Saturday, February 15, 2014

Team 61 reporting

Audubon’s Great Backyard Bird Count began on Valentine’s Day and ends tomorrow.  Having a yard full of birds, as we do, we are close to obligated to report. Bird NSA, so to speak. If we feed them, we can count them!

We could register as anonymous, but Emily chose Team 61.

I've watched bird antics for several months now, but never in such a concentrated dose. We watched a starling bully a woodpecker; having dismissed the woodpecker, as he thought, the starling put his beak toward the feeder, and Blam!..the woodpecker came back round the feeder and kicked the starling’s butt!

The word has gone afar. In the beginning I only had to open my heart to a couple of jays. Now they come in droves, and have swept in a couple of starlings on the way. One squirrel has morphed into half a dozen, which at least mollify me by remaining on clean-up crew.

Emily emailed me the two lists submitted by Team 61. We had to get the bird book for the grosbeak. It’s early; he should still be in Wisconsin, on Ann’s feeders. Without further ado, the breakfast bunch:


My House, Summit, US-OH

Feb 15, 2014 10:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Protocol: Stationary
10 species (+2 other taxa)

Mourning Dove  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Hairy Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay  20
Tufted Titmouse  5
European Starling  2
Dark-eyed Junco  10
Northern Cardinal  20
Rose-breasted/Black-headed Grosbeak  1     very white belly, with a red chest and a black head
House/Purple Finch  2
American Goldfinch  18
House Sparrow  6

We had another go after lunch. Fewer birds, a third starling!


My House, Summit, US-OH

Feb 15, 2014 1:00 PM - 1:15 PM
Protocol: Stationary
Comments:     Cars drove past several times and scared the birds away, making it hard to count them.
9 species (+1 other taxa)

Mourning Dove  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay  6
Black-capped Chickadee  4
Tufted Titmouse  5
European Starling  3
Dark-eyed Junco  11
Northern Cardinal  6
House/Purple Finch  6
American Goldfinch  7




Data entry


26 comments:

  1. We don't get Rose breasted Grosbeaks up here until May. Friends locally have reported starlings masquerading as other birds,tucked into the flocks like spies.
    Jane x

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  2. I'm thinking that the Black-headed grosbeak is a western bird... probably more likely you had a rose-breasted grosbeak. I hope you get a picture of it... What fun... doing a bird count at your own feeders. My kids started bird watching before they were in school... I'll never forget they day they came running to me to tell me we had a mutant goldfinch at our feeder... it was an Evening grosbeak... fairly uncommon in SE Ohio.

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  3. Good for the woodpecker - I can't stand bullies whatever their size. I can't count things or little creatures that keep moving either. Hope your weather improves soon - all that snow is too much of a thing.

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  4. That's an impressive bird count.

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  5. Hari OM
    Oh this takes me back to the Young Ornithologists Club of the RSPB... wonderful activity. That's quite an impressive count you got there!! YAM xx

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  6. what a wonderful project and love the photo at the top, so many beautiful birds, we have robins and bluebirds here and supposedly that means an early spring, we're waiting. ha.

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  7. Wow! I am impressed you can recognise all those birds. And how lovely to have such a variety. I hear their calls in the garden and see blurry things fluttering in the trees (or maybe those are squirrels) but I can rarely actually spot the birds in enough detail to know what they are. I guess you can tell by their calls to some extent, but the weird thing to me seems to be that bird calls rarely seem to emanate from the bird, even when it's sitting right in front of me and singing.
    Or perhaps I just don't have that bird watching gene ... :)

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  8. Fascinating, Big Daddy says the birds are like the hobos of old, they leave a password where the feeding is good.

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  9. Bird word gets around fast especially in Winters like this.

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  10. I must do this on a fine sunny day at the moment it's raining so no birdy visitors today.
    Merle............

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  11. Hey your team watch is impressive! I should really do the count next year. A few days I saw a falcon out my window nibbling at something on the ground. first time I have seen one up this close. I imagine the snow is making those birds of yours mighty hungry and that is why they are getting grumpy toward each other. -- barbara

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  12. Wow. Watching them is addictive isn't it? And so many of your birds are exotic (and beautiful) in my eyes.

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  13. When you click on Audubon's, the submission map looks very cool.

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  14. Watching birds is really fulfilling. Your birds are beautiful. I wish we were this lucky.
    We do get really nice chirping ones from Spring to Fall but we do not get to see them. They are so high up in the tree behind our room.

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  15. If you feed them, they will come (and bring all their relatives).

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  16. Oh for the love of a yard.. As it is now I watch the sea gulls and crows on the roof tops, and sometimes they are most splendid in their own right.

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  17. Having never kicked a starling's butt, I now feel inferior. No woodpecker am I.

    Enjoying your reports a great deal, though. Do let us know if Woodstock shows up!

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  18. That's a lot of birds! If I had that many to watch, I'd never get any housework done and we all know how small my place is.
    I love that first photo with the mirrored birds, may I use it for a bookmark?

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  19. It's fun to bird watch if you have a variety of birds. I don't tend to get a great variety which is a pity as I'd like to watch more often.

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    1. I have heard that to attract a variety of birds you need to put out a variety of seeds because different birds go for different things. I wonder if that would work for you.

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  20. I'm so glad to hear the squirrels are not left out :)

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  21. Dear Joanne,
    such a big variety of birds - wow! AND you lifted a mystery that accompanied me for years: "the tifted titmouse" was once in our garden in Hildesheim, I had never seen it before - and could describe it only as "a tit with an Elvis-quiff". Now I know.

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  22. so how do you know you aren't counting the same birds over and over again?

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    1. No idea. We counted at the feeders, and only for fifteen minutes. It's an undulating bird ocean, they come and go. I hope the volunteer amalgamators have algorithms.

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  23. Lots of bird sightings! Cute project to get involved in!

    betty

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