Sorry it has been so long since I posted one of these. My brand new photo editing computer crapped out & even after attempted help from the great Myo, I had to send it out for repair. Anyways, during that time my wife got a new bird feeder that sticks to a window. I had seen it at a job I did and the lady had tons of birds visiting all the time and you could sit in your house and watch them eat. She even gave me some food to attract birds but because it is clear, no birds came for over a month. We even put food around the feeder but that only got interest from a squirrel. Eventually we got our first visitor that has since become a regular, a house finch.
Soon after, he brought his mate and they started to come more and more frequently.
We started to get more than one couple and sometimes they come together but often they come alone. I thought it was just one couple at first until I saw a second couple jockeying for space. Sometimes they will even get more than just the couple in there but usually just singles or couples.
Since then we have a bunch of other types of birds starting to show up which I will feature in another episode. This past week, I was hanging out at a friends house and their next door neighbor had a very active feeder. All the males seemed to be gold finches.
I didn’t know too much about gold finches but when I looked up the females, most pictures I saw did not look like this one. This looks like the house finch we had back at our place.
She seemed to fit right in with the boys here so I could be mistaken, although many finch types do get along well together.
It was really nonstop action at this feeder, ours are never as busy as this set of feeders were.
They basically would just fly into the trees surrounding the feeders and hangout until they were hungry again. Good life if you can get it.
I have a bunch more of new bird droppings for you, I guess I’m scheduled for Sundays usually? Maybe I will try to post some more then. Hope these little guys brought you some joy and please share your feeder tales!
I love the gold finches! I have some coreopsis in my raised bed and when I look out in the morning – there are usually a couple of pairs of them eating the seed heads.
That first one looks very well fed! (Not to fat shame the little guy.)
Love coreopsis, and we have goldfinches and house finches here. Need to plant some more!
I’m thinking that bird that’s hanging out with the male goldfinches is a sparrow–maybe a song sparrow. Female goldfinches look like this:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Goldfinch/photo-gallery
Fun fact: goldfinches are one of an exceedingly small number of songbirds which can feed while hanging upside down. So, if anyone wants to attract goldfinches but not the trash birds like house finches, get a goldfinch feeder, which has the holes positioned below the perches.
I have seen a couple of goldfinches at my regular seed feeder and they’re always hanging wrong, pecking at nothing. Lulz.
We’re one of the states reporting a mysterious bird illness and death. Fish and Wildlife is asking people in six counties to take down feeders and houses. They recommend the rest of us clean ours with a 10 percent bleach solution. The Audobon Society is encouraging everyone in Kentucky to take down feeders so that’s what we’re doing. Better safe and all that.
In the meantime I’ll enjoy your bird, thanks.
We had to do that a few months ago. Felt bad for the migrators coming through in April.
I had *three* mourning doves on my patio yesterday. I think it was a pair and an interloper because one kept getting puffy and COOOOOOO-ing at another, trying to chase it away. It was fun to watch.
Love those pics, Shaq!
I love goldfinches, they’re so pretty to look at! We had a few in one of my old neighborhoods–the only thing was that I somehow allllways managed to call them “orioles”😉🤣
I KNOW what orioles look like–because the Baltimore team is in the AL East–buuuut for some reason, when I see the pretty little *yellow* birbs, the name that pops out of my head *first* is an “oriole”😉
And NOT related to Birbs at ALL, but when I saw this story, it made me think of you, since it is on photography–it’s a good, EASY how-to, for any of y’all who may be interested in the Northern Lights, from the local ABC affiliate, and a photographer who’s known for her great Northern Lights shots;
https://kstp.com/minnesota-news/heidi-pinkerton-shares-secrets-of-photographing-the-northern-lights/6159450/
I’ve seen the northern lights about 4 times but never got any pictures. Once, I saw them the entire way back from Alaska to Seattle but couldn’t get a good shot out of the plane window. We were heading to Iceland when everything shut down for covid so I WILL have shots eventually when we do that trip.
We have goldfinches and house finches sitting side-by-side at our water bowls, so I think they are pretty compatible. Nice photos as always, @Loveshaq.
Went birding in Hawaii, but the only photos I got were some turkeys:
And this yellow-billed cardinal at a hotel pool:
We saw plenty of others (pueo, nene, night heron, cattle egret, saffron finch). Really great trip for that. Still need to see a Hawaiian hawk.
Glad you got to see all those birds. Too bad most local birds have almost gone extinct. That last shot is a Brazilian cardinal, not a local bird but everywhere in the islands. I have only seen Hawaiian hawks in Waimea and Hilo on the big island though they may be in upcountry Maui too. Don’t thin Oahu has any, where I grew up.
If you let your basil plants go to seed, you might see house finches perching on them and nibbling on seeds! That’s the reason I got the bird feeder last winter. I watched them perch on the cinnamon basil and chomp all the seeds and then I was like OMG what are the lil birbs gonna eat now??
I never had house finches at my old condo complex. It’s really interesting to me that I moved from one suburb to a different suburb about 6 miles away and there are very different birbs.
Old condo complex – fuckton of cardinals, mockingbirds, blue jays, robins. Also a lot of sparrows, crows, doves. Red tailed hawks on occasion. Hummingbirds rarely if you had a feeder out.
Current home – still a fuckton of cardinals and robins. Lots of sparrows and doves. Some blue jays. House finches galore. Neighbors have yellow finches I see in their pine tree. When I had suet feeders out, I also had wood peckers and northern flickers. Lots of hummingbird traffic at the feeder. Cooper’s hawks, but haven’t seen other kinds.
I haven’t seen a mockingbird in the entire 3 years I’ve lived here. Which is really odd to me.
Yeah my dad gets blue jays and orioles two towns over and I have never seen them by me. At my apartment I used to get red-winged black birds and grackles, but I was across from a forest preserve that had a lake in there somewhere. I don’t see them at my condo either. But I do get mallards, lol.