor at high tide provides a wonderful opportunity to see feeding shorebirds replenishing their energy as they push rapidly on to Alaska and Canada. The Long Beach Peninsula south of Grays Harbor with its miles of open beach is another good place for shorebirds. In years past I have stood at the oceans edge while thousands of birds have flown past. It is a thrill to be by the sea watching flock after flock as far as the eye can see flying low over the sand. Check out www.shorebirdfestival.com for info on the Grays Harbor Festival. Your local Audubon Chapter should help you find similar shorebird festivals on the East and West Coasts.

Happy Birding
Bill@birdingguide.com