I gotta get rid of that window screen.Our first Black-and-White Warbly Thing!
September turned out to be quite a good month. We went out birding for the first time since May now that things are settling down on the home front and the major chores are finished. We saw many of our good friends at the Midwest Birding Symposium that we missed this past summer...AND...ELEVEN, yep 11, new birds in the garden! Eastern Kingbird, Chimney Swift, Blackburnian, Black-throated Green, Chestnut-sided, Black-and-White, Magnolia AND Wilson's Warblys! That brings us to 14 Warbly Things! I really should do more yard work...
We're up to 79 total species spotted from our front and back gardens. It pays to keep your habitat as natural as possible. Food, water, shelter, it's as simple as that. Now if I could only convince the people coming to look at our home of that...
We're up to 79 total species spotted from our front and back gardens. It pays to keep your habitat as natural as possible. Food, water, shelter, it's as simple as that. Now if I could only convince the people coming to look at our home of that...
Hidden in there is a Cape May Warbly.Hard to see...and this photo is cropped...a lot!
We had 5 new warblys in the garden while we were making dinner.I ran outside to try to get a few shots...and only a few is what I got.
Who'd have thought I would get Warbly-neck in September?
By the way, that's a Chestnut-sided Warbly up there.
This Great Blue Heron isn't new to our garden, but he definitely was the lowest flying!
Bobb likes the birdy books...and he's nice enough to read them to Doodlette and Bobbette!
First I need to send a big thank you to Jessica of Princeton University Press for keeping me well read while I was on hiatus from the blogosphere. If you're not familiar with their great selection of natural history books, please click on the link and check them out.
A well read birder need more than just field guides and my new favorite book is "Avian Architecture, How Birds Design, Engineer and Build" by Peter Goodfellow.
If you have any questions on how birds can manage to make such amazing structures, and NEW ones almost ever year, this is a great start for you!
The book is arranged by nest type with descriptions of materials, illustrations, photos and even blueprints...just in case you decide to BE a bird. Learning how our feathered buddies do such intricate work mostly with their bills and beaks gives one a better appreciation of that little nest in the shrubs.
Also new on my shelf is "Birds Of North America and Greenland" by Norman Arlott, part of the Princeton Illustrated Checklist series. This surprisingly small and inexpensive book covers the Nearctic region of North America and even includes Greenland (a place that Bobb thinks is really green.)
This guide covers the more than 900 species that you may be fortunate enough to spot while on your birding adventures. This would be a handy book to have along while you're working on your "BIG YEAR" as well. It has great color art work of each species as well as range maps and very concise descriptions.
Though it's not a substitute for a standard field guide, it's a great book to have along for those unusual vagrants that pop up now and again. And if you're visiting North America for the first time, this would be a great study guide to familiarize yourself with our feathered friends.
A well read birder need more than just field guides and my new favorite book is "Avian Architecture, How Birds Design, Engineer and Build" by Peter Goodfellow.
If you have any questions on how birds can manage to make such amazing structures, and NEW ones almost ever year, this is a great start for you!
The book is arranged by nest type with descriptions of materials, illustrations, photos and even blueprints...just in case you decide to BE a bird. Learning how our feathered buddies do such intricate work mostly with their bills and beaks gives one a better appreciation of that little nest in the shrubs.
Also new on my shelf is "Birds Of North America and Greenland" by Norman Arlott, part of the Princeton Illustrated Checklist series. This surprisingly small and inexpensive book covers the Nearctic region of North America and even includes Greenland (a place that Bobb thinks is really green.)
This guide covers the more than 900 species that you may be fortunate enough to spot while on your birding adventures. This would be a handy book to have along while you're working on your "BIG YEAR" as well. It has great color art work of each species as well as range maps and very concise descriptions.
Though it's not a substitute for a standard field guide, it's a great book to have along for those unusual vagrants that pop up now and again. And if you're visiting North America for the first time, this would be a great study guide to familiarize yourself with our feathered friends.
I'll have a couple more reviews next time...if I can get the books back from Bobb...
Stoopid Chipmunk...
Stoopid Chipmunk...
Of course I wouldn't leave you without a bird butt!You can actually tell this is a RED-bellied Woodpecker!
He was just barely hanging in there.
See ya soon!
A nice and funny blog, I'll see you next time.
ReplyDeleteThats quite a new set of additions to the garden list Dave!
ReplyDeleteIt always amazes me how, if you pay close attention, you see so much in your own backyard! Jessica's a sweetie, isn't she?
ReplyDeleteSo, I guess I better stay home...can someone write my boss a note?
ReplyDeleteOkay, so I'm back in the midwest, should be home tomorrow. Butt tonight we're in a crappy, and I do mean crappy motel somewhere in Iowa, and couldn't sleep so I'm catching up on your burd butzz zzzz zzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......
ReplyDeleteWow 11 new birds species in your garden, cool and well done... I do not even have 11 species visiting my garden and that's because they don't usually do that in Iceland and we have very few passerine birds ;-)
ReplyDelete