Comments | thistle_chaser: It's for the birds!

thistle_chaser

It's for the birds!

Apr 11, 2013 16:53

I never would have thought I'd be interested in birds. I had a parakeet as a kid and liked it, but I never thought wild birds would be something that could entertain me, hold my interest, make me smile, and make me learn ( Read more... )

birds

Comments 13

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thistle_chaser April 12 2013, 01:34:56 UTC

Ha! Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world who doesn't use Facebook. It's always nice to run into someone else who doesn't. She sounds really interesting though! Do you know if she tried a seed catcher? I'm lucky, since the apartment building is only one story, I have no downstairs neighbors to complain.

Sounds like the perfect way to pass the time while doing dishes!

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thistle_chaser April 13 2013, 01:29:09 UTC

Yep! Amusingly, my mother keeps trying to push me into joining FB, but I've dug my heels in.

And agreed!

resonant April 12 2013, 00:34:19 UTC

I think I'll try this!

thistle_chaser April 12 2013, 01:28:52 UTC

I strongly recommend it! It's so peaceful and relaxing. I can't explain it, but it makes me so happy watching them interact.

kamalloy April 12 2013, 01:25:22 UTC

I love bird-watching, too. Our house backs to a small woods so we get to see lots of different types. We get frequent visits from cardinals, blue jays, and crows, but we also get woodpeckers, and last night we saw an owl!

Goldfinches are adorable. They squeak! But you should be careful, because thistles are one of their favorite foods. ;p

thistle_chaser April 12 2013, 01:31:54 UTC

Haha yes! The first line I read about them was something like "They gather in large flocks in bushes to eat thistle". I'M NEVER ENTERING BUSHES AGAIN!

And yay! So cool that you're seeing larger birds! I haven't seen a blue jay in this area, but we had tons of them back east. I had one larger grey bird come yesterday, but not jay/cardinal sized. Other than the mourning doves, everything that visits is finch sized.

I'd love to see an owl and a woodpecker! I get to see tons of crows, since they raid garbages. :/ Eat lunch in a fast food parking lot and you can watch them pull bags out of the trash cans (the kind with flaps!), and open them on the ground and go through the wrappers.

kamalloy April 12 2013, 20:47:06 UTC

I'd heard owls back there before, but I'd never seen one until the other night. Had I not seen it moving, I'm not sure I would have actually spotted it. It blended into the trees really well. I kept trying to point it out to grysar and he couldn't see it, and even though I knew where it was, when I moved to a different position I couldn't find it. But when I sat back down, there it was again. Pretty amazing.

I see hawks hanging out on the lampposts sometimes on my way to work. And one actually chased a dove into my office window!

Crows are clever, and they're also kind of amusing because they don't walk, they strut.

thistle_chaser April 13 2013, 01:31:28 UTC

Yes! I love how crows strut. There's been a hawk that hunts along one of the roads I take to work for a couple years now, I often see him/her sitting on a lamp post watching the road below. I assume it eats roadkill? Or maybe when cars scare up a rabbit or something.

loupnoir April 12 2013, 01:48:01 UTC

We got our first feeder in the nineties and have had one ever since. It hung outside the office, and it attracted finches, titmice, California towhees, and sparrows. That was so much fun we added a hummingbird feeder.

Speed ahead to now. The hummingbirds own us. We buy sugar by the 100lbs. The darn quail are everywhere outside (okay, they're cute, but man those things can eat!). The siskins and the goldfinches (lesser and American both) insist on niger thistle seed. The seed bring in Stellar's and scrub jays, whitecrowed and goldcrowned sparrows, fox sparrows, song sparrows, spotted towhees (no Californian out here), and the occasional woodpecker. I'm not as keen on the doves and pigeons that swing by or the various egrets and herons and kingfishers. Bird TV is so much fun to watch!

Best of luck to you on keeping the squirrels out of your feeder. Our dog was the best deterrent.

If you hang a basket under your eaves, you'll probably get mourning doves nesting there.

thistle_chaser April 12 2013, 02:02:41 UTC

I think a hummingbird feeder will be the next thing I add. I'm afraid of attracting ants, but so long as it's hanging instead of connected to the building, I think it'll be okay. Hmm. Google tells me I should be as worried about bees and wasps as ants. We do have a lot of those here. Will have to research this more!

I'd love to hang a basket for the mourning doves, but since I'm in an apartment, I don't want to put it up and maybe have to take it down at some point when it might be in use.

Wow, you get some big birds! I'm okay with anything up to jay-sized. If an egret shows up at my apartment door, I'm going to worry a bit. ;)

I was thinking about you while writing this post. When you had posted about going out bird spotting/counting, I hadn't understood the draw at all. Now I do!

ani_mama April 12 2013, 05:55:27 UTC

Our hummingbird feeder started attracting wasps. They drove the birds away, so we ended up taking the feeder down. It is too bad...I really liked having the hummingbirds visit on the back porch.

I don't know the names of most of the birds that hang out in my area. I should read up on that more.

thistle_chaser April 13 2013, 01:33:04 UTC

After reading more about hummingbird feeders, I decided against one. You need to clean them every 3-4 days (otherwise they could grow a mold that will kill the birds), and even the wasp-proof ones aren't. A little too much work for me. :/

It's fun looking them up and then reading about them! Some of them are pretty amazing, like the black-eyed junko one comes down from Alaska! Such a long trip for a tiny bird!

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