Goldfinches, house finches, chickadees, blue jays and cardinals.

The weather has been warmer down here.

actually more than usual

Where are you located?

Tons of birds!

Bluejays, cardinals, humming birds, black birds, sparrows, geese, seagulls.

and ducks in my yard!

Ha!

But every morning I hear them chirp just before sunrise. Sounds like a lot of them.

Why?

That makes me sad.

tapestries that hang down over the blinds, so I have to make a special effort to look outside. I've also had three surgeries on my leg in the past 6months and I have a hard time getting around. I still drive and all, but I don't go anywhere very much. Now that this virus is going around, I have to be cautious anyway. I have other ailments too and I'm high risk.

The vultures returned, I think a little ahead of schedule, last week. And the other day the woman next door saw a wild turkey in her yard.

Robins, blue jays, cardinals, and a lot of them that I can't identify (the only birds I've ever made even a casual study of being penguins).

I keep feeders up year round.

Always cardinals on the feeders, as well as purple thrushes. Backyard has robins and blue jays. Got a couple of woodpeckers as well.

Lots of birds. Plenty of hawks around as well. For some reason the Canada geese are still around too. Don’t remember seeing them this late in spring before, but maybe memory fails.

Waiting for my hummers to show up, dang it.

In my backyard, Robins, Blue Jays, Tree Ducks, Sparrows, Hawks and of course my two Rouen ducks, etc...

I've been enjoying the redbreasted woodpeckers, two kinds of nuthatches and Downy woodpeckers that are sometimes in my line of sight while I work.

I'm in NC.

I wonder where the birds where you live went? This might be worrying.

and we've been seeing a ton of Robins in Prospect Park.

What is weird is never hearing an airplane flying overhead. Twice a week, at night, they seemed to have a flight path over our neighborhood. But I haven't heard them since we began shutting down.

no one around but a few robins, a pair of cardinals, and some kind of pigeons. I think tomorrow is the new moon, and they usually get all wigged out around that time with huge gatherings, but the wind has got to be putting a damper on the party.

I sat on the landing and watched them come to the yard and pick up twigs for hours. They are building their nest.

And that loud catbird will be here soon.

patio every other day, the bird poop is everywhere.

If you feed them they will come.
The pyrrhuloxia would follow me around to yell at me.

a few days ago 50+ turkey vultures were circling the meadow behind my house, as they do every spring at around this time. About 20 are still around, and this morning there were 8 vultures perched on my neighbor's roof. I've never seen them perch close by, usually only in the trees by the Catholic cemetery a block or so from my house.

They don't attack living animals. They're not pretty, but they have nice personalities.

The black vultures tend to hang in groups and the turkey vultures tend to be solitary. I think they do some kinda of team work as one of them has a better sense of smell than the other. The black vultures are a common winter site in South Texas. They love the cell phone tower at the local park. The cell phone tower is on top of a cliff.

Okay, here's an article on it: https://www.popsci.com/gas-leaks-are-designed-to-attract-turkey-vultures/

I wonder why the black vultures where you live loved the cell phone tower. Do they perch on it? Oh, and I did read somewhere that the two kinds of vultures sometimes work as a team. I found an article snip:

Turkey vultures can smell carrion from over a mile away. Black vultures, who have a limited sense of smell, fly above turkey vultures and wait for them to discover food and follow them to the carcass.

The cliff is about 40 feet, then the cell tower gives them even more height!!
The area is perfect for them because it is wooded and there is a creek at the bottom of the cliff.

They are huge and look like they belong with the dinosaurs.

Once, I was standing outside with my poodle on a leash while he chewed his rawhide bone. A turkey vulture flew down and lit about 4 feet from us. Snuffy growled but kept chewing his rawhide. The vulture cocked its head and looked back and forth between Snuffy and me, then closed its eyes as if it was going to take a little nap. I said "Shoo!" and it gave me a surprised look. Then it flew away and I never saw it again. Well, it was probably with the flock that always circled overhead, but I didn't recognize it.

I would not have been as calm as you

vultures circled overhead. I'm not afraid of them, but I don't really want one coming down and asking, Whatcha eatin'? Wanna share?

in the tree just outside of one of my living room windows yesterday. I also visit the county park for walks once or twice a week, and seeing multiple varieties out there. Hawks, woodpeckers, robins, nuthatches, sparrows...

tons of blue jays, robins, finches and a couple pair of doves.

Plus the usual hummingbirds kicking mocking birds' asses, mocking birds kicking crows' asses, and crows kicking hawks' asses.

Suburban L.A. County, a few hundred feet this side of Orange County.

Just yesterday I saw this bight yellow tiny little bird that I wouldn't have expected to see outside of a cage in a pet store.

wild pigs have been seen in the nature preserve behind us. Thanks for the reminder. I need to.put the hummingbird feeder out. 😀

I wonder if they have moved on...They love dumpsters...They thrive near restaurants etc

(Texas)

Last edited Thu Apr 23, 2020, 12:38 AM - Edit history (1)

the other day

What part of TX are you?

I have houses out and about for the annual Wren using them.

They have moved in and doing their thing.

If actually seems odd to see them going about normally, while we watch our every step.

Seems there are more than average. Even have a pair of red shouldered hawks move into our part of the neighborhood and they seem to be lowering our crazy high squirrel population. May be able to grow beans again next fall.

Flying everywhere. Not only that, but a new crop of lizards are all over outside.

At least we have that.. He hasn't figured out how to defeat them yet.

I’ve never heard so many birds singing before. It’s lovely!

is that when we have an extended dry spell, birds will almost disappear until the rain comes back in, probably due to scarcity of water. Extended dry conditions also means a reduction in their natural food supply.

I'm in north central Kentucky and because of my location, I suspect they temporarily move toward larger creeks and the Ohio River. I have noticed that when I keep my two home-made birdbaths clean and filled, I get more birds around my feeders.

Don't know where you are in central Texas but if it's been dry for a while, that could be the problem.

Look the the drought map for Texas here: https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/texas

Other factors I can think of:

* Some experts say bird numbers are falling over much of the world due to climate change, man's expansion into wild lands and wetlands, and due to air and water pollution.

* Migratory routes may have shifted due to climate change.

* You may have had a sudden increase in predators in your area that are scaring them away. For example, if there's a lot of cats in the area, birds tend to shy away.

But to answer your original question, bird numbers are pretty good although I sense an overall decrease over the years and I definitely am not seeing some of the migratory birds I did say, 10 years ago.


Love my birds.........

habitat destruction as the prime reason for the Anthropocene extinction event. Climate change is a factor but what we've seen thus far is from more immediate mechanisms.

Quote:

Elise Zipkin, a quantitative ecologist at Michigan State University, says the loss of individuals can be a big problem.

"Just because a species hasn't gone extinct or isn't even necessarily close to extinction, it might still be in trouble," she says. "We need to be thinking about conservation efforts for that."

The researchers cite a variety of potential causes for the loss of birds, including habitat degradation, urbanization and the use of toxic pesticides, notes Zipkin.

The pesticides makes sense as well. I constantly implore those I know to stop using that stuff, that once it is introduced to the environment it keeps bouncing around like a toxic Super Ball. A guy I know was talking about using some poison on some "yard rats" he saw on his property. I asked him to think about another method to drop into the warren in place of toxic chemicals. I don't know that it will do any good.

Of course, the chief thing is that he and his wife leave out food for neighborhood feral cats. That's why the rats are out there.

At the most basic level, I wondered why he really gave a damn if there were rats in the neighborhood, as long as they weren't in his house. This is an old town with old houses and sewer lines. There are rats everywhere.

Many urban birds have adapted to a scavenging life; fewer people about, less food to scavenge.

And they are urban birds who scavenge. I don't even see them in my residential neighborhood, where they have predators such as hawks, but 5 miles away in a commercial zone, they flock like crazy.

in my tree today. I cannot tell you how happy that made me. That and my little hummingbird mama's eggs hatched a couple of days ago. Today made me happy!! I hope the owl returns often! Like takes up residency.

Geese on the ponds at the golf course, these little blue ones (not a bird guy), robins.
No cardinals yet, in the tree by our shed.

Last night I heard hundreds in the trees right next to my house. I wondered if they were migrating Warblers. Have seen plenty of birds in my yard too. Have Bluebirds nesting here too. Hopefully, just an aberration.

Despite replacing the cover. I guess the open the little vanes and squeeze through.

So, another generation of house wrens with mysterious cravings for French fries...

They are noisy as heck though!!!

Gave neighborhood birds and rodents some stale cereal yesterday as well... It was gone in an hour or two....

Egrets, Wood Storks, Limpkins, Ibis, Blue Herons, etc.

The blackbirds are in the marsh, the ducks are in my stream, the juncos haven't migrated north yet, the turkeys are in the field, and there was even a pair of sandhill cranes out there. The winter was so mild, the robins didn't even migrate south (only a few nights all winter at -15F, it was practically tropical).

We have far more than usual. No idea why.

N.E. Wisconsin. We've seen more Downy, Red Breasted, and Hairy woodpeckers than we have in years. Also, the Cardinals are back in higher numbers than last year. I also am seeing yellow Finches which I haven't seen in a few years in our yard. This big treat was a Red-Winged Blackbird that's been here for a couple of weeks. I haven't seen one at my feeders in 33 years! They're all over the place, but have never come to my yard!

We have Robins, Blue Jays, lots of Sparrows, House Finches, Purple Finches, Chickadees, Grosbeaks, damn old Cowbirds, Mourning Doves, and Orioles. There are more, but I can't think of them right now. Oh, Vireo's.