Wild Side Ornithology Club

[freedombecki]

Is that the one someone called a ferret? My first impression was that it looked like a mink, without reading anything. Where was that? The coffee shop?

I was bad today. I did absolutely nothing after finishing a quilt this afternoon. And now it's my bedtime. See you all tomorrow.

 

[Spoonman]

Is that the one someone called a ferret? My first impression was that it looked like a mink, without reading anything. Where was that? The coffee shop?

I was bad today. I did absolutely nothing after finishing a quilt this afternoon. And now it's my bedtime. See you all tomorrow.

yes, it was in the coffee shop. I had set a trap for a groundhog and ended up with a mink

 

[koshergrl]

Mink carry the black plague.

JUST KIDDING hahaha

 

[freedombecki]

Mink coats used to be a symbol of the rich and powerful. People who had one were never cold.

 

[koshergrl]

I love fur....I have always wanted a bed piled with furs....but of course not being a trapper, or a tribal queen, I have been thwarted.

I still want a bear skin rug....

 

[Spoonman]

vultures on my neighbors roof

 

[Spoonman]

so I've tried an experiment. I have a feeder with 4 separate feeding tubes. I have been filling each one with a different brand or different type of seed. one is straight sunflower. one is a songbird mix. one is a much more expensive brand with nuts and berries promising to attract more birds. and one is what is called a special seed blend. interestingly enough, they all god down and need to be refilled at about the same rate. I haven't noticed the birds showing any favoritism to anyone of them.

 

[freedombecki]

That reminds me, Spoonman. Our feeders need refilling first thing this morning when the sun comes up.

 

[freedombecki]

I love fur....I have always wanted a bed piled with furs....but of course not being a trapper, or a tribal queen, I have been thwarted.

I still want a bear skin rug....

There ya go, koshergrl!

 

[Connery]

Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) (Click the full image)

 

[Spoonman]

 

[Pogo]

I just got invited here (thanks Becki) and may upload a pic or two but here are a couple of my favorite summer voices:

Hard to hear this one but I used to love waking up to a Phoebe in Vermont:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_KgpX4B2A8]Eastern Phoebe Calling - YouTube[/ame]

I hear a Phoebe here in WNC about twice a year... hear it once, then it's gone

And of a summer evening there's nothing like the multitiered call of the wood thrush:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGYzC7wySkI]Wood Thrush song - YouTube[/ame]

I do get some of them here. They'll be along later in the year.

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, Pogo. That's the best part of living out in the country here. We have a hundred different birds singing, often in rounds, and needless to say occasionally we have the thirty-something or more canned calls of the state bird for 4 or 5 states, the Mocking Bird. They're such characters, too.

Thanks for posting the bird songs. The ones outside may be able to hear it. They've been singing since before the sun came up. We have had a lot of western bluebirds this spring, literally hordes of them, due to putting out special seed mixes songbirds love. All of them love it. Last week, this most adorable little golden brown bird followed me in the house from the birdseed area of the garage converted catch-all room. It took him 2 days and a big hunger to trust me enough to hop out the front door and fly away. By the end of the 2 days, I think he knew what I was saying. What a bright little cutie pie. Think he was a brown creeper. He was a totally beautiful being, far more comely than their pictures, but the bill was the same shape, and the personality descriptions fit him down to a t. If there's a beautiful animal, it finds me. He was a looker, full of beautiful feather color.

 

[freedombecki]

This morning I was just browsing the web and found a couple of things I'd like to share about birds. I know this is out of season, but one inspiring young woman was trying to think of a good "woodlands" theme for her Christmas tree and said she browsed her "yellowed books" and came up with this (and other) ideas:

Her website is here: Book Page Christmas Ornaments

 

[Spoonman]

we have been over run with vultures lately

 

[koshergrl]

When I lived in Central Oregon, I lived in a house that looked a lot like the one you have a pic of (your neighbor's house, sort of freaked me for a minute) and we had vultures that roosted in the tall trees to the south of the yard. They spent about 6 months of the year (maybe less) there...we live just a little ways from the rock cliffs of the Painted Hills...I had a co-worker who hit one with a company car one year and had to replace the windshield...they're pretty gross, but always interesting!

 

[Spoonman]

When I lived in Central Oregon, I lived in a house that looked a lot like the one you have a pic of (your neighbor's house, sort of freaked me for a minute) and we had vultures that roosted in the tall trees to the south of the yard. They spent about 6 months of the year (maybe less) there...we live just a little ways from the rock cliffs of the Painted Hills...I had a co-worker who hit one with a company car one year and had to replace the windshield...they're pretty gross, but always interesting!

i know the area you used to live in. I one time hiked from yellowstone to the pacific. a good part of the route we followed was the old oregon trail. so i was just a little east and then north of where you were. I also used to deal with a lot of the lumber mills out that way. mostly west and south of you, but i was all through that area. great country.

yea, they are ugly little suckers. their hearing is amazing.

 

[Ringel05]

Our new neighbor....... moved in about a month ago. First chance I get I'm shootin' the little bastard.........

Gilded Flicker, a woodpecker that prefers metal flue caps to wood.........

 

[freedombecki]

Our new neighbor....... moved in about a month ago. First chance I get I'm shootin' the little bastard.........

Gilded Flicker, a woodpecker that prefers metal flue caps to wood.........

Ants/termites crawl on metal flues?

They're beautiful birds, albeit that one is not so bright if he's just beating tintinnabulations with that beak.

 

[Foxfyre]

For desert dwellers we do enjoy a large variety of birds throughout New Mexico, but maybe not quite as many song birds as we had in Kansas. Probably if we worked harder to build a bird habitat in the yard, we would have more, but feeding the birds also attracts and encourages breeding of mice which is not good here.

But we do have some nesting mocking birds nearby and they provide us with a lot of birdsong for hours at a time.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNNX3f3_svo]Mockingbird Song Serenade - YouTube[/ame]