Wild Side Ornithology Club

[freedombecki]

Yeah, I could've named this "Aesthetics of Ornithology", but would you then have opened the door to that amazing world filled with foreign-language visitors to your backyard, shoreline, National Park vacation lands, or at a friend's farm?

Welcome to Shangri-La! Birds are a blast, but thanks to Alfred Hitchcock's epic film, "Birds" our entire culture (well, not all) grew suspicious of our global companions as fearsome interlopers rather than the caroling community and vermin eliminators who gather at backyard feeders across the civilized world, looking for a meal and leaving a song in our hearts and free fertilizer for our lawns and even the beautiful meadow flowers we see out in the country lands of America.

If you have a favorite bird, or know what kind of bird is so beloved in your state, please share a picture or two of birds you may have photographed. Because I am approximately the world's worst photographer, I will try to share credited public domain photos to those who kindly list their pictures as nonprofit use for amateurs who just love birds and want to share a picture of a particular type of bird with those who have a love for birds in common.

Thanks for opening the lost-leader thread, and as time goes on, I hope you enjoy the amazing world of birds, and I'm hoping one or two of you are avid birders, members of the Audubon Society, or registered ornithologists. Hey, I'm none of the above, but I love birds and admire anyone who has a degree in ornithology and respects those elusive little warblers as well as those fearsome wilderness vamps known as snowy owls, one of whom sideswiped my car on a dark, cold road in a snowstorm in Wyoming 20 years ago. Actually, it was a full-frontal assault with him diving at me, and I saw the bright yellow of his huge eyes just before he changed course and flew upwards as I was just driving down the road on the way home between Laramie and Clark's Corner. He frightened me so completely, my heart was thumping for half an hour afterward, and I'll never forget it.

Most of my experiences watching and enjoying birds have been very good ones, and they're worth every minute I spent enjoying observing their playful antics on edging out the competition at the bird feeder. And the farm where we live now has the special treat of being a favorite spot of those fabulous and inimitable summer tanagers.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufkcx-UqljM]Snowy Owl Invasion - YouTube[/ame]

Some links that may help acquaint you with a wild bird you've seen that you cannot quite name yet and other resources for understanding our feathered friends:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Macauly Library

Patuxent Bird Identification Center

What Bird - Novel Way to Identify the Bird you just heard or saw
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Smithsonian Institution, National Bird Collection

British Trust for Ornithology

Birds of North America - Life Histories of breeding birds

Birds of Mexico Checklist

Birds of Canada Checklist

Birds of the USA

Nature Worldwide Birds

 

[freedombecki]

Another take on To Kill a Mockingbird....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HDqjX7gRyA]Bird Bullies Cat EPIC FAIL!!! w/YouTube Editor - YouTube[/ame]
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[freedombecki]

Mountain Bluebirds
Eye candy!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv3Hj2WSWec]Mountain Bluebird - Unbelievably blue!!!! - YouTube[/ame]
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[freedombecki]

The Return of the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher from Mexican Winter Vacation

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsJeNNswljo"]Return of the Flycatchers - YouTube[/ame]
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[freedombecki]

Misidentification of the Mockingbird--claimed to be a scissortail--at least this mockingbird comes out okay...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVvf5vZzyQQ]cat vs scissor tail - YouTube[/ame]
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[freedombecki]

The people of 5 states claim the Mockingbird as their State Bird. They really are characters if you are ever lucky enough to have them frequent your back yard.

Mockingbird - Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida and Tennessee State Bird
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[freedombecki]

hm, what? 40 views and no takers? Maybe my smutty little thread nomenclature was just too much for the true-blue ornithologists, although as science-lovers, many of them are high-minded enough to overlook such inanities to get attention to bird issues. I could always have called it the "Fowler's Blind" which would justaposition birders with hunters in war mode. /blush

I cannot, however, not carry forward without mentioning another bird that is nothing short of eye candy if you can ignore the carping...

Cardinalis cardinalis

photo credits

But the Cardinal is not just another pretty face in the Aviary Kingdom, they boast being the state bird in several states--Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.
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[freedombecki]

My Audubon calendar shows the blue bunting's feathers as today's bird picture of the day. I love the bird-a-day calendar. It's a one-place resource for seeing the awesome birds of North America. These birds are just too pretty for words.

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Photo Credits, The Indigo Bunting: The smallest Sparrow Warbler

You will meet the Indigo Bunting in pastures, along the edges of swamps or along roadsides that are lined with trees or bushes anytime between the later part of May and September. He is the deepest ultramarine blue and certainly cannot be confused with other blue birds. The front of his head and chin are a rich indigo blue, green on his back and underparts. His wings are dusky brown with blue edges. His tail feathers are also blue edged and his bill and feet are dark. His general shape is rounded and canary-like, resembling the body of the goldfinch. He is 5 ¾ inches in length.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Every guys favorite bird... The tit.

 

[freedombecki]

Last week, I got the treat of the year. A red-bellied woodpecker was rattling the bird feeder around, so I looked up from my quilt task at the ironing board to have the pleasure of seeing one of the prettiest birds ever--and I made quick mental notes of him before he flew off. He had a dark barred back and a smooth head that had a large band of red from top to just above where his wings attach. That red was absolutely the loveliest shade of scarlet, and with the white underneath showing, I thought "well, I've never seen that woodpecker before, but I know he's not the red bellied type." Ha! I looked up what I remembered, and indeed, sighting a red belly on a red-bellied woodpecker is rare, because most of them do not show one causing some ornithologists to think their name is a misnomer. There are actually some that do have a small red spot, but they may be the exception rather than the rule. I saw no red mark, but this bird was nervous and didn't care to see me seeing him enjoying the woodpecker mix I bought a couple of weeks back, just to see if woodpeckers really are out there and if they really would come to feed on tempting snacks on our large front porch. I now know, they do!

Here's the closest one I could find to the one I saw, but I have to tell you the fellow on my front porch was stunning, sharp, cautious if not paranoid, and a thorough character, rattling his beak against the bird feeder a few times to see if he could get anything out of it. Nope! He had to eat what was at the lower end, just like everybody else, so he grabbed a few delectable bits of seeds and fruits woodpeckers like and was off. I was just standing there thinking how lucky I was to get to see one up close. The window is only a couple of feet away from the bird feeder, and the ironing board was set in front of the front bay window close to the bird feeder, on purpose.

photo credits and link to Melanerpes carolinus information
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[freedombecki]

Every guys favorite bird... The tit.

He's beautiful, Baruch.

 

[freedombecki]

America's only all-red bird
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Soon the Summer tanagers will be back. It seems last year they stayed a longer time than usual, possibly because our pond didn't dry up completely in last year's terrible drought, so there was food and water. They're so pretty I can't even describe them, but Cornell Ornithology Lab has a Sound link on their Summer tanager page, and you can scroll and click on the word "Sound," and you will be transferred to a page where you can click on the gray key and hear the song of the Summer tanager. So many of them come here, they're eye candy in our rural Walker County homestead.

Breeding Bird Survey in North America published at the USGS Pautuxent Bird ID Center

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[freedombecki]

And while we're on Flag Colors,
Blue Jays are just about everywhere

And according to the USGS, here are locations you can see them:

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[strollingbones]

The people of 5 states claim the Mockingbird as their State Bird. They really are characters if you are ever lucky enough to have them frequent your back yard.

Mockingbird - Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida and Tennessee State Bird
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for a few years we had a mockingbird that did a ringing phone.....that was just a joy

she would wake you at the crack of dawn......you would answer the phone and cuss

 

[strollingbones]

i have been lucky enough to hold a hummingbird....what an experience

 

[freedombecki]

The people of 5 states claim the Mockingbird as their State Bird. They really are characters if you are ever lucky enough to have them frequent your back yard.

Mockingbird - Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida and Tennessee State Bird
​

for a few years we had a mockingbird that did a ringing phone.....that was just a joy

she would wake you at the crack of dawn......you would answer the phone and cuss

!!!lol!!! Strollingbones, your very own Lily Tomlin singing one ringy-dingys over and over.
We have the know-it-all Mockingbird family around here when they show up en masse. You never know what they're gonna come up with, but *sigh* Your Lily Tomlin bird must love you, because I've never heard her. Some mockingbirds are said to learn the mimics of over 100 birds, but your bird must have descended from a family that nested at the operator's house of Ma Belle last century! (or something!)

That is just too funny!

 

[NLT]

OP title threw me off, I thought it was a thread about Dante. My bad

 

[freedombecki]

Some can talk with the animals...
Mynah bird, mimicking handlers

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYNCAT6NJ8c]talking mynah bird "Banjo" - YouTube[/ame]

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[freedombecki]

Baby robins hatching, time lapse photography

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDKgLfWheoI]Baby Robin Hatching - YouTube[/ame]

And more...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIt4QZZO4]Baby Robin Birds are hatching on my windows (2) - YouTube[/ame]


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[Ernie S.]

Check out this eagle cam. It's very addicting.