Wild Side Ornithology Club

[freedombecki]

I'm not good at bird-watching, but I do like to bird-listen.

I wish there were an app for capturing a bird call in the wild, then identifying it with that software.

I researched it, attempts are being made, but it is a difficult and arduous process.

I found some bird books about 3 years ago that had audio sounds with bird pictures, you just punched in the number of the bird or something, and it gave you the bird's call, plus it described them. Oh, I forgot all about it. The reason was that after 2 years of being sandwiched in between my growing collection of bird books, it quit making sounds. There's another somewhere, but I'm not sure where I put it, and the third book, well, I never bought it because the one went bad, and I figured I didn't want to pay an extra $15 for a book the sound doesn't work the first time you really want to know what bird you heard.

I've got that book. Not sure how old it is, it was given to me but it still works.

Also have one of these:

Wow, Pogo. That's a must have. Thanks for sharing!!!!!!

 

[Spoonman]

this winter took a very heavy toll on my feeding stations so i haven't had many photos to add. but yesterday i was finally able to get out and do a little repair work. i took a 20' dead cedar tree from the woods for my new pole outside my office. it's burried 3' deep and has a good concrete footing so hopefully this one will hold. I'll be hanging a selection of seed, fruit and suet feeders off it. I think tonight I'll star with thistle as the finches are around.

 

[freedombecki]

this winter took a very heavy toll on my feeding stations so i haven't had many photos to add. but yesterday i was finally able to get out and do a little repair work. i took a 20' dead cedar tree from the woods for my new pole outside my office. it's burried 3' deep and has a good concrete footing so hopefully this one will hold. I'll be hanging a selection of seed, fruit and suet feeders off it. I think tonight I'll star with thistle as the finches are around.

That's really wonderful, Spoonman. It already has "hanging posts," and I hope the birds bring you joy and inspiration. I wonder if you hung a little hummingbird feeder, if you'd see them hanging around. We have them on the front porch near the bird feeders, and on day's I've been out there, haven't seen any hummingbirds, but a lot of cardinals, jays, woodpeckers, and you name them, they've been there, probably.

You mentioned thistle. Here, they're pink, and one started blooming by the lake. I thought of finches and the pretty view they will have if they land on it when it's a little taller.

I also noticed the prettiest pale lavender flowers out front, and wondered what they were. It turns out they are a hill country wildflower called lyre flowers. (Salvia lyrata) I was so enchanted by their beauty, they grew up in the corner of my yard, and I noticed they had leaves that reminded me of how wild dandelions grow, but they had pale lilac flowers on spikes and were totally beautiful. I wondered what kind of a bird may have dropped the seeds there, and when I mowed, I tried to avoid the ones that were thick as a wildflower garden at the edges. Oh, how lovely a present the birds gave us this year. Apparently, they can be made into a tea, mixed with honey, and cure asthma attacks. And they are named for their leaves, which are shaped like a lyre. Some call them lyre leaf flowers.

I found a picture online:

Credits: Lyre-Leaf Sage (more pictures)

I guess if I sang all day out there in the pollen, I'd want to soothe my throat with the lyre-leaf sage, too. So maybe the birds actually use it to help them sing their songs. One sounds so musical, I wonder if it was his tribe who planted them? He sounds like a mellow calliope, and he sings first thing in the morning, too. *sigh*

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, wait. The planters have to be the mocking birds! There are so many of them, and there always seems to be one of them doing imitative musical recitations nonstop ever so often. One of them had a repertoire of 60+ imitations the other day. He had particularly good taste and truer sounds than many. What a delightful mockingbird.

 

[Pogo]

For Earth Day -- pretty cool list of the world's 100 most endangered birds

Some samples:

Northern bald ibis:

Shoebill

Kackapoo:

>> Found only in New Zealand, this charismatic, flightless parrot is slowly being brought back from the edge of extinction. >>​

How rare do they get?

#2: New Caledonian Owlet-nightjar (Aegotheles savesi)
>> This mysterious species, which has not been seen since 1998, continues to elude birdwatchers and researchers. It is known only from two specimens, which are held in museums in Liverpool, UK and Italy. <<

Each bird has its own page with more info. Purty cool list.

 

[asaratis]

Fours eggs so far...

Berry College Bluebirds on USTREAM: The Berry College Bluebird Cam is a Hawk Eye Night Owl nest box camera that became operational April 9, 2014. The camer...

 

[freedombecki]

Fours eggs so far...

Berry College Bluebirds on USTREAM: The Berry College Bluebird Cam is a Hawk Eye Night Owl nest box camera that became operational April 9, 2014. The camer...

Yep.

 

[asaratis]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...20202244810354&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

A mother defending her nest.

 

[freedombecki]

This is a Himalayan Monal

 

[freedombecki]

Fairy-wren

Red-backed Fairy-wren:

Splendid Fairy-wren

Superb Fairy-wren pair:

 

[freedombecki]

Splendid Fairywren (aka blue wren) range:



Information on the specie: Wikipedia, Splendid Fairywren

 

[Pogo]

My azaleas entertaining visitors...

 

[Pogo]

It's an especially bounteous time of year here in the Appalachian woods. Just got in from enjoying the songs of one of my favorite avian voices, the wood thrush; a four distinct short bursts in flute-like tones, of course with a wide variety of regional dialects:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrmxlez2cAg"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrmxlez2cAg[/ame]

Wood thrushes are not uncommon here especially at dusk. I'm in a holler so their voices reverberate, and lately I've got several of them in every direction.

But another blessing this season has been the unmistakable sound of another favorite bird that makes it to the neighborhood only rarely: the Phoebe...

​

Its voice doesn't capture well on audio recording at least as far as YouTube but this page has a good sampling. I love waking up to that call. If I designed alarm clocks, that's what mine would sound like.

 

[Spoonman]

i finally have something worthy of adding again

 

[freedombecki]

i finally have something worthy of adding again

Worthy of adding here? Oh, Spoonman, that's worthy of hanging in every US government building ever erected. Truly. Thank you.

 

[koshergrl]

Hello all...I feel like I'm going to be getting back to normal now...back to the things I like to do...crocheting, hiking, enjoying threads like this one...

Here a week or so ago they had a fish die-off at one of the little dunes lakes here. It's a small lake with a campground next to it, it feeds into a larger lake...anyway they stock it with trout for fishing. Unfortunately they stocked it and then the fish died, either something happened to them during the process of stocking or maybe there was an algae bloom or who knows..

Anyway there were some awesome pics of the eagles hanging out at the lake. They're major scavengers...our eagles bully our osprey into handing over their fish, and they're all over dead fish!

But they're super cool anyway, it's fun to see them up close. When I was a girl, eagles here were few and far between. In fact, I'm not sure I ever saw them except when we went over to the eastern side of the state. Now they're everywhere, I have even seen them in town, scoping out the pigeons that used to congregate on 18th street (no more, presumably somebody got rid of them).

 

[Spoonman]

i finally have something worthy of adding again

Worthy of adding here? Oh, Spoonman, that's worthy of hanging in every US government building ever erected. Truly. Thank you.

20 years ago seeing an eagle in this area was extrememly rare. there were a few along the river that were reintroduced. But now, they are pretty abundant

 

[Derideo_Te]

i finally have something worthy of adding again

Worthy of adding here? Oh, Spoonman, that's worthy of hanging in every US government building ever erected. Truly. Thank you.

20 years ago seeing an eagle in this area was extrememly rare. there were a few along the river that were reintroduced. But now, they are pretty abundant

Last fall I counted 6 of them circling above my house. We have a nesting pair around here and I assume the parents were showing their offspring around the neighborhood. There is a 1000 Audobon preserve about a mile down the road. It is good to see the wildlife making a come back.

 

[freedombecki]

i finally have something worthy of adding again

Worthy of adding here? Oh, Spoonman, that's worthy of hanging in every US government building ever erected. Truly. Thank you.

20 years ago seeing an eagle in this area was extrememly rare. there were a few along the river that were reintroduced. But now, they are pretty abundant

I've been so happy to know people who were in on the proliferation of more American bald eagles in Wyoming. I'm so proud of the national effort by people all over the USA to remove them from threatened with extinction lists and from the endangered lists. Yea!

 

[freedombecki]

This morning's bing shows a very odd duck! Well, not a duck, really, but not a native of the United States, either. Below is another picture of the Blue-footed Booby:

Blue-footed Booby, Sula nebouxii​

Credits, description, habitat, etc.​

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Winter Map Range:​