Boll Weevil Birding Digest

Well, not to kill one I guess…but they are irritating the living crap out of me. My wife purchased some feed for me a month or so ago…and bought the wrong kind. The one she brought back had peanuts in it, which I’m not opposed to really as some of the birds and squirrels that come by for a free mean like them. A pair of nesting mockingbirds, that have lived near my backyard for a few years, have recently found the feeder and have taken a liking to the peanuts, and have not adopted the feeders as their own.

I’ve swapped back to my normal peanut-free seedmix, but the mockingbirds haven’t adjusted yet and relinquished control of “their” feeders…and so my goldfinches, cardinals, and all other birds are still being chased away with military like precision and regularity! I’ll hand it to the mockingbirds, they are some heavyhanded bullies. The only bird that I have seen actually make a successful stand against them are the ground feeding doves that grab morsels from under the feeders. So far they have puffed themselves up and stood their ground! Maybe I’ll attract some more doves and they will reclaim the feeder spot; since the doves share willingly with the other birds this may be the relief they have been waiting for.

I am still a lazy bum and haven’t gotten my Hawaii bird pics on the site, but since I’m the only one visiting for the most part, I admittedly don’t see any rush, lol.

…is good news I suppose. Not much happening around my neck of the woods in the birding scene. But, I’m going out of town next week. Actually out of the state, and continental United States, all the way to Hawaii!

I’m going to take my camera with me, so hopefully I’ll get some brand new bird shots while I’m there, and plane crash notwithstanding, I’ll have some new material for the site when I get back!

Well, the male anyway. I don’t have very many good quality pictures from last year in the gallery, but since I’ve been seeing him off and on all morning on the birdfeeder right outside of my window, I’ll hopefully be able to remedy that this season.

I haven’t seen the female yet, but hopefully the pair is still together. Will post pics when I get’em!

I’ve been putting off the site updates, and this weekend has been filled with out of town company up for Easter…but I did manage to slip away for a couple of hours and do a bit of work.

I have added new photo galleries for a couple of birds, including the Common Flicker and Indigo Buntings, as well as add some additional images to the American Tree Sparrow and Cedar Waxwing galleries.

I still have several pictures to add, including photos of Red Tail Hawks, Killdeer, Robins, and a few woodpeckers that I haven’t categorized yet, so keep checking back and looking at the pictures. If you see anything interesting in any of the sponsored links scattered about, feel free to check those out as well.

It’s been a bit since I updated the site,  but I do have some in the works. I have several other types of birds that I’ve managed to capture…on digital media of course…and I’ll be getting those pages up and running some time soon. I also plan to resize some of the pictures here on the website. If you haven’t looked at any of the pictures yet, you’ll see what I mean as soon as  you do!

Some of the images are quite large, both physically and in filesize.

…of Brown Headed Cowbirds. These guys have once again cleaned out my feeders.

The more feed I put out, the greater their numbers it seems. These guys can clean out the feeders in no time, given that when they arrive, they arrive en masse, often numbering 50 or more at a time.

Lotsa work, but I got a ton of pictures online and seperated into galleries. Altogether, I think I have about 17 different galleries setup, one for each bird species.

Some of the pictures aren’t that great, but it’s not like a bird will sit still and pose for the camera, so sometimes you take what you can get! My camera isn’t all that great, but the old one was even worse (as you can tell by some of the older pictures). 

I have some pictures of a pair of rose breasted grosbeaks…they were here a couple of days while they were migrating, and I do wish those pictures were better, but for a once in a lifetime picture I guess they will do.

I have a few more pictures to dig out and when I do I’ll get them up and in a gallery, and then I plan to go back and edit the image information and put in descriptions and proper titles. For now though, I’m just glad to have some of the labor intensive work behind me.

From now on, I can just take a few pictures and put them online as I get them, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep things updated.

Well…until I decide to put my pictures of the lizards, flowers, and bugs online, but that’s probably for another year!

I thought I would make a post and tell you what kinds of birds are in the site logo here. Bear in mind, I watch birds from my window and I’m not a professional, so I am giving you my honest opinion as to any birds you may see here, but remember I am not an expert so I’m subject to being wrong!  :-)

Now, with that disclaimer in place I believe the birds, from left to right and top to bottom are:

1. Female Eastern Bluebird
2. Mourning Dove
3. Male Goldfinch
4. Male Cardinal
5. Pine Sisken
6. Chipping Sparrows
7. Male Eastern Bluebird

As you have also probably gathered…I’m not a graphic artist in addition to my not being a professional bird watcher! I have been taking pictures of the little feathered visitors to my yard for several years though, and have wanted to put them online to share, and thought this website would offer me a chance to do that.

I don’t get out very much on ‘birdwatching’ trips, but I do have a fairly good variety of species in my pictures, and I look forward to posting some of the pictures in the future.

I’m still working on getting everything setup, so as you have probably already figured out, there isn’t really anything here at the moment.

Hopefully I’ll have things looking a lot better in a month or so, so stop by again and see the progress.