Hello,

While I was eating lunch on this snowy winter day I saw a female Yellow-Shafted Northern Flicker--the first I've ever seen! It was eating at our suet feeder, fighting off Starlings and eating with our usual Downy woodpeckers. It stayed for quite a while and I enjoyed watching it. I can't believe how large it was! At our bird feeder we had mostly Bluejays and Cardinals today. As I was looking for pictures of Northern Flickers I found this forum--really neat place!

This has been a Winter for having many Blue Jays here everyday. They hang out in small flocks and seeing 5-6 at a time is not unusual. I watched one hanging on to the suet cage and eating suet while a starling watched the blue jay. Then the starling went to eat the suet but a red bellied woodpecker cashed the starling away.

My usual feathered friends, Juncos, Cardinals, House Wren, White Throated Sparrows, Blue Jays, Red Bellied Woodpeckers, Downey Woodpeckers, Flickers, Common Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Starlings (just starting to show up again), Crows and the occasional Coopers Hawk.

My other visitors include a herd of deer, racoons, grey squirrels (my favorite), a few stray cats, that seem too old to bother the birds.

I'm looking forward to seeing the ground hogs that emerge from under our shed, skunks and chipmunks.

I love them all!

I've left out others on my previous posting, Chickadees, Nuthatches and Titmice. How could I have forgotten?

Lots of Blue Jays, the usual Juncos, a pair of downy woodpeckers, the resident Cardinals, Northern Mockingbird and I got my first backyard sighting of a Sharp Shinned Hawk.

This fella decided to stalk the shrubs for house sparrows recently, then, he was kind enough to pose in the tree for me!

Here is a link that might be useful: Immature Coopers Hawk

Lots of bird activity today and lots of bird song in the trees far off. Bluebirds are getting territorial and running other males off. Sure sign of spring!!

I played with a turtle for the first time here yesterday...today it's snowing. Go figure.

So far today, the crows, the morning pigeons...er, doves, the chickadees, the juncos, the neighbors dog, the hawk, our cats, the neighbor looking for his dog, the Fedex guy, the meter reader, something that looked very much like a couple of foxes dashing across the yard very early this morning, the neighbors dog (again), a cardinal (bird)..., and coming soon..., the animal control officer to find the neighbor and his dog.

That's all. But it's early, yet. Who knows what lurks out there...?

So funny treebead. Your post totally cracked me up!!! :-)))

Yep, animal control officer came today...and tracked that dog and his owner...not too hard around here. Guess I might not be seeing them for a while. But wait...

...this morning, about 5:00 AM, the dogs are carrying on about something in the yard. They see something. What can it be? Darn...it's that dog again. No...wait...looks like a dog...but something....something veeeerrrryyyyy strange here....

...it's not a dog at all!! It's a coyote!! Standing there like he ownes the place. Well....we'll see about that! Interesting though that he'd be so brazen as to venture forth to with 15 feet or so of the house. Looks well fed. Wonder how many neighborhood(?) cats are missing.

I figgured the Juncos were gone for the year but I saw two of them today drinking from my plastic pond in the shrub border. Maybe they were migrantes passing thru.

Newyorkrita, I still have about a half-dozen Juncos in my yard here in upstate New York. They don't seem inclined to leave -- maybe they've decided to stay for the free food. :)

Too bad they don't stick around all year. I like them. Most years they are gone from here by now but I have been working hard to change this place into bird, butterfly and small wildlife friendly and it seems to be paying off.

>Who was in your yard today?

Some stray goats...serious! I opened my front door this morning and found my neighbors goats eating the plants in my front yard. And I don't mean weeds! They ate my daffodils!! Apparently, the neighbors left the gate open and the goats went avisiting.

A pair of Mallard ducks in my swim pool taking a long relaxing dip, and a crane fishing from my goldfish pond, guess there must have been something that scared them off from the golf course. Well I am now down to three goldfish instead of five! Bummer :-(

The Goldfinches are around in flocks again changing to the summer yellow. We have them here most of the winter but not as many as in the spring and summer.

The Mourning Doves are Courting all over the yard.

Starlings are looking for nesting places and checking out all my birdhouses. Fortunately they can't get in as entrances are too small for them. I don't need any Starlings nesting.

Well last week we had a black bear. he broke the almost empty bird feeder right off the house. put his nose up to the window and left me big muddy paw prints on the window too. gee!

The Cardinals have made a nest in my large untrimmed boxwood shrub. Lots of fun watching the nest building. Can't wait until she lays eggs and hatches some chicks.

The Grackles are around in small flocks and the Cowbirds are here everyday.

A male Red-Breasted Grosbeak showed up yesterday! Yippee, spring is here!!! Hope he sticks around - he's been visiting the feeders today.

I'm also hearing a vireo singing in the yard, but haven't been able to track it down yet.

No great sightings but I have song sparrows, robins and chickadees all sitting on eggs and bluebirds checking out a vacant box. The bobolinks are due any day now. They only stay for a few days so would hate to miss them.

The resident road runners, lots of bunnies, a pair of mallards and a white crowned sparrow!

About 20 mourning doves as usual
5 or 6 squirrels
1 downie
1 red wing blackbird
grackles,starlings, house sparrow, and non-house sparrows
many goldfinch
assorted house finch
Mr and Mrs Mallard Duck
The Batchelor Boys (2 mallard drakes who have been trying to take over)
Marsh wrens (by sound) in the virginia creeper
Cardinal buddies (follow me around the yard)
Blue Jays (come when I whistle)
Red bellied woodpecker (by sound)
lots of robin catching worms
some mystery birds that I can hear but not identify
sea gull fly over
red foxes made their nightly visit as the food I put out was all gone and the tray shredded. Foxes are not doggies. They have a take no prisoner attitude towards food and one of the foxes is unusually large
Big Foot was also in to eat. Has 1 1/2 inch round paw print, 5 well clawed toes that fan out. The print looks most like a weasel print but bigger. Never seen it. We can't figure it out but it likes that fox food.
Lots of big angry black and yellow bumblebees

I've been dying to post this somewhere:
I had some bats! I got a bat detector for Christmas and this is the first time I have seen them in my garden.
(Small rural garden with new pond in NE England (UK)
Also tadpoles and my stickleback eggs have just hatchesd so daddy stickleback is looking after them.
We also get male and female pheasants in every day.

ps must pop out and see if I can see the moon eclipse..

Not necessarily all seen in my yard today, but the following are frequent visitors:

-sparrows
-mourning doves
-starlings
-red-tailed hawk
-peregrine falcons
-squirrels
-opossums
-skunks
-blue birds
-red-wing blackbirds
-hummingbirds
-great horned owls

The Orioles, both male and female are frequently at my Serviceberry shrubs so I get to see them fairely closely. The male was just here this morning.

I seem to have more than the usual amount of nightly visiting racoons and possums. Something eats on all the fruits at night, not birds and not squirrels but I find berry full poop all over the yard lately. Driving me nuts. I find broken branches in the serviceberries were something has pulled them down too and blueberries dropped on the ground under the blueberry shrubs.

Catbirds, sparrows and random LBBs...red winged blackbird, goldfinches, grackles, robins, house finches, crows, cowbirds, cardinals, downies, redbellies, starlings, nuthatches, purple finches, gray squirrels, chipmunks, and something that comes during the night who looks like he likes to dig holes by burrowing his nose on my grass...a skunk perhaps?

At feeders in backyard...
Cardinals
BlueJay's - babies coming to feeder now too
Mourning Doves
WhiteWinged Doves
Ring-necked Doves - (Eurasian Collared-Dove?) Way too many, behave like pigs & are as big as Pigeons!
Sparrows, not too many
Common Grackles, only a few
Mockingbirds
Hummingbirds - Love my Turk's Cap, ignore Hummingbird feeders
Squirrels, lots! - I allow them to share the bird feeders, love watching them

I also put out chicken scratch & cracked corn in the edge of the field next to my property & have...
Crows
Turkey Vultures
(I put food scraps out too, the Crows & Vultures have a race to see who can get them first)
GreatTailed Grackles
Pigeons
Mourning Doves, more eat in the field than in my back yard.
BlackBellied Whistling Ducks - lots, this year's the first time they've been here. Saw one perching on a wire the other day, bet that's not an easy trick to learn with web feet!]

A young groundhog. I'm concerned about him. He was very calm and eating my strawberries but I live in metro Detroit on a 50' city lot surrounded by miles of city lots. He is safe in my yard but not so everywhere around here. I think I should move him.
Debbie

Don' be! I am sure he will make himself right at home. I saw this morning a groundhog, a pair of flickers, two hummingbirds, a pair of house finches , a pair of goldfinches,alot of catbirds, alot of robbins, afemale and juvenile cardinal. at least 2 chipmunks and several squirrels. and of course my token starlings! Sarah

Oh I forgot about 4 or 6 juncos! I usually only see them in the winter. Sarah

Song Sparrows are common again here since its fall as I don't have many in the hot summer months. For the past few days a White Crowned Sparrow has been here feeding with the flocks of Song sparrows and yecky House Sparrows.

Goldfinches starting to feed on the hawthorn berries (haws), pheasants.
A couple of weeks ago we had a partridge for the first time.

Neat thread y'all have going here. Hope it's not too old to add my view. Birds and mammals seem to dominate though.

Here are a few from Summer '04 in Austin, TX: Green anoles, Texas spiny lizards, Rough earth snakes, Earthworms, Mediterranean geckos, Spiny orb weavers, Leafcutter bees, Carpenter bees, Yellow jackets, Tiger swallowtails, a Monarch (recent, en route to Mexico), Tobacco hornworms (!), June beetle grubs, Ladybugs, snails (sorry not more specific), and plenty of Mosquitos/larvae.

For all you backyard bird counters, you could get involved with Audubon's Backyard Bird Count: http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/
or Cornell's Feederwatch: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/

Here is a link that might be useful: some backyard fauna of Austin

Saw my first dark-eyed junco the other day. Lots of small birds like house finches, a few carolina chickadees and some unidentified warblers. lately, the icterids are holding family reunions in the neighbors' huge elms and sycamores. BH cowbirds, Brewer's and RW blackbirds, common [bronzed] grackles and European starlings really like to flock together. The GT grackles tend to flock to themselves. The pair of American kestrels and their offspring hang around. I occasionally see a female Cooper's hawk.
Def, I really like your special attention to herps and inverts. Of course I love hornworms, hehe! I have enough tobaccos. I want to find the actual tomato hornworms.

Well, today is the first time this season that I have seen the Juncos. I had been wondering were they were as it's late for them to arrive. Of course, we have had a pretty much warm winter so far except for some cold last Monday. Maybe the snowey midwest drove them here.

I was watching one Junco picking at fallen suet under the suet feeder when a whole little flock of them arrived.

junco's
2 dove's
bluejay
6 or more crows eating the left over corn from last night
1 squirel
chickadee's
day times cool but the night time ooo yay comes alive with the big boys! deer, possum, rabbits oh my

Today we had our resident squirrels, several blue jays, a couple of cardinals, a redheaded woodpecker, around 10-12 mourning doves, a few sparrows and several starlings.

I think one of our raccoons stopped by for a visit a little while ago, but I didn't see her. Our floodlights came on in back, and that usually means a raccoon, a possum, or the wind is blowing the trees branches around a lot. When it's still like tonight, it usually means the raccoon.

Goodness, the yard was once again filled with woodpeckers of all sizes and varieties. On one suet feeder, I photographed a large Hairy woodpecker sharing space with a black-capped chickadee. The second suet feeder was dominated by a gorgeous red-bellied woody. On the 'buffet' (picnic table reserved for birds) there were approximately 20 pairs of cardinals .. hard to count! .. as well as a red-naped sapsucker and a pair of flickers. Beneath the table, an assortment of sparrows and lovely reddish finches. Unsure if they are 'house' or 'purple' variety. Beneath the hickory tree was a pair of large pileated woodpeckers, another flicker, and a squirrel. It wasn't long before one of the pileated woodys discovered the table and everyone else scattered! The 'traffic' continues throughout the day, with the birds feasting on everything from thistle and sunflower seeds to crunchy peanut butter.

Big FAT deer

Two Pigeons, yeck. They have found the cracked corn I put out for the Squirrells and Morning Doves.

I had mourning doves in my yard all summer, and then they went away in the fall and haven't come back. Now I have mostly just finches and chickadees and meadow larks. Is this because of hunting season?

The usuals - juncos, cardinals, mourning doves, goldfinch, white throated sparrrow, house finch or purple finch (I'm never sure...), blue jays, tufted titmouse, brown thrasher, robins, and the not so usual-
cedar waxwing and a rufus sided towhee!

My yard lately has a never ending series of Mockingbirds, Catbirds, Blue Jays, Blackbirds, Cardinals, Orioles and others eating the ripe berries around here. They are scarfing down the sweet and sour cherries both and the Goumi berries (which aren't even ripe). Would you believe there are plenty of ripe Regent Serviceberries that the birds haven't gotten too as they seem to be eating on the other berries first.

Have had two new visitors the past few days, two blue Parakeets. They chased the Ring-necked Doves away when they tried to join them at the feeder, fiesty little birds... :-)

Today we had 4 Blue Jays, 3 Cardinals, several Sparrows, a couple of European Starlings, a few Robins, 4 Mourning Doves, 3 squirrels, 6 chipmunks, and around 9 PM, 2 female raccoons with 9 babies total. The one squirrel cracks me up. He showed up just as I was getting ready to paint some shutters with a power sprayer that sounds like a sweeper running, about 15 feet from their feeder. I told him "Bud, you picked a bad time to show up for lunch." I got to painting and after I finished my first coats about 10 minutes later, he was still sitting there eating.

The raccoons have been out in force this spring. Last year we had one raccoon bring her babies around on a semi-regular basis and another every once in awhile. This year I've seen 4 different females with babies pass through, with 16 babies between them. Not as regularly as last year though.

The last two nights, I've seen two of the one raccoon's babies by themselves and I'm wondering if something happened to their mother and siblings, or they just got separated from the pack.

I had one raccoon, some bluejays, my favorite, a couple monarchs and a couple pipevine swallowtails. I am about to put some cat food out for the raccons, I don't have any cats. I really love snakes, well, certain ones I guess. lThe only ones I don't want in my yard are the are the big ones that eat fish, even thier babies are too cute too obliterate.

the most incredible thing just happened to me. I opened the door to put some food out for the racoons, and there was one on the deck outside that came to me and ate!!!!!!!!!!!! for five years now, the raccoons have all been afraid, well since Big Daddy was killed by me purssy neighbor. I thought it may be better that they were afraid. most people don't like coons, but I don't see how you couldn't like 'em. This racoon wasn't afraid! He came right up as I opend the door, his face was battle scorned. I really enjoy the raccoons, more than any cat dog, or................

HTown, don't be too comfortable with them. I've been feeding the ones in our yard off and on for awhile, but I never get too close to them. No matter how "familiar" you may be with them, they still have an instinctive distrust for people and they have the potential to be dangerous.

Most people don't like them because they've had bad experiences with them, just like many other types of wildlife that invade or wreak some form of destruction on their property, and that's completely understandable. They can also be aggressive towards pets. I made a point of mentioning to my neighbors that there were raccoons active in our area. If you get to feeding them and slack off, they could move on to another property where they're not as welcome and that could have negative consequences for the neighbor, the raccoon or both.

I'm not saying don't feed or enjoy them, but make sure you educate yourself on them before you get into it on a regular or semi-regular basis. Make sure there are no means for them to access your house including the roof and chimney, because once they know where the food is coming from they could try to find an easier way to get to it. It's best not to leave food for them near your house for this reason. One of the first things I did when I knew how much they came around was make sure they couldn't get on our roof from any trees, the area around our deck was sealed, and our chimney cap was secure. I added chicken(Actually smaller gapped fencing than chicken wire) wire around the opening to ensure there was no access.(Something I was going to do anyway to deter the birds that ended up in our living room.)

This link I found can cover it a little more indepth. These are just tips, but they can be helpful.

Feeding Tips

I guess my message is it's fine to enjoy them, but make sure you know what you're getting yourself in for, as there are a few things to consider. :-)

Great topic - I just came across this forum (have been hanging around veggie/tomato forums) and thought 'what a sec, I do have a picture to share!'

here you go - the visitor in my back yard last week (isn't he cute?):

Cheers,
T