Farm1 wrote:
songbird wrote:

(snip) ok, that's enough rambles for today, but it
would be interesting to hear what others have
for bird life, critter happenings in their
gardens, so get out your guides and memory and
let's hear some stories.

Nice post 'bird. I wish I knew what some of those birds were as then I'd be
able to picture them and I'd probably also know a bit about their habits. I
recognise the name of bluejar as Sheldon on the TV show BBT had one on his
window sill.

and i knew i forgot something, the goldfinch,
a very bright canary yellow bird, smaller in size,
loves thistles, coneflowers, chickory and often
feeds off the phlox seeds too if i don't hide or
net some to save.

seagulls may visit the farm fields around us but
i've never seen one in the yard here. it's a bit
too busy for them i think.


We too have lots of birds in our garden and the wider area of the farm.
Himself (my SO) is a bit of a twitcher and last time I asked him how many
species he had on his bird list of the birds he'd seen here on our land,
there were over 60 different types of birds.

that is about double of what i've seen here so far
but i am not watching many of the smaller birds so
i'm sure i'm missing some of those.

the bird that consistently makes me laugh is the
catbird, it is a medium sized bird (about 7-9 inches
long), fairly plump, grays and blacks, but with a
bit of a black cap on top of the head. what is so
funny is the calls, it usually just rambles on and
on, but it repeats things twice, but it has a wide
variety of calls. you never quite know what is
going to come next. then the feature of the bird
and why it is called a cat bird is because it makes
a call that sounds like a cat meow. it has taken
up it's favorite spot at the top of the larger dead
tree where it can see all that is going on. in
past years the grackles were so numerous as to keep
many of the smaller birds away. the past few years
i have been moving the grackles along with the air
rifle and the variety of birds overall has greatly
increased.


My favourites of those are the wedge tailed eagles, which are huge birds and
we see it soaring on the thermals above the gardem,

we have turkey vultures, hawks and eagles that will
soar. the mating flights of the turkey vultures are
very interesting as they will gather and spiral for
hours at a time, but they are not quite as dramatic as
some of the hawks that will grab on each other and
then plummet only to let go a short distance before
the ground. it's the bird form of playing chicken i
guess.


then I also love the
Superb Blue wrens and all the tiny little birds that flitter and twitter as
they go too and fro and bathe in the various bird baths roudn the place,

yeah, we are just uncovering the bird baths for
this season. the birds don't start using them for
a bit as the ditches are full of water. heavy rains
last night and this morning so i won't be out planting
or weeding today.


The other birds I love are the Grey Shrike Thushes, which I call the "Grey
Garden JHoppers" becaus ehty hop roudn the garden and are very freindly and
will stay close as one tuens obver the soil.

opportunistic feeders. about how big are these?


Then I love the Choughs which
are real raucous scallywags - they buld mud nests that they occupy year
after year and to keep the gene pool viable, they coax other flocks young to
come to them and then effectivley kidnap them so they join their flock.

i've not heard of that before. interesting...


Enough. I could bore on and on about the birdy doings in our garden.
Suffice to say that we really enjoy our bird life and take a lot of note
about what they are doing and where they are nesting and we have
conversations about what we've seen - such a quiet and simple life we lead.
But so darned satisfying.

it gives us something to talk about too. the
simple life is highly underrated. after other
more exciting moments aplenty i'm quite content.


But I digress - not so welcome are the Currawongs
who work the garden in pairs with one playing the role of the look out as
they track and try to kill the tiny birds. Going out with a long metal
object with a stock end in one's hand usually works to get rid of them for a
short time.

i've never seen active pair hunting like that
in any of the birds here, but the grackles have
been trouble makers here for the smaller birds.
that is why i chase them off when i see them (and
how they disgorge their chick's poop in the
birdbaths. what a mess).

i really do want to see the northern thrashers
have young sometime, the other showy birds (bluebirds,
goldfinches, cardinals) have all had success here
and i'm not even sure the thrashers haven't, but
i am unsure about seeing any nest or young for them.
i like to keep an eye peeled just in case...


songbird