Birds, Birds and more Birds!

 

I recently put up a bird feeder to see what sort of birds I would see.  The first bird feeder hung there for weeks with not a single taker.  I was doing a little shopping in town and found a bird seed and suet combo and oh boy!  What a HUGE success! 

 

Once the chickadees found it, the other birds were soon to follow.  It looks as though the other birds watch to see where these smart and sassy little birds go and then see what all the fuss is about.

 

So far we've had mostly chickadees, but we also have two different woodpeckers, blue jays,  juncos, some green/yellow birds and some red ones.  I've been using the Peterson Birds of North America app on my phone to identify them.  I'm still not quite sure about the red and green birds as they may just be passing through and I haven't seen them a whole lot. 

 

I have also realised that I am horrible at bird identification.  I either have hairy or downy woodpeckers.  According to the handy dandy app, both live in the area where I live and they have a huge range.  So big in fact that apparently to make this even harder for me there are regional differences in the woodpeckers. 

 

 

 

The one shown above is the female of one of the species.  The male keeps coming around and scaring her away from the feeder.  What a jerk!  She was sitting here earlier this morning before he showed up.  He came in much later and now I haven't seen her in a while.

I do have to say, is it ever tough to get a good photo of birds, especially chickadees!  They bounce around a lot but thankfully they give you plenty of chances and aren't very afraid of people.  They are always coming and going, storing seeds and fighting with one another over the food.  They are very entertaining to watch!

 

So as not to disappoint, I also managed to get a bit of video of the birds feeding.  Hopefully there will be more photos to come.  Wish me luck!

The Mystery Bird Call

The first time we went out camping this year was back in June.  The first night we were there we heard this sound and couldn't quite figure out what it was.  We were camped  in an open spot in the woods and heard it flying in large circles above our heads.  Because it was night, we all assumed that it was a bat catching bugs and we were hearing the sonar it uses to locate its prey.

Well, that was what we thought until we heard it again periodically throughout the day.  We saw what could have been a bird flying around overhead.  It was a smaller in size and had very short wings.  It very well could have been a bat but I don't know of any that fly around during the day. Maybe they do, I don't know.

The recording was done with my cell phone because that was all that I had on hand, I was camping afterall.  Make sure that you turn your speakers up on your computer because it's not that loud.  What you're listening for is the woo-woo-woo-wooo-woooo that starts quiet, gets lounder, fades a bit then stops.

I would love to get some feedback on this.  If you know anyone, like an ornithologist, who would have some more information I would love to get his or her opinion.  We were just north of Highway 43 near the BC border when we heard it and it was in early June, if that helps.  It was a very loud noise in person and there may have been two of them.