What are your local song birds

[wintermom]

While I've been walking in my neighbourhood or sitting by an open window, I've been enjoying my local song birds - especially those returning from the south. The most common in my suburban neighbourhood are cardinals and chickadees over the winter, and now the robins are back. The Canada geese are back, too, and they're noisy! 😉

What are your local favourites?

[KungFuPanda]

I’m bad at bird ID, but lately we’ve been visited by a Raven (definitely not a crow). Ugly ugly song, but I haven’t seen many of them so it’s a bit novel. 

[gardenmom5]

birds sing? . . . . 

I think there are some red-winged blackbirds in the valley below me.  I like listening to them as they remind me of Mt. Rainier.

I do have feeders - but get mostly finches.  and they don't sing.   there was an owl around here last summer, I'd hear it early in the morning. (or late at night.)

I have seen a bald eagle this way more often.  I used to see hawks frequently - and they're nice to watch ride air currents.

[Spryte]

We love birds here.  Not all of ours sing, but of those that do ... I adore the Carolina Wren.  
 

Chickadees and Cardinals are fun.  DD plays an app that emits their songs, and the chickadees hop closer and closer.  The cardinals dive bomb us.  It’s probably not the best thing for them, but DD enjoys it.  🙂

We have a lot of nuthatches this year, and some titmouse.  

We also get three types of woodpeckers, Canada Geese, purple finches ... Hmmm, there’s more, but I’m blanking out.  Oops!

[wintermom]

Weird. There are somehow 2 threads going. I don't know how to combine them. 

[wintermom]

41 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

I’m bad at bird ID, but lately we’ve been visited by a Raven (definitely not a crow). Ugly ugly song, but I haven’t seen many of them so it’s a bit novel. 

I'm not great at bird ID, either. I can recognize the common locals. Our blue jays can have a pretty scary cry, and they like to complain when you are in their space. They're beautiful to look at, though.

[wintermom]

We used to have a woodpecker that loved our dead tree in our backyard. Sadly, we won't see him now that the tree has been removed. I love the sound and look of woodpeckers.

Edited April 4, 2020 by wintermom

[appyonthebeach]

We've had a mockingbird hanging around here every night at 8 o'clock.  I love listening to him.  We've also had lots of cardinals, blue jays and robins.  I'm looking forward to the goldfinches coming back soon.

[IfIOnly]

Eek! I love this. One of my hobbies is birding. We moved rural (again) 4 months ago, and I'm seeing so many different birds then when we lived in town. I'm missing our house sparrows though. At my feeder or through the windows I've seen: dark-eyes juncos, robins, mountain bluebird, western bluebird, mountain chickadee, bushtit, house finch (males are red, so pretty)  They all just appeared when I finally put out my feeder not quite two weeks ago! First thing I thought of when social distancing happend to bring enjoyment to our time at home. You can just hear the songs inside the house certain parts of the day. New birds coming regularly as the word gets out we have food and birds congregate. Yay! We have woodpecker too but they've not a songbird. I seen at least 3 types locally. I saw another new bird on the property today but it flew away before I got a good look. It's size and color are different than what I've seen so far.

Other birds I've seen around our previous homes in our area:

House sparrows

doves, a pair that lived for years in our cul de sac. 

starlings

bright yellow warblers, either wilson's warbler or yellow warbler

western meadolark (bright yellow breasted, sound beautiful!)

western scrub-jay - blue

stellar's jay - blue

White-crowned sparrow - some of my favs. love the black striped male and chestnut striped female. really friendly too, aren't flighty

spotted towhee

redwinged blackbird

several types of owl, eagles (lots about 30 minutes away), hawks

If you can feed the birds! It's so rewarding. 

 

😍😉

Edited April 4, 2020 by IfIOnly

[IfIOnly]

1 hour ago, wintermom said:

While I've been walking in my neighbourhood or sitting by an open window, I've been enjoying my local song birds - especially those returning from the south. The most common in my suburban neighbourhood are cardinals and chickadees over the winter, and now the robins are back. The Canada geese are back, too, and they're noisy! 😉

What are your local favourites?

We don't have cardinals here. They're so beatiful. I'd love to see one in real life. Lucky!

[KrissiK]

Now in the spring we have mourning doves. In the summer we have mocking birds. And at night the owls serenade us.

[wintermom]

16 minutes ago, KrissiK said:

Now in the spring we have mourning doves. In the summer we have mocking birds. And at night the owls serenade us.

I hear what I think are mourning doves, but they are shy so I don't often see them. Very calming call. I'd love to hear owls! 

[wintermom]

31 minutes ago, IfIOnly said:

Eek! I love this. One of my hobbies is birding. We moved rural (again) 4 months ago, and I'm seeing so many different birds then when we lived in town. I'm missing our house sparrows though. At my feeder or through the windows I've seen: dark-eyes juncos, robins, mountain bluebird, western bluebird, mountain chickadee, bushtit, house finch (males are red, so pretty)  They all just appeared when I finally put out my feeder not quite two weeks ago! First thing I thought of when social distancing happend to bring enjoyment to our time at home. You can just hear the songs inside the house certain parts of the day. New birds coming regularly as the word gets out we have food and birds congregate. Yay! We have woodpecker too but they've not a songbird. I seen at least 3 types locally. I saw another new bird on the property today but it flew away before I got a good look. It's size and color are different than what I've seen so far.

Other birds I've seen around our previous homes in our area:

House sparrows

doves, a pair that lived for years in our cul de sac. 

starlings

bright yellow warblers, either wilson's warbler or yellow warbler

western meadolark (bright yellow breasted, sound beautiful!)

western scrub-jay - blue

stellar's jay - blue

White-crowned sparrow - some of my favs. love the black striped male and chestnut striped female. really friendly too, aren't flighty

spotted towhee

redwinged blackbird

several types of owl, eagles (lots about 30 minutes away), hawks

If you can feed the birds! It's so rewarding. 

 

😍😉

I'm so jealous! I'd love to be rural and have that kind of variety of birds. 

23 minutes ago, IfIOnly said:

We don't have cardinals here. They're so beatiful. I'd love to see one in real life. Lucky!

I really love cardinals. They live in pairs and the red males love to perch high up in a tree and just call out to who ever is around. They'll often respond when I mimic the call, and that is so cool. It's especially nice that they stay all through the winter, but they are not as vocal in the cold. 

[Miss Tick]

This is giving me a new, kinder appreciation of the monotonous Cardinals, raucous Jays, noisy wrens, harsh red-belly woodpeckers, and mumbly mourning doves. 😀

Truly, I do love the birds at the feeders. Next month I look forward to the hummingbirds returning.

[KungFuPanda]

This guy comes around every day and gets chased away by other, smaller, birds. He tries. He’s big, but not very brave. 

[KrissiK]

44 minutes ago, wintermom said:

I hear what I think are mourning doves, but they are shy so I don't often see them. Very calming call. I'd love to hear owls! 

Owls are really wonderful. Sometimes we are in the middle of a trifecta of owls, all hooting from the tops of different redwood trees.it’s really cool.

Mourning doves have a very distinctive call. 

[Laura Corin]

European robins, bluetits, greattits, coaltits, long-tailed tits, blackbirds, hedge sparrow, dunnock, various thrushes, tree creepers, bullfinch, chaffinch. Sometimes goldfinch.  I'm useless at identifying calls though. I know that robins and blackbirds have pretty songs.

We have geese fly over but not settle. Jays, crows, woodpigeon and woodpeckers come through too. And we have a pheasant who lingers hopefully under our bird feeder. Occasionally we have a sparrowhawk, which scares off all the others. European buzzards nest locally. We hear owls, and I have twice seen barn owls.

Edited April 4, 2020 by Laura Corin

[wintermom]

11 hours ago, SusanC said:

This is giving me a new, kinder appreciation of the monotonous Cardinals, raucous Jays, noisy wrens, harsh red-belly woodpeckers, and mumbly mourning doves. 😀

Truly, I do love the birds at the feeders. Next month I look forward to the hummingbirds returning.

I love the way cardinals repeat their various calls over and over again. It's almost like they are encouraging me to listen, try to imitate, practice, and then the ultimate success of when he answers back to me. Amazing pedagogy in action, I'd say! 😃

[wintermom]

12 hours ago, IfIOnly said:

 

If you can feed the birds! It's so rewarding. 

 

😍😉

This was my favourite song from the movie! 

[Lady Florida.]

I'm bringing my post over from the other thread because this seems to be the active one. 

Year round - cardinal, mockingbird, carolina wren, mourning dove, tufted titmouse.

Robins come twice a year and only stay for about 2 weeks - October on their way farther south and February on their way back north. They practically cover our backyard. I love it when they arrive. 

Winter songbirds include the gray catbird, yellow rumped warbler, and red winged blackbird.

 

Quote

 

15 hours ago, StellaM said

Not my favourites by a long stretch, but I often hear ibis honking in a pine tree across the road. Every single time I think it's ducks!

 

We always have white ibis around and you can hear them honking every evening. I sometimes hear sand hill cranes honking but they aren't as plentiful. They're quite common where we're moving to, which is only about 45 miles south, so I expect we'll hear them a lot at our new house. 

Other non-songbirds that I often hear - red-bellied woodpecker, various blackbirds and grackles, red shouldered hawks, and blue jays. All of them either squawk or scream. Sometimes at night I hear a barred owl or a whippoorwill. It's really cool to hear the owls.

 

[klmama]

Right now I am seeing robins, cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees, purple finches, and sparrows. We also get goldfinches, mourning doves, blue jays, and cowbirds, but I haven't noticed them yet.  I've seen crows, red-tailed hawks, Canada geese, cranes, and turkeys, but they aren't song birds. Owls and various woodpeckers.  And mallards.  Our neighbors see a pair swimming in their pool every year.

Edited April 4, 2020 by klmama