Sunday, February 3, 2013

Exciting Sighting and a Few Views


















Exciting Sighting... I like how that sounds... Ex-CIT-ing SIGHT-ing!  And by a Few Views, I mean Bird Lady Blog has surpassed 2500 page views!

Exciting Sighting

It started out as another trip to town and back with the family.  I usually drive because I get car sick easily when I don't. I was counting my Red-tailed Hawks along the highway like I always do. My Bird Lady Assistant (the husband) was not cooperating with me that day. He didn't want to press the record button on my voice memo app on my iPhone when I would see a bird so I could record the location and time. Something about him wanting the family to live.  You see the family thinks I should watch the road while I am driving, and I do, but I just can't help seeing the birds around me, even when I'm driving.  (Days later I listened to my recordings and hear his whole conversation about this because he forgot to turn the record button off.) We did our errands in town and then headed back to the lake, seeing along the way a couple of crows, over a dozen blackbirds, an American Kestrel, several pigeons, a gull, and 9 Red-tailed Hawks!  Hard to identify some of them when your driving and attempting to preserve the lives of your family riding in the car.

When we are almost home, off of the highway, not quite to our private road, I see something alongside the road. I blink a couple of times, slow down the car and could not believe what I was seeing!  A couple of feet from our car, there was a hawk feasting on a dead turkey.  We had seen the dead turkey along side the road a couple of days ago. Bird Lady Assistant (BLA) and my son Beau had the best view being on the passenger side of the car and later reported that the hawk was staring us down with a mad look on it's face because we were interrupting his meal. No sooner had I realized what I was seeing, the hawk flew up in the trees.  Of course I had to get out of the car so I could see what was going on. I assumed it was a Red-tailed seeing what I thought was some rustiness of a tail and a very dark back.  It was one big-ass hawk!  The turkey was well... dead, and there were feathers scattered about, and the poor thing's head and neck had been stripped and eaten and was just a thin resemblance of what it had been. BLA wanted to get going home, and there was a car behind us, so I had to leave, without even getting a picture.  I wanted to go back, but we had groceries to unload and it was almost getting dark.  Of course I can't post a story without some pictures, so I went back... a couple of days later, and the entire carcus had been picked clean.  I did take a pic, but it's a bit disgusting.  If you really want to see it, click on the 'cute' turkey pic to be taken to the 'disgusting' eaten turkey pic.  If you're squeamish, don't click on the photo below. 

Another sighting that was new to the yard this week, was a Brown Creeper joining the flock of winter feeders at the suet. While I was adding it to my lists, I decided to start a page on the blog for my lists. You will find it under the scrolling picture banner at the top of the page right after the Photo Gallery link. It's called Bird Lady's Lists.  This is where I will keep my updated yard list, 2013 Big Year list, and my life list.  One of my goals of the year is to get to 100 birds on my life list!  I'm sitting about 94 right now.  I think 6 new birds is do-able, don't you?
Brown Creeper
Also new on my 2013 Big Year list this week is the American Robin. These birds remind me of spring and with the news today that Punxsutawney Phil, the ground hog did NOT see his shadow today could mean an early spring!  I saw about 25 robins roosting in a tree, when I was trying to identify some blackbirds, who ended up being European Starlings. So I added both to the 2013 list. I don't particularly care for the starlings, but the robins, are such great birds.  I didn't get decent photos of the robins, since they were quite far away.  I barely could make them out with the 30x zoom lens and then magnified again on the computer.  They blended so well into the trees. I did discover that I really should not use the binoculars while out and about birding and driving around in the car. I have a real problem with motion sickness and migraines, and looking through the binoculars for more than a few seconds makes my eyes twist and gives me a horrible headache.  Nix the plan to get binoculars for the car. The photos I am sharing today are some of my past favorite robin eating berries pics that I've taken.
American Robin
 

A Few Views

This has been an exciting couple of weeks, participating in the Grow Your Blog party. Bird Lady Blog started with 6 followers, and as of today, has 46 followers!  I'm not sure about the exact view count before the party, but I'm happy to say we've got over 2500 views now!  I know we have about tripled our page views in about 2 months.  I have really enjoyed visiting all sorts of interesting blogs and look forward to getting to know my new followers better.

19 comments:

  1. Your bird photos are amazing...and your stories entertaining!

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    1. Thank you Wilma! I find bird watching entertaining so of course, the bird stories must be too, to us bird lovers anyways!

      ~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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  2. I have never seen a brown creeper. Would like to but haven't. I do miss not having all the pretty little songbirds where I am in Texas. I'm in the arid prairie section and mostly what I see are really ugly blackbird/grackle things (I dislike them so much that I haven't bothered to actually figure out their exact species). And the occasional sparrow. Maybe I'll put my hummingbird feeder out this year and see if I can get some hummers. Don't have any flowers in the yard so I don't know how well that will work though.

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    1. The little Brown Creepers are very hard to see, because they blend so well into the pine trees. You really can hardly see them.

      Hopefully a hummingbird feeder will draw some hummers to your yard. Another great feature that would attract some birdies would be a bird bath or fountain of some sort. I bet they would enjoy that.

      ~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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    1. Thanks Debbie! When winter is lagging on, it's kind of fun to go through the archives and find some old favorite photos. Hoping spring is not far off...

      ~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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  4. Sherrie, great post! Love your robin photos and the shot of the CUTE turkey. BTW, I did have to click. I have been seeing lots of hawks along the roads while driving. I WISH I could stop and take their photos.
    Lucky you to have the Brown Creeper at your suet. I have them in the woods next to my house but never at a feeder.
    Reading your post just reminded me I need to update my life list. I am glad your blog is taking off, more and more will find it soon too. Have a great evening and happy week ahead.

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    1. Thank you Eileen! I love counting hawks along the highways! Sometimes it's fun just to go do exactly that, and when the urge to stop and pull over and snap a photo hit you, you just do it! A sunroof is great for this type of photography. The hawks usually end up flying to another spot, and you can get some great action shots! That's how I got the Snowy Owl photo I posted recently.

      The Brown Creeper I haven't seen actually eat any suet, he just hops from the bottom of the tree to the top, and then back down to the bottom again. Eating the stash of the nuthatches. The creeper was here again today.

      Happy Birding!

      ~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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  5. I'm so enjoying meeting you here. Love your photos and hearing the details. I'm a "bird person" but don't have even a semi-official listing. Just love looking. Right now there's a pair of eagles nesting and raising a family in our area, very close to us. Just go to google and type in webcam eagles north fort myers and you'll be sent to the site. The location is a a pine tree in a horse pasture that belongs to a real estate company, Pritchett. There will be a commercial before the webcam kicks in. Some of my friends leave the site on all day! Last I saw the babies were chomping down on a freshly caught bass fish.

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    1. I will have to go check out the eagle cam. I love all the cam's out there now and watching the nest close up is so cool! We have an Osprey nest next door, and it is fun to watch the nesting process each year, although it can be a bit noisy over the summer months!

      Thanks for stopping by Bird Lady Blog Lesa!

      ~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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    2. The chicks are all snuggled up sleeping right now in the nest cam.

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  6. lol that's so funny, of course I had to click to see the gruesome carcass! I don't know how you did that. I could post loads of spiders on my blog if I knew how.... :-)))))

    The American Robin pic is great. Well done for getting so many new followers. I don't know why I can't seem to follow anyone through Google Friend Connect any more as my Blogger profile name. It just doesn't give me that as an option; seems to want you to be your Google+ real name. :-(

    Well I put you on my blogroll anyway so I can see when you have new posts.

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    1. Thanks for becoming a follower here on Bird Lady Blog. I've been busy setting up my new computer and now my blog needs updated for the big screen experience! LOL!

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  7. Your photos are so joyful. Have to share that I work on the second floor in a corporate office and as I was walking around my cube, there was a Robin RedBreast on the window sill looking in. He was so sweet.

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    1. I have heard several Robin stories this week. I think that means spring is coming! I sure hope so!

      ~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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  8. Sherrie- you have a great knack for bird photography-/ your pictures are amazing. You certainly have some beautiful winter visitors!!
    I'm so happy that your blog is getting so much traffic-- keep up the good work!
    Vicki

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    1. Thanks for stopping by Bird Lady Blog Vicki! I'm so very thankful to you and the GYB party. I started with just 6 followers and now have 47! And over 2600 views!

      ~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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  9. Hello,Sherrie, Dear! I've come to you from the "Grow Your Blog" list that Vicki at Two Bags full has so kindly left up...(It was over before I heard about it!)I am so happy to have found your delightful blog, and am now following!
    Please visit me if you get the chance!
    Hugs,
    Anne ♥

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  10. Welcome Anne! So glad you are now a follower here on Bird Lady Blog. I stopped by "A Little Fur in the Paint". You're so creative! Love the fairy houses :O)

    ~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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