Backyard Birding III

[SoTier]

This is my original post in my original topic on Backyard Birding started in 2020.   It's aged well.

 

A great hobby to start during this pandemic is "backyard birding" which is learning to identify the birds in and around your house and/or neighborhood.  It's a great way to get yourself, your kids, your parents and/or grandparents interested in nature and science.  It's inexpensive.  It's not complicated.  You don't even need a yard ... a neighborhood park or a cemetery or even a grassy median (like on Bidwell Parkway in Buffalo) will work.  A window overlooking your neighbor's yard might even work.

 

To get started, you need a guide to birds.  I like the Audubon Society's Field Guide to North American Birds which I have been using since the 1980s.  It's pocket size, comes with a plastic like cover, and has photos, maps, and info about each bird in it.  Field Guide to Birds.  It's less than $16.

 

If you have a yard, you can buy a bird bath and set it up in a sunny spot that you can see from one or more windows or from a deck or porch.  Even a cheap plastic one will work fine.  In addition to seeing more birds, you may actually save some by providing water in dry spells.  Remember to clean your bird bath regularly as when the birds use it, it will get messy.

 

You can bring more  birds into your yard -- and see more birds -- using bird feeders of various types -- and cost.  Especially in the spring, migrating birds are towards the end of their travels and need ready sources of food.  I feed primarily black oil sunflower seed plus suet cakes but I also feed a fruit/nut mix and peanuts.  Don't buy those bird feed mixes sold in grocery stores as they have cheap filler seeds that birds won't eat and scatter all over the ground.  Tractor Supply has a nice selection of feeders and bird seed.  If you want some guidance, try the Wild Birds Unlimited on McKinley near the mall in Blasdell.  There's also a WBU in Amherst ... on Transit I think.

 

I have my tubular sunflower feeders out year around but that's not possible if you live in bear country.  Raccoons can also be problems, especially in the summers when young ones go exploring.   Many people have luck attracting hummingbirds with feeders or by hanging gaudy fuchsia pots on their porches.  I haven't, probably because as a gardener, my hummers go for the hostas, bee balm, and trumpet vines planted in the yard.   I also plant sunflowers -- generally by cleaning up the seeds/hulls from around the feeder poles and depositing that in a sunny spot along my side fence -- which attracts clouds of goldfinches when the sunflowers ripen. 

 

The great thing about backyard birding is that it's something you can do for the entire rest of your life, even when you are very old and not very mobile.  My late step-mother, who suffered from emphysema, loved sitting on her back porch watching the hummers coming to her fuchsia plants or sitting at her kitchen table watching the chickadees and cardinals coming to her seed feeders.

[SoTier]

One of the reasons that I started this third iteration of "Backyard Birding" is because I discovered a new birding "guide" last year: the Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab for your phone.   It enables you to identify birds by their songs and calls, which can really expand the birds you can identify even if you are walking in a woodsy area where it's almost impossible to see birds.   

 

For example, I was walking in a part of the Jamestown Community College's campus called "The Hundred Acre Lot" and heard an unusual bird call (not a "song").  This area is heavily forested, and rather swampy in the area where i was walking.  Using Merlin, I was able to identify the bird as a Wood Duck, a cavity nesting duck that is seldom seen unless you come across a nest sight.

 

The Merlin app enables you to save the bird calls, so you can make a list of the birds you've encountered along with the date and time and the call.  Moreover, you can find out more information about the birds you've seen or identified by call within the app.  

 

The Merlin app is free to download, although Cornell Lab will ask you join and/or donate.

[SinceThe70s]

Rabbits have been very active the past few weeks and I saw one building a nest the other day. Have also seen a hawk a few times. For anyone who remembers The Far Side: Trouble brewing!

[Augie]

My wife recently got an BIG feeder from a retail place in Greenville, SC that does nothing but birds. She also got a hanger that can clamp on the railing of our deck, but it didn’t quite fit. I found it in the bushes below on the second day. 

 

Our next door neighbor has a full shop in his basement. My recently retired wife ran into Mike in the street, and within 30 minutes we had a pressure treated perch for the feeder we (she, who am I kidding?) can prime and paint. 

 

I’m just hoping it doesn’t lead to rodents.