Any Bird Watchers in the House?

The most amazing thing I've ever seen bird wise is a bald eagle in the swamps of Bogalusa, LA. I never knew they were that far south he was just perched on the top of a dead pine tree watching everything.

 

I'd have to give the nod to Ospreys as my favorite raptor. Not the prettiest but any animal that can spot and catch a fish three ft underwater is impressive. There is an Osprey on every light pole around here.

 

Birding is cool. I prefer to look for raptors, have since I was a kid.

The high point of my '86 ride to Alaska was visiting the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve http://baldeagles.org/preserve.html outside Haines, AK. The salmon were running in the delta, and the eagles were so thick that they were bickering over roosting spots on the tree branches. Literally hundreds of eagles in one place.

I was out in the yard a few minutes ago, cleaning up blowdown branches. There was a pair of cardinals flitting around, and a Blue Jay was up in the tree shrieking at the innumerable gray squirrels.

Jayzus, I can't wait for the racing season to start!

 

Was fishing in MT. last year. Had one crash into the water 20 feet from me. Very cool.

 

I have a thistle feeder outside my upstairs window that is usually covered with goldfinches. I also got the meadowlark, redtail hawk and burrowing owl for a story last week. Had raptors when I was growing up, they're way cool...

 

Bald eagles are everywhere in Alaska in the summer. My office is on a bluff above the ocean, and they float on the wind out my window nearly every day. In the winter theycongregate on the Homer Spit on Kachemak Bay, and on the Chilkat and other rivers that stay open of ice and have winter runs of salmon. I was on a steelhead trip to the Situk River, and they were landing to grab spawned out salmon on these tight bends in the river--they are big birds, and they struggled to land in such tight surroundings, looking like crop dusting with a B-52 or something, as they wobbled in.

 

I've been getting a ton of goldfinches this winter for some reason. I love those meadowlarks, never seen one around here but always have my eye open when I'm in areas they might live.

 

Jamie,
Have you ever been to Homer in the winter at the parking lot by the Lands End? I have never seen so many Eagles in one place. I don't know if the old lady down there still feeds them or not.

Ken

 

The goldfinches are going through 3-5 lbs of thistle seed a day this past week. Sometimes there's as many as 50 birds at the feeder. They're a lot of fun to watch from five feet away.

 

You sir, suck the Big One.

 

The "Eagle Lady" just died this winter and they are not going to allow anyone to feed them after a short transition period. The Eagle Lady lived on the Homer Spit, in a little trailer in this very picturesque but funky location, and every day she put out hundreds of pounds of fish parts from the local fish processors and of course the eagles were thick there.

Homer Spit is a great place, great fishing, a long thin sliver of sand that goes 5 miles or so out to the middle of Kachemak Bay, surrounded by mountains and glaciers. I love to go to Homer and when we motocross at Anchor Point I like to camp there. I take my family there at least once a year, and we went on a halibut charter this year and brought back 50 lbs of it. "Homer, a little drinking town with a fishing problem."

Take a look at
stock.tobinphoto.com/homer-spit-pictures-18.htm
and
http://www.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/p/Pamshubby/489.jpg
and
http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv6609.php

 

I'm not really a birdwatcher, but I'm always watching for birds.

I really like them and we get tons of cool ones around here. I've had tons of ospreys and hawks (even an owl) in my backyard. Lots of buzzards and the occasional eagle soaring by too. My favorites are hummingbirds, giant woodpeckers and packs of wild parrots called conures that buzz all around town squalking like crazy year 'round.

Here's a picture of a conure.

 

That's cool. Where do you live?

I lived in Florida in the late 80's for a few years, I used to see a lot of owls when I used to deliver newspapers in the mornings when I was in school, they'd scare the crap out me.

 

Watch how far you get into it, they sometimes turn on you. I have two feeders outside my windows, mainly to give the cat something to look at during the day. Get lots of woodpeckers, which is good for the borers that kill the locus trees in my yard.

Well, last year we start hearing a small jackhammer sound outside our bedroom window. Little ungrateful Fuckers started pecking out holes in our stucco! They even made a 4" hole for a nest inside one of the our outside walls!!!!!

We also get a large brown woodpecker that pecks our metal chimney top in the Springtime at 6am !!. Sounds like damn machine gun, and it's right behind our bedroom wall!!!!! damn horny birds and their mating calls!

Went out and got a decoy owl with a self rotating/bobble head. No more woodpeckers in the front stucco!

 

There is an owl in the backyard right now. He doesn't mind the mag-lite but he's too far up for a photo.

 

Melbourne Beach. Apparently these things are pretty rare in the wild in North America, but we have big flocks of them (15 to 50) year 'round.

There are funny, they never shut up and tear around scaring other birds.