Common ground : spring bird migration
Greetings fellow steepsterites,
The spring migration has officially begun! I’m wondering if anyone has spotted any early migrants. I saw a few house finches and white-throated sparrows the other day! Any spottings out there?
I have heard some Canadian geese this week.
We have resident Canada geese. I have the “pleasure” of hearing them all day every day. Bah. >:-{ lol
Are they migrant for you Marzi? We also have them as residents… the pleasuring of hearing them and encountering their droppings all over the grass! LOL
Most geese do migrate; the ones from northern Canada migrate to southern Canada, those from southern Canada migrate south to the US. So it seems like they’re always around, but it’s actually at least two different groups you have. All of the geese on campus are tagged, so we actually know that most of these suckers never leave. Students feed them, so they really don’t have any incentive to leave, and for the last few years the river running through campus hasn’t frozen over.
As much as I hate goose poop all over my shoes (and it’s darn near impossible to avoid in some areas on campus), I was really worried there would be dead geese everywhere after this winter. It was much, MUCH colder than what they’ve been used to, and some of them don’t seem smart enough to figure out that flying south is a good thing. They’d rather just attack you for your hotdog.
Saw my first robins a few weeks ago (I was surprised how early they were, given that we still had 3 ft of snow), bluejay yesterday, redwing blackbird this morning, some doves in the last couple of days, and some tundra swans!
wow, nice! I’ve only seen doves from that list. There are actually a few on the ground beneath my feeders lol.
I always like seeing doves around my house. They’re quiet, so they don’t wake me up at 5 am (unlike the stupid robins and cardinals). We have a mating pair that always returns to our yard and the male courts the female on the railing of our deck off the kitchen. I don’t know why he even bothers…clearly she’s digging him already or else why would she come back with him?! Silly birds. I’ll be sad the day they stop returning.
LOL Silly male dove! I wish I lived somewhere with more birds… living in the city, I see house finches, gold finches and those darn house sparrows… so annoying how they completely dominate the feeders. On a good day, I will see a Cardinal. I do my birding at Tommy Thompson Park. You familiar with it?
I’ve heard of it, but I have no idea where it is (I’m not from Toronto). I don’t know if you’re close to it, but the Science Centre has some really nice birding spots near it. It’s right on the Don Valley, so you can see some really unusual birds for urban environments!
Ye, there are a few spots along the Don Valley. I prefer TTP, though. Its a birding hotspot for neotropic migrants as most of these birds stop there to rest and refuel for their long journeys. Its also a nice walk along Lake Ontario (another name for the park is Leslie Spit).
I’m farther south and some, so many of the birds mentioned never left our area. Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles have been back since late February. I did see an Osprey nest-building last weekend, and Ohio has had an invasion of Red-necked Grebes in the last month, so I’ve seen quite a few of those lately.
We are on the prowl for early shorebirds (yellowlegs and Pectoral Sandpipers are starting to show up in the area), and there have been reports of Louisiana Waterthrush around us as well.
I live in rural NS and have had robins, bluejays, chickadees and nuthatches for a month or more. I have a bubch more now that I have been trying to identify but so far no dice!
And song sparrows. Apparently. I think most of these stuck out the winter here though, living in my holly bushes. We only moved in in February and some of them were already here.
We live outside Chicago. The weather has been very cold. We have already had some song birds by our house for about a month, also. I’m sure they are going “What the heck are we doing back here? It’s way too cold”. We have had a flood of geese but most of them have moved further north. Occasionally we have a fox or coyote wander through which really upsets the geese. We refer to it as Murder On the Pond (like the title of a book). The ducks are beginning to pair off which seems early to me. But I’ll just sit here and drink my tea!
So the spring migration is really picking up. Saw a few Myrtle and Pine warblers the other day as well as a few Rusty blackbirds, buffleheads, common goldeneyes and greater Scaups. Several Kinglets as well, both golden and ruby crowned.
How did I miss this topic?! I just came back from birding and saw two palm warblers and a ruby-crowned kinglet. Also, last Friday, I got a lucky chance to observe a Great Horned Owl and one of her fledglings.
We have an Eastern towhee on the feeder as well as some eastern cowbirds and some nuthatches out there. We have 3 pairs of cardinals that visit the feeders everyday.
Nice! I wish I had that sort of diversity in my garden. We get house finches, goldfinches, robins, a single cardinal and, of course, house sparrows lol. I need to travel about half hour to get any sort of decent bird watching done.
Sammerz314 Do you put out suet? It’s like candy to chickadees and cardinals, and it’s the one reason why the nuthatches and woodpeckers come to my yard.
I adore goldfinches. So sweet and delicate is their song, but they wolf down nyjer seeds like there’s no tomorrow!
I’ve tried it with little success. Perhaps I will try it out again. I have one feeder in the front yard which I use millet seeds to draw the sparrows. In the back I have a few feeders with nyger, black oil sunflower and safflower seeds. Several places for all the little birdies to perch and snack. What kind of woodpeckers do you get? There is a nearby park I go to where I frequently see woodpeckers… mostly downys, hairys and pileated.
That sounds like good set-up. The only feeder I have is the finch feeder. The rest of the seeds – a supermarket mix of white millet and black-oiled sunflower – are scattered on the deck railing and tables. It works – the sparrows and juncos love hopping about.
oooooo I only saw a pileated once, and it was peeling slabs of bark from a tree. I usually see a red-bellied woodpecker couple, and one male and two female downy woodpeckers.
All the birds have their own suet hierarchy. Competition is worse now that I only give them one block. It used to be red-bellied woodpeckers at the top and creepers at the bottom, but now that the creepers have disappeared the chickadees are the lucky ones. Such entertainment.
Our backyard is basically the woods so we get a good mix of birds. We also have a number of different feeders and put out thistle, sunflower, safflower, a fruit and nut blend, and suet.
We recently found out that we had the record last year for American Goldfinches in Ohio at our feeder—63! This year our max number was 56.
We have THE COOLEST unfolding bird story in our back yard: a nesting pair of Peregrine falcons. She seems to be moving in quite comfortably, so hopefully they’ll stay for the season. We’ve been enjoying Mr. Peregrine bringing Ms. Peregrine dead birds for food, and watching her rejecting all of his gifts except the robin. She found that one tasty, it seems. Crows have tried chasing them away a couple of times but they’re hanging in there. Trees are an incredibly unusual place for them to nest because they like cliffs to dive off of, but I’m not complaining! Birds of Prey! I’m so excited!
WOW peregrine falcon nest!! That is incredible to watch unfold. Last year there was a nest of robins next to my front steps, but that’s not as nearly as awesome :P
Now I’m worried that the crows with attack/eat the chicks.
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