Action at the feeders stayed fast and furious this past weekend for week #12 of my Project FeederWatch, as the cold weather continues and the birds are looking for a quick and easy meal - one on which they are not required to expend a lot of energy. Keeping the feeders stocked with the foods that they like has become a daily occupation of mine, as they empty as if by magic.
I did not note any new species in the yard this week, just more of the usual ones. There was a total of 29 species checked on my list by the time the weekend ended.
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1
Red-shouldered Hawk - 1
Eurasian Collared-dove - 1
White-winged Dove - 3
Mourning Dove - 1
Rufous Hummingbird - 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Pileated Woodpecker - 1
Blue Jay - 3
American Crow - 1
Carolina Chickadee - 2
Tufted Titmouse - 4
Carolina Wren -2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1
Eastern Bluebird - 2
American Robin - 2
Northern Mockingbird - 1
Cedar Waxwing - 5
Orange-crowned Warbler - 1
Pine Warbler - 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler - 1
Chipping Sparrow - 2
Northern Cardinal - 6
Red-winged Blackbird - 4
Brown-headed Cowbird - 14
House Finch - 1
American Goldfinch - 60
House Sparrow - 7
It was nice to see the Pileated Woodpecker put in an appearance once again. They seem to have been more active in the area in recent weeks and it is always fun to see them working their way up the trunks of the big pine trees in the area.
I've been thinking about the birds that I'm missing on my counts and wondering if they are here and I'm just not seeing them or if they are absent this winter. Normally, I would be seeing White-throated Sparrows, Eastern Phoebes, and Common Grackles among others, but so far none of these have appeared this winter. At least not while I've been looking.
Next weekend will be the last count before the big Great Backyard Bird Count weekend and it will be a tune-up for that count. It should give me a good idea of how many species I might expect for the GBBC. Of course, for that project, we can also count birds flying over the yard like Black and Turkey Vultures, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and the occasional heron and egret. I hope to tally around 40 species for that weekend.
Interesting that you saw only one Yellow-rumped Warbler. A couple of weeks ago we regularly had several but I haven't seen any this past week.
ReplyDeleteYes, the YR warbler numbers were definitely down last weekend. In previous counts, I had had larger groups of them. Not really sure what this means.
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