New Yard Birds ~ Pine Siskin, House Finch or Sparrow?

After weeks of seeing the same old yard birds (Red-breasted & White-breasted Nuthatches, Downy Woodpecker, and Black-capped Chickadees), it's nice to get some new birds in the yard. I posted recently about the Brown Creeper that was new to the bunch. A few days ago, a sweet little brown and white streaked bird joined the yard gang. My first thought was Pine Siskin, but it is really difficult to positively I.D. a nondescript small brown and white streaked bird.  In the birding community these are called Little Brown Jobs (LBJ's).  I researched the Pine Siskin on my iBird app and in my bird field guides.  Clues that led me to to the I.D. were the pointy beak and notched tail. I did not however, see any yellow on the wings or base of tail, but it is not always visible on a perched bird. I recall the first time I saw Pine Siskins at my feeder, it was a siskin in flight photo that cinched the I.D. for me. Without seeing the tell tale yellow, I could not be 100% on the identity of Pine Siskin.

Cut to the next day, when much to my surprise I see a spry little red-headed bird scoping out the balcony feeder.  I did a double-take... Yes, I DID just see a red-headed bird, a new bird in the yard!  Yippee!  Now this one I was sure on the identity, it was a male House Finch.  But now I was more confused about the previous day's bird. Could the Pine Siskin have been a female House Finch? I spent some time consulting the field guides, Googling images of  Pine Siskins and House Finches and concluded it was indeed a Pine Siskin. Later I spotted a little bird outside the window in the neighbors Lilac bush.  It too was a little brown job.  But this one, I knew right away was a Song Sparrow, by the brown spot on it's belly.  But without the spot, all three birds look very similar.

Check out the updated lists on the new Bird Lady's Lists page. Here is the cute little Pine Siskin with Mr. White, the resident White-breasted Nuthatch.

Pine Siskin & White-breasted Nuthatch
JPEG edit

Pine Siskin & White-breasted Nuthatch
RAW edit

Photography Talk

Not the greatest of pics. I'm still trying to perfect shooting from behind the sliding glass door, with the tripod setup. It creates a less-than-ideal back lighting situation, and I just haven't got the settings down.  I did some reading online and in my camera manual and set my camera for spot metering, which should help when the background is brighter than the subject like it is in my balcony feeder setup. I will test it out tomorrow.

For the above pic, I was shooting in Shutter Priority mode with the shutter speed @ 1/256, f/6.5 This is an edit of the RAW photo, with some post processing done in Photoshop Elements 7. Honestly, I have been trying to do more of the RAW editing, but I'm not really happy with the results. Obviously, I still have lots to learn!

~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

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.

Happy Bird Year!

New Year's Eve most people are getting ready to go out to parties to toast in the new year.  What was I doing?  Filling up my two empty suet feeders making sure they were ready to go.  Hanging a barely ever used bird feeder outside my balcony and filling it with some black oil sunflower seeds that I happened to find in the cupboard when I was looking for the suet.  Hardly saw any birds on New Year's Eve day, probably because my suet had been empty, and the bay was freezing over.  Only saw three Common Goldeneye. But now that my suet cages are full and my feeder has seeds, I am raring to catch a glimpse of the first bird on my 2013 list!

Woke up to a totally frozen bay, and most of the lake. Disappointing because that really hampers my waterfowl sightings.  There are still a couple of areas on the lake that are clear for now, but not that I can see from my house.  I was up earlier than my usual, since my husband is still off from work, it being New Year's Day and all.  First birds I see are the pretty much daily visitors, the Red-breasted Nuthatches.  There are two of them, no three, no... four in all.  And a female Downy Woodpecker joins the group too.  Pretty common yard birds for me.

Decided to take a trip into Spokane, have some lunch and visit with some old friends.  I see it as an opportunity to do some birding!  I grab my camera, just in case I see something exciting.  Wishing I didn't have to drive, but if I don't, I usually get car sick.  I would rather be logging any birds I might see.  My family doesn't like it when I'm driving and commenting on my bird sightings.  They feel I should be watching the road, but I can't help but observe nearby birds!  Today I was lucky, because my husband was handy, and I talked him into pressing the record button on my iPhone so I could voice record myself some memos of the birds I saw while I was driving, then I could add them to BirdLog and eBird later.  It worked out great!  

First bird sighting on the highway at the Loon Lake Summit, was an American Crow, and I saw two more just down highway 395 a bit into Clayton, and ended the day with 7 crows.  Figuring I would see several Red-tailed Hawks along highway 395, and I did.  A total of  9 of them between Clayton and Spokane.  Another given, was a Black-billed Magpie, they hang out around the Deer Park area.  It wasn't long before I saw a couple here and there and ended up with 6 magpies.  Surprise sighting of at least a dozen Rock Pigeons around Burroughs Road.  Some miscellaneous birds around town in Spokane were a gull of some sort at Wandermere, I thought possibly a California gull, but after looking at my iBird app, I think given the winter range, it is a Herring Gull.  Twelve black birds of some sort, possibly starlings.  BirdLog lists starlings, rock pigeons, and house sparrows as birds you may want to hide the sightings, because they are quite frequent.  

I talked hubby into taking the long way home so we could drive by Mt. Spokane High School to see if the Snowy Owl that I saw back at the end of November might still be around.  I bribed him with some coffee.  My assistant birder for the day!  We drove up Bigelow Gulch Road, which is where my husband grew up.  The old homestead is still there.  Spotted a couple of American Kestrels along Bruce road, and saw two huge groups of Canadian Geese, estimating 60 of them.  They were in the same spot as they were right before Christmas when we traveled to my sisters house.  Not too much farther was the Snowy Owl hang-out, but no Snowy in sight today. My best friend sent me the following email. Her son goes to Mt. Spokane High School where the Snowy Owl has been hanging out.

From the Mt Spokane High School Newsletter:

"WILD LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE CONTINUED

Henrietta (the snowy owl) is still with us and is most likely to be seen in the morning hours around 7 a.m. - 9 a.m. and afternoons from about 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. She is usually seen on the light and power poles looking for her prey in the fields south of the school."

So apparently she is still there, and her name is Henrietta!  Definitely going back!

After arriving back home in Loon Lake, I stopped the car at the wetland just a mile from our house.  It's not quite frozen yet, as this portion of the lake gets some sun during the winter.  There were 30 or so ducks in the dusky afternoon.  I wasn't sure that they were American Coots, thinking they were mostly black and had a little white on them.  Not enough white to be Common Goldeneyes like I had seen yesterday.  But after looking in iBird, I don't know what else they could be, so I logged them as Coots.  Probably the most exciting sighting, that I let out a gasp and a "What was THAT?", was the Wild Turkey, just one, that flew out of the woods and into a tree as we drove by on our private road.  I was hoping it was an owl!  Hubs said that our chihuahua Jack E. Cheez chased about a dozen turkeys right next to our house this morning when he let him outside.  So if I count my birding partners turkey sightings, than we have a baker's dozen turkeys for New Years Day!

All in all, it was a busy bird day with 11 species, and over 147 birds.  Didn't take any pictures on New Years Day, because I spent most of the time driving.  So first thing, the following day, January 2nd, I snapped the above photo of the Downy Woodpecker at the freshly filled suet.  Let this photo serve as a not very clear example of the photos I would like to be taking.  Heck, you can't even see her beak!  The photo below is of some Mallards I saw in Cedar Beau Bay, the only outing I had today.  Most of the lake is now frozen with a light layer of ice, except a couple of areas such as this.  I like how the bench is sticking out from the snow, welcoming you to come visit my winter wonderland!