Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Weekly What Bird Wednesday

If you would like to join me for my W.W.B.W. leave a guess in the comments below or make your own weekly what bird post.

I went out biking this morning and saw quite a few birds, and got some pretty fantastic photos of a Red-winged Blackbird! I also saw and heard this bird, I've only seen it once or twice before. This one will be really hard, especially because you can't zoom in on the photo too much, I was thinking of cropping it but I decided not to and see how you did.
Leave your guess in the comments below

For last weeks, BirdBoy guessed it right on his second try, Swamp Sparrow! I discovered that there are actually a lot of them in a field near our house.

Friday, April 24, 2015

Feathers on Friday

Here is my Fof. We have a big marshy thick brush place (I don't know how else to explain it) with standing water far behind our house. It's only really wet in the spring though, it makes a really awesome swamp habitat, which hosts loads and loads of blackbirds right now. There is also a lifer for me (which you'll figure out about next week, when I reveal the Weekly What Bird).
There are Brown-headed Cowbirds, Brewer's Blackbirds, grackles, even Rusty Blackbirds, and tonnes of Red-winged Blackbirds.

Here is a few blackbirds, mostly Brewer's I think, but there is at least one Rusty in this picture I believe.

Blackbirds flock

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Weekly What Bird Wednesday

If you would like to join me for my W.W.B.W. leave a guess in the comments below or make your own weekly what bird post.

Can you guess this lifer bird I saw today from this picture?
Leave your guess in the comments.
Last weeks was actually a Cooper's Hawk! The white rump patch gives it away. 'dabirdguy' (aka my brother being silly) got it right after asking me like four times. :)

Other What Bird Wednesday posts:
Bird Boy's
JC's
Cat's and the Birds

Friday, April 17, 2015

Feathers on Friday

Here is my FoF. We have a lot of spring birds around now, including Bluebirds! There were about five Eastern Bluebirds across the road in a field. About four males, which were all fighting. Later that day we saw a male and female Bluebird checking out some nests!! So exciting! Finally we will probably get bluebirds nesting near our house. We hear them calling a lot/

Here are some pictures. We have more, but they'll come in a Spring Birding post.

Here is the male checking out a hole in a old tree. For those who are a veeerryy long time follower, which I don't know if there are, this is the tree I found some abandoned eggs in like three or four years ago. I made a post about it, that was very near the beginning of my blog's life.

William took these photos.
Eastern Bluebird male
 The other site they are checking out is a bird box! Exciting!
Eastern Bluebird female
Other FoF posts:
Bird Boy
Prairie Birder
The Cats and the Birds

Spring Birding (Part 2 - St. Vital Park Birding)

Hello again! This is the post you've all been waiting for! Spring Birding #2! (applaud) I will be making these Spring Bird posts all spring, to document the birds that we see in Winnipeg during the spring time, for you're enjoyment (and mine, I like doing these). So if you ever wanted to know what spring birding is like here, read these! I will hopefully post them at least weekly, probably more frequently. So stay an active reader! And enjoy!


William's violin teacher's place has a lot of birds at it. One of them is a Merlin.

Merlin
During migration, we always have quite a lot of birds hit our window. Primarily Redpolls, Purple Finches and Juncos. A few weeks ago we had a horrible amount of redpolls hitting our window. It was after they left that we remembered we had a screen for that window! I was trying to think of some way to stop them from hitting, and the screen would have solved all our problems.
So, here's a female Purple Finch that hit the window. I'm not sure if it died afterwards.
Purple Finch
Okay, now for the Saint Vital Park birding. We went here for our homeschool group, as it is nearby to the place we meet. It has a duck pond and some woods, nice for taking a walk. Actually, next month, Christian Artuso is giving a speech for our homeschool group, then we will go birding at St Vital Park! That's going to be one of my favorite times.

There were mostly Canada Geese at the duck pond, but there were some other birds also. Many of these photos are William's! I didn't feel like trying to figure out which ones were who's, so I just put them all as (c) Josiah ....... He doesn't care a whole lot.

Just warning you, we took a lot of photos! A lot.... Maybe I should have split it into two posts.... Well, I hope you are a persistent reader and won't give up half way through when you realize it never ends. ;)
Canada Goose

Canada Goose
Mallards were one of the other birds we saw there.
Mallard

Dabbling it's beak.
Mallard

Mallard

Canada Goose
Male and female Mallard. The male seems to be have a snack. Yum Yum! Aquatic plants!
Mallard
Ring-billed Gulls were another of the birds that were at the pond.
Ring-billed Gull
This picture isn't to good, but it looks just so funny! So I thought I'd include it anyway.
Canada Goose
I like this photo, I kept the Mallards in color and made everything else black and white. Two male Mallards hangin out together.
Mallard

Mallard pair
They slip into the water from the ice.

Mallards

female Mallard
One of my favorite birds at the pond was, Wood Ducks! They were mostly hiding along the island in the middle under cover of bush, so it was hard to get good pictures. One female came out onto the ice
female Wood Duck
A beautiful portrait shot!
Female Mallard
Another beautiful portrait shot!
Mallard
And another!
Mallard
We decided to go walking through the woods, maybe look for some birds as well. We crossed a marsh (and I just had shoes (and was holding the camera)) on logs and made it safely across. It was actually a flooded out path. We found a feeder, and some friendly chickadees that landed on our hands. After staying by the chickadees a while we started back. Suddenly a Great-horned Owl flew out and landed in plain view for all of us! What a spectacular bird they are!
This one looks rather white, compared to ours that we have come back every winter. After taking a billion photos with the camera, it finally flew off. I actually only have two photos on the blog, which I'm kind of surprised about. I usually put on like ten for a bird like this ;). I think everyone agreed it was really fantastic to see it, even if they weren't into birds like us.

Apparently it was really sleepy, it kept yawning. I would be sleepy to, if someone woke me up in the middle of my sleep, and started taking pictures of me! Actually... that would just be weird! Anyway, in the pictures it looked like he's singing.

"Grumble, groan. Yawwwwn. Why'd ye wake me up so early? YAWWWWWNN!" 
Great-horned Owl
"AAAAAAHH! EEEEEHH AAAAHHH!!" he sings.

Great-horned Owl
We had looped back to the duck pond. Perfect! The wood ducks were out! So we got some good pictures of them.

This photo isn't the greatest, but I love the Mallard squaking at the Wood Duck, and the Wood Duck is swimming away as fast as possible.
Mallard, Wood Duck, Canada Goose
"Get away from here!"
"On my way!"
And the flashy wood duck showing off his beautiful hair. My friend now calls it the 70's duck, with it's funky hair.
Wood Duck
"Look at my nifty hair!"

Wood Duck

Wood Duck

And yet again, Wood Duck! :D

That's all folks! Thanks for reading! It is a long post, but I'm glad you read through it.
Please Comment and share! And stay tuned for the next Spring Birding Post!

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Weekly What Bird Wednesday

If you would like to join me for my W.W.B.W. leave a guess in the comments below or make your own weekly what bird post.


Here is the mystery bird of the week. William took this photo.
Can you guess the bird in this photo? Leave your guess in the comments!

Last weeks was actually a Blue Jay! It seems the Blue Jay bottoms are tricky, I did one a while ago and no one could get it.

Other What Bird Wednesday posts:
Bird Boy's
JC's
Cat's and the Birds

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Cooper's Hawk is back!

We have had a pair of Cooper's Hawks faithfully coming back to our neighborhood to nest year after years; over 5 years I think.
We have been seeing it quite a bit the last few days, flying over, calling, in the woods, and today, right at the feeder! We've seen it at least three times today already, this morning I saw it, right at the window, William saw both of them this afternoon, and it came to our feeder very recently. I saw it flying now the trail that leads out back, and towards our house. I scrambled up and didn't even wait to see if it was actually coming to the feeder before I started calling out "Cooper's Hawk at the feeder! Cooper's Hawk at the feeder!" I got the camera, and sure enough, the Cooper's Hawk was sitting in a tree right by the bird feeder.

We are seeing a lot of other birds around here too, an Oregon Junco (which is rare!), Golden-crowned Kinglet (Hoorah!) , Brown Creeper, Yellow-rumped Warblers (Yay!! They're back!), Song Sparrows, Fox Sparrows, lots of Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds, Meadowlarks, Killdeer, Northern Harriers, Mallards, Wood Ducks, Merlins, Robins, Kestrels, and Red-tailed Hawks. I saw a Northern Flicker and some Pelicans. William saw a Bluebird, a Turkey Vulture. We heard an American Woodcock and a Northern Saw-whet Owl. THE SPRING BIRDS ARE HERE!! And more will be arriving soon! I am so excited! There are loads of birds singing their hearts out outside!
Sorry, you'll have to wait until I post more Spring Birding posts, but don't worry, it will hopefully be soon. In a day or two. So stay tuned!!

Also, yesterday I got my Birdathon T-Shirt. Everyone who participates in the Great Canadian Birdathon receives a free T-shirt!

I got some pretty good pictures of the hawk, here they are!

Enjoy!

Cooper's Hawk
 It might be wondering why there are a whole bunch of people staring at it through the window, ruining it's chance to catch songbirds.
Cooper's Hawk
Thanks for reading! Comment and share!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Spring Birding (Part 1 - Chickadee Photoshoot)

Hopefully I will be able to make a lot of posts of the birds I am seeing this spring. This is the first one.
About a week ago we got together with some friends at Birds Hill Park, at Chickadee Trail. Chickadee Trail is true to it's name, it is loaded with friendly chickadees that will feed off your hands. I was able to get a lot of good photos of them.

So prepare for a whole lot of Chickadee pictures! I couldn't bring myself to eliminate to many. Almost all of the photos are unedited besides cropping, and there are quite a few which are not cropped.

There were also quite a few chipmunks. William got these shots.
Eastern Chipmunk

Eastern Chipmunk
 A few of these photos may be William's or another of my brothers.
Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee
 And, we saw Fox Sparrows, new year bird for us.
Fox Sparrow

Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee
 A cute, muddy little dog. :)

Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee
 Chickadee on my hand!
Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee
And that's it for now! Stay tuned though, for more posts on Spring Birding!

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Weekly What Bird Wednesday

If you would like to join me for my W.W.B.W. leave a guess in the comments below or make your own weekly what bird post.


Leave your guess in the comments!


And... what was last weeks? Think about it. What day was it?
I was thinking I could do an April Fools WWBW, and then I figured out it was even on a Wednesday!! How perfect! Apparently everyone fell for my mischievous plan. :D Don't worry! This weeks is a real bird!

Other What Bird Wednesday posts:
Bird Boy's
JC's
Cat's and the Birds

Friday, April 3, 2015

More Snow!! (And Birds)

We had quite a bit of snow today, the ground is again covered. In a few days it will melt though. Yesterday there were quite a few birds at the feeders (and there probably will be today also); Purple Finches, Dark-eyed Juncos, Pine Siskin, of course chickadees, Hairy Woodpecker and even an American Tree Sparrow.
Here are some pictures I took over the last couple days. Enjoy!

Common Redpoll
 We discovered a chipmunk sticking around the house (and probably living under the garage) who comes to the bird feeders often. I used our Lone Pine Mammal book to identify it, it was between Least and Eastern Chipmunk. The Least has more stripes on it's face, so this was a Eastern.
Eastern Chipmunk

Eastern Chipmunk

Eastern Chipmunk
 There were many Purple Finches singing in the trees, mostly males actually.
female Purple Finch (male in the background)
 The juncos are here to stay now! There are about twenty maybe coming to our feeders.
Dark-eyed Junco kicking up snow.
 And, one of my favorite right now, the American Tree Sparrow! I love the rufous cap and back.
American Tree Sparrow

American Tree Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco
 A Hair Woodpecker came momentarily to the tree.
Hairy Woodpecker

Purple Finch

Dark-eyed Junco

Dark-eyed Junco

Black-capped Chickadee
 I was able to get some video of this Purple Finch, the chickadee and juncos.
Purple Finch

Feathers on Friday posts:

Other FoF posts:
Bird Boy
Prairie Birder
The Cats and the Birds