December 14, 2008 - Kestrel & Northern Shrike Make Brief Visits
The poor songbirds are having to live very dangerously of late. This morning a kestrel made a run on the feeder area and came up empty - chasing a downy woodpecker in the process. This afternoon I noticed there were no birds in the feeder area. Then I saw a northern shrike perched in a tree out front. He made a run at a chickadee with no success and flew away. I am always rooting for the little guys.
Got a Peanut - Red-bellied Woodpecker
Posted:
December 14, 2008
I hadn't seen this female red-bellied woodpecker for over a week and I was starting to worry about her. Today she was back chasing the bluejays out of the way to get her share of the peanuts.
The mat says "Welcome". Can I come in? It is cold out here and I'm having a hard time finding any food. This young opossum was on our back porch the other night scrounging for something to eat.
This morning the first thing I saw as I looked out our front window was a large hawk making a high speed low-level run at our feeder area from across the road. It made a sharp turn over out horse pasture and then made another run in the opposite direction back through our yard and landed high in a tree across the road. Through the binoculars, it looked like an adult sharp-shinned hawk. He didn't catch anything.
I had my fingers crossed that the pine siskins would show up again today. They finally did around 11AM, all 12 of them along with even more goldfinches - about 20. I put out lots of thistle seed this morning, so they seemed very pleased.
I've gotten reports that redpolls are coming south again this year. Last year we had a flock of 250 that went through 70 lbs of thistle seed in 3 months. So I stocked up today.
Two Pine Siskins on Snowy Sunflower Stalk
Posted:
December 13, 2008
The difference between the male and female pine siskin is very subtle. Bird identification books say that the male's yellow side and tail markings are brighter than the female's. These two offer a good test. I'm going to check with some experts and update this post when I find out for sure.
This young male cardinal still has a bit of juvenile tan coloring in his breast feathers. His beak has fully changed from the juvenile black to the red adult color.
When I saw the first pine siskin fly in this morning, I thought it was a young female house finch. After looking at it for awhile, I realized it was a pine siskin, a member of the finch family. Over about a one hour period we gradually saw more siskins arrive until there were a total of twelve. I immediately went out and tossed lots more thistle seed (which they prefer) around the feeding areas to encourage them to stay around. They returned several times during the rest of the day.
Pine Siskin on Snowy Perch
Posted:
December 12, 2008
Twelve pine siskins arrived during today's snow storm. When I saw the first one, I mistook him for a female house finch until I saw the bolder streaking and yellow highlights along the sides. This is the first time we have had more than one siskin at our feeder areas.
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