Has anyone seen any Purple Martins yet this year? I haven't noticed any around my house yet, they are usually here before now.
We had 2 scouts cruising around at the farm last weekend..
Had 7 show up a couple weeks ago and had about that many more show up yesterday. I have 7 houses so will have more show up. Just like women they probably stopped to shop.
We have five that have been here (Edmond, OK) about ten days. They probably are not too pleased with our early spring wintry conditions the past week, but this morning I hear them busily scouting around and choosing new homes.
I have not seen any scouts here yet, sounds like they are running late this year.
Was out at our lake property and we have a full house of them.. chattering and gossiping to beat the band. I love them ..
Mark is going to put up another house too I think. Dad Cookson made one that is HUGE ( we call it the Carlton Ritz..) so hopefully we will have even more out there. He has his full at this house too I noticed last night.
Finally a pair of Martins showed up this morning, I was beginning to think I wasn't going to get any this year.
Maybe you haven't been dancing naked under the full moon enough Dee Gee.. ;D ;D
How did you know?
I've been peeking and watching you..................
(http://www.cascity.com/howard/animations/25.gif)
Must have 30 to 40 martins. Many came a few days ago. Hard to count them as they are on the move.
Why, Delbert, you just catch them all, then count them as you turn them loose.
LOL ;D ;D Man, I'd pay money to watch that! lol
The martins turned out to be buzzards. I had to make the entrance of the house larger. Must be the gobal warming.
Delbert, you must remeber to move when you are out of doors! Them buzzards begin to circle if you don't! ;D ;D
I had 3 buzzards land in my back yard recently. I didn't think my cooking was that bad! I'd love to attract some martins but we don't seem to have enough open swooping space for them.
I am ready for the hummingbirds. My orange honeysuckle is blooming.
Quote from: Diane Amberg on April 21, 2009, 03:02:47 PM
I had 3 buzzards land in my back yard recently. I didn't think my cooking was that bad! I'd love to attract some martins but we don't seem to have enough open swooping space for them.
Diane I was not sure of what you meant by buzzards. I had an image of Vultures and California Condors. then I looked it up on Wikepedia and found that the red tailed hawk and Cooper's hawk found in California also are called a buzzard sometimes.
Here is the link that just added to my confusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzard
Any more details that might help me figure out what you saw.
David
Usually when folks here speak of buzzards, they mean vultures. I have had several close calls on windy days along the highway. The buzzard will make a delayed liftoff from a roadkill site and I sure don't want to smack into one of those rascals. Yuk!
Wilma; I think I saw a hummingbird last night in the yard! Too windy to put up the feeders today, though!
When Diane mentioned buzzards, the first thing I thought of was a couple:
Buzz Buzzard, the Paramount cartoon character.
Beaky Buzzard, the super bashful buzzard in the WB Looney Tunes.
I did mean vultures...(we tend to call them buzzards, but I know that's not right.) They are really just good old turkey vultures. I saw a mature bald eagle last Saturday. The crows were giving it a rough time.
Diane according to Wikipedia (my link above) you were correct to call them Buzzards. I was just confused by their definition. It included turkey vultures, many hawks, peregrine falcons.
David
According to my daughter, all the Purple Martin's have moved back to Elbert County, Georgia where they are happy eating good ol' southern Mosquito's
I have had a real treat this afternoon. A ringnecked dove visited my window bird feeder and spent about 10 minutes with me. She watched me as closely as I watched her. Sometimes I wonder if I am the watcher or the watchee.
Our little Jenny Wrens arrived this morning and looked over their houses. :)
Wilma, I seen my first hummingbird at the feeder this afternoon, but I still only have one pair of Purple Martins.
I mount my hummingbird feeders on the outside of the window - and this morning, I had my first little pretty boy.
I saw one out in the petunias awhile ago. Gotta get my feeders up!
Ours are due any day. They come up on the south wind.
I thought I saw an orange flash, I did, I saw an orange flash going past my window. Right now there is an oriole on my orange honeysuckle.
Yesterday there was a pileated woodpecker working on the old stump just outside my living room window. He worked there for about 10 minutes until he saw me move a little bit.
I'm jealous!
This bird was outside my window the other day for about 10 minutes. Woody the Woodpecker.
Isn't he neat? Gloria Jones-Wolf did a birding program for M&L a couple of years back. She said that the Pilated Woodpecker was one reason she moved to Elk Falls. She saw one while visiting there and uprooted her home in Wichita to spend all her spare time birding. How neat, not often people follow their hearts' desire these days.
There must be some good bugs in that stump.
The stump was a big tree until 6 years ago.
I don't know a lot about the birds but this Woodpecker or one very similiar spent a great deal of time on our electric pole the other day and brought much joy and beauty. Must have been a lot of bugs or whatever on the surface as it did not appear or sounds like the bird was pecking. We do have a lot of neat birds to watch and enjoy. This year they seem a lot louder or maybe they are bringing in more friends or just happier birds! :)
I heard the flute notes of a wood thrush a little while ago.
I had to feel sorry for my robins this morning. Two of them have nested in the crotch of a tree not ten feet from my back porch. There is no foliage to hide them. She was on the nest, hunched down and looked very cold. He was on the limb close to her, kind of hunched down, too, and looked cold. Maybe we will get some sunshine soon and warm them up a bit. I am looking forward to seeing little mouths sticking up to be fed.
The orioles are back, but has anyone seen a brown thrush yet? I usually have a pair around.
Yesterday i enjoyed the antics of a beautiful Baltimore Oriole, 2 hummingbirds, four big fat robins, and a brilliant blue jay, and a frisky squirrel.
How we love the birds and all wildlife. Last year and the year before at the Elk City State Park we watched deer , wild turkey,many many hummers, squirrels and opossums, a coyote and all the water birds just outside our windows.
Life is Good!!!
I'm still looking for my brown thrush that usually shows up in my back yard...although, why don't they call them red thrushes? They're more of a red-brown, to my eye.
The resident robin has babies. Three of them. Daughter saw them sticking their mouths up to be fed.
I saw my first hummingbird yesterday. A ruby throat. He didn't stay long. Just long enough to check out the honeysuckle.
There are four babies. I saw them myself today and took some pictures.
Otherwise, I am having a real treat today. There are two doves in my yard that look like turtle doves, only smaller with a little more striping. I have concluded that they are young turtle doves that their parents have brought to the spot where I throw bird feed. They have been picking at the ground and a couple of larger turtle doves have been flying in like they are checking on them. They have been out there for quite a while now. I have never seen young turtle doves before, but I am pretty sure that is what these are.
The young turtle doves are now up in the feeder.
The picture is the robins. In case you need to be told.
That's a great photo.
Thank you. Considering that my camera is a Kodak digital and I took the pictures from my back porch, using the zoom feature. Then I cropped and tweaked a bit.
Just darling Wilma, lucky you! ;)
My back yard has been a real treat for me this spring. On top of everything else out there, there is a family of baby bunnies in the iris patch. I just saw two of them try to venture out, but something scared them back. There are at least two kinds of hummingbirds visiting the honeysuckle and I think the chickadees are feeding babies from my feeder.
Fred and I drove out to Polk Daniels Lake Saturday evening - it was our 62nd wedding anniversary - and we were just enjoying the day, doing nothing and loving every minute of it. The lake is so very pretty and the willows around the north side are awesome. One of them had a "whole house" full of blue indigo buntings. I was thrilled to see them...so vibrant and when there were several at a time flying around it was a beautiful sight. I hated driving away from them. But we were hungry, so went to Poplar and had dinner. It is always nice to eat there -- wonderful food and good fellowship with others that are enjoying their meal.
So as Sunday morning we started working on our 63rd year. lol
Jo
Congratulations!
Thank you, Diane!
We went out to the kids/grandkids" farm and the hummingbirds - chickadees - nuthatches - purple martins and blue indigos are having family reunions, I do believe. Soooooooooo many beautiful birds. What a blessing to watch God's creatures living their lives in peace and harmony.
Congratulations and best wishes, Jo and Fred. I have at least two indigo buntings. I thought it was just the same one, but looked out and there were two eating and have been all week. Yes, they are just beautiful. I call them "electric blue" in color. Have a gazillion hummingbirds and I have no idea how many oriole pairs. Have oranges out, but they prefer to eat out of the hummingbird feeders. Then the usual mixture of blue jays, gold finches, turtle doves, those dang black birds, and they all make quite a colorful display. I do enjoy watching the birds, but they drive Lucy batty trying to keep them all from landing on "her" fence.
I saw three little birds this morning, preening themselves in a rose bush. They were the size and shape of chick-a-dees but didn't have the black cap and other distinguishing marks. Just shades of gray. I wonder if they were just out of the nest chick-a-dees, especially since I am pretty sure that a couple of adult chick-a-dees were feeding babies from my feeder.
I'll bet you are right. We have some too that took over a wren house. They'll fledge soon so I'll try to get a look at them.
I have a wren house close to where I saw the small ones and the adults kept flying that way, but I never saw any action at the house. Of course, I can't get a clear view of it from a window either.
I am wondering now if my babies were baby house sparrows. There were two babies in the feeder with a male sparrow feeding them. They looked kind of like the babies in the roses. Diane, I will still be interested in knowing what young chick-a-dees look like if you can get a look at them.
Daughter took this picture of the baby being fed. She took it through the window glass from about 6 feet away, using her zoom feature.
My baby bunny came to the house yesterday. The second picture shows how small he is. The plants in the background are iris.
You got your new battery, right? Thanks for sharing the photos, I always enjoy them. :-*
Looks like he is sitting right in nice bunch of clover, good eating for rabbits.
Good rabbits for eating? (never)
Don't worry about that, I can't catch them anymore.