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Interesting Sightings in My Yard

With COVID restrictions and below-freezing temperatures, I haven’t been going out beyond my own yard much. It can be pretty depressing when your birdwatching is limited to the chickadees out your window! Still, I’ve had a pretty great week. On Tuesday, I reported the Common Grackle that’s been hanging around my feeders all winter to eBird, and it counted as a rarity for this time of year, which was pretty exciting for me. Grackles are normally migratory birds, and all the others flew south last October. This guy, though, stuck around. I was an hour into watching the feeders when he showed up for just a few seconds, but I spent another half-hour waiting for him with the camera until he came back long enough to photograph! It payed off plenty, though, to get those shots.

Common Grackle in January!

The very next day, I happened to be looking out the window (not very surprising, do I do anything else?) when something landed in a tree above one of my feeders. All I saw was a flurry of wings, so I thought it was a Pileated Woodpecker, a fairly unusual bird in my yard. I went and got the camera in hopes of getting some pictures of it, but by the time I returned, it had moved onto a different branch where it was much easier to see, and I realized it was a hawk! I absolutely love raptors, so that was better than a Pileated. Within seconds, it was mobbed by the Blue Jays at the feeders and got out of there, but I got good enough photos to identify it as a Cooper’s Hawk. It was covered in brown streaks instead of red barring, so it must’ve been a juvenile. I hope he found something to eat elsewhere!

Juvenile Cooper’s Hawk

Both of those were exciting, but neither was a new species for me, so my favorite sighting this week was definitely on Friday, when something unusual turned up during my window-watching. What I thought was a Blue Jay landed at the very top of a big evergreen, a popular spot for jays, but when I fixed my binoculars on it, I realized this was something different. It was grey, with a shorter and slightly rounder bill than Blue Jays, and had black-and-white patches on its wings. I immediately knew this was a Northern Shrike- one for the life list! I love it when a new species turns up right in my own backyard. I grabbed my camera, but it flew away before I could get a picture, and didn’t come back no matter how long I waited. I braved the outdoors to look for it, but though I saw a lovely Ring-necked Pheasant, I just couldn’t find that shrike! I’m still holding out hope that it’s lurking somewhere in the neighborhood, and that it’ll come back to my yard soon, but until then, I’m content with a short sighting of an awesome bird to add to my life list.

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Winter Waiting

These days it’s so cold out I have to really bundle up just to fill the feeders, but even those little five-minute trips have some interesting sightings. Today I saw a Mourning Dove, which isn’t very common in my yard. I’ve also seen lots of Northern Cardinals at the feeders, and yesterday I found a flock of twenty House Sparrows out my window, eating seeds off the ground. I even saw a Common Grackle, a species which has usually migrated by now, eating fallen seeds below my feeder this morning! And of course, there are always plenty of Black-capped Chickadees, which make me smile no matter how cold it is.

Black-capped Chickadees are the friendliest birds at the feeders, and tough for their size- they stick out the winter with me instead of heading south.

Winter can be pretty dull for a birder, since so many birds have gone south- only a few hardy species join us humans in toughing out the winter here. I haven’t seen any winter finches this year, which is a disappointment, but luckily or unluckily there’s still a lot of winter left for that to happen!

One of the only things for me to look forward to this winter, as far as birding goes, is the trip to Sax-Zim Bog I’m hoping to make. I went last year, and it was a blast! This year, I’m hoping to find some owls- the bog is known as a hotspot for owl sightings, but last year I didn’t see a single one. I only wish I could visit during the annual Winter Bird Festival, which is canceled this year due to COVID-19. Still, I’m really excited just to be there and hopefully rack up some new species! In the meantime, I’ve been lurking on their website, which is awesome and even includes some video birding trips for those of us who can’t wait to visit.

I saw this Canada Jay at Sax-Zim Bog last year. It was such an amazing experience!

So until that happens, I’ll be filling the feeders and watching out the window- got to save up all the warmth I can before I brave a day in the cold!

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I’m Back!

I’m back from my summer break from blogging! Birding slows down during the summer, and I had lots to do, so I took a break over the summer. But I’m back, and you can expect weekly posts again.

I took a trip to Indiana this past week, and found some new birds! I also worked on my photography skills. I have some real fall weather up here, and it was freezing (okay, one degree above freezing) on my birdwatching trip this morning. I found some geese, a few Blue Jays, and a House Wren while there.

Juvenile House Wren

I saw a lot of American Robins, for some reason – maybe they’re getting ready to migrate. Last year, they went south, but the year before that, they stayed all winter.

Female American Robin

The most exciting birds on the trip were the Dark-eyed Juncos, who just arrived here on Thursday. The little guys are gorgeous, and I love their pink bills and white tail feathers (the best way to identify them in flight). I get Slate-colored juncos here, but there are several different kinds – Oregon, Pink-sided, Red-backed, Grey-headed, White-winged, and cismontanus are all different subspecies. They’re my favorite sign of winter!

One of the first Dark-eyed juncos of the season!

That’s all for this week, but watch out for next week’s post, because I’ve got something big for it!

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New Arrivals!

Here in my yard, it seems like spring is finally arriving! I’ve been seeing birds carrying nest material, new migrants almost every day… This is my favorite part of the year, when something’s going on in my own back yard every second.

Yellow-rumped Warblers are so photogenic!

I’ve been seeing Yellow-rumped Warblers, Common Terns, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Tree and Barn Swallows… I even saw a Palm Warbler the other day! And, of course, ducks, robins and blackbirds are still here, making it really seem like spring.

A pair of Mallard Ducks enjoying the water.

The Big Day (when birders all over the world try to submit as many checklists as possible to eBird within 24 hours) is coming up on May 9, and I’m looking forward to participating. I have special plans for it, as you’ll see! Unfortunately, any of the birding events I attended last year and was looking forwards to this year have been canceled due to the pandemic, so it looks like I’ll be for the most part stuck at home this migration season. This is where a big yard with lots of nesting habitat comes in handy – I won’t be denied my birding time, even now!

Beautiful spring migrants like this female Cape May Warbler are a wonderful surprise on a spring day.

For those of you who don’t have a large yard, nearby parks would be just as good, I really recommend that. Go ahead and submit an eBird checklist from your local park or hiking trail on the 9th (for extra points, submit some any day you go birdwatching)!

Visit eBird here: https://ebird.org/home

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Making A DIY Plastic Bottle Feeder

I was very excited to welcome the first day of spring, which arrived this past week! Unfortunately, I had a problem. This whole week has been super windy, and one of my feeders, which I’ve had for probably ten years, was knocked down and the base literally broke off, leaving a hazardous broken edge. Obviously, I didn’t want to just hope my birds wouldn’t cut their feet on it, so I took the nearest feeder material – a plastic limeade bottle – and set out to make a replacement that would attract every bird in the neighborhood. Here’s what I did!

The base of my feeder – or what’s left of it!

I had never made this type of feeder before, and there were no ‘how-to’ videos about making one out of a limeade bottle on the internet, so I decided to take inspiration from the classic bottle-and-spoon feeder, and wing it from there. I don’t have any experience with power tools, so I got some help with cutting four holes on each side. Two sides were for bigger birds, with a perch farther below the seed openings, and the other two were for small ones, with perches closer to the holes. I also had the narrow top cut off, to make filling it easier.

Limeade bottle marked with Sharpie where I planned to cut.

The next step was to make the perches. I was going to use wooden spoons like the traditional spoon-and-bottle version, but it turned out they didn’t fit the holes, so I used un-sharpened pencils instead. They actually fit pretty well! That one used the spoon shape to catch any seeds that fell from the holes, but since mine didn’t use spoons, I couldn’t do that, so I attempted putting something there to do that instead. That didn’t work, and as I was using large sunflower seeds and my feeding ports were pretty small, I decided it would be fine without.

Now it was time for the final touches! I strung a cord through two of the seed openings to hang it from, and then to spruce it up, decorated it with some ribbon bows.

The finished product!

And there you have it! I’m pretty proud of it, though it looks a little scrappy due to my relative inexperience with making feeders like this. I don’t have any photos of it hanging, but I’ll provide those once I get some!

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The Blackbirds Are Back!

There are many different indications that the spring is coming, from first blooming flower, to first leaf bud, to first spring rain. For birdwatchers, though, spring’s approach is announced almost entirely by the arrival of migratory birds.

As I wrote last week, most consider the first robin of the year to mean spring has sprung, but another of the first birds to arrive in spring is the Red-Winged Blackbird, one of my personal favorites! Once they’re here, they stay all spring and summer, and their loud, familiar song is a frequent sound in the marsh. Naturally, living in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, I see them constantly during the warm months, but during the winter, I can only wait, and wait, and wait until they return, brightening even the most dreary March day.

A young Red-Winged Blackbird, the herald of spring.

And that’s what happened this Tuesday, when I spotted one at my feeder (where they occasionally stop to refuel on sunflower seeds). By the next day, they’d set up in the nearest marsh, their cheerful ‘Ok-la-REE!’ sounding totally out of place in the still-snowy landscape! As always, only the males came, and will have sorted out breeding territories in the cattails by the time the females arrive.

The first Red-Winged Blackbird of the year eating seeds below my feeder.

With these lovely birds came another, less-anticipated blackbird, the Common Grackle. There isn’t a lot of good things to be said about grackles – they have a slightly terrifying stare with their yellow eyes, their song sounds like a rusty gate, they’re one of the biggest avian crop thieves among farmers. and they sometimes kill and eat smaller birds (they’ve even been observed drowning them in birdbaths)! No, last summer, surrounded by VERY loud grackles, I was certain I wouldn’t miss them. Still, when I spotted one with some Red-Winged Blackbirds, I was glad to have them back. They do, after all, have some good traits – they have beautiful, iridescent blue heads, they look vaguely like a fighter plane when in flight (think about it next time you see a grackle, you’ll see it too!), and of course, they’re another sign of spring.

Common Grackles are beautiful, from a certain perspective.

So there you have it: the blackbirds are, at least in my yard, back! I hope to spot more spring migrants as spring comes closer (it’ll technically be spring starting on March 19, after all), and definitely see and hear more blackbirds this year!

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Spring Has (almost) Sprung! Get Ready for Nesting Birds

March has finally come, and I, for one, am ready for spring! It’s not coming for several weeks still, but with days getting longer and weather warmer, it’s time to get out the birdhouses and prepare your yard for the flocks of nesting birds that will soon be arriving!

Step One: Birdhouses

If you want birds to nest in your birdhouses/nest boxes, you need to get them up ahead of time. Clean them out, adjust them to best suit the species you’re targeting, and mount them in an ideal place. For more info about different species’ needs, visit NestWatch’s Right Bird, Right House page at https://nestwatch.org/learn/all-about-birdhouses/right-bird-right-house/. (Hint – don’t hang birdhouses, as in my experience the only birds that will nest in a hanging house are House Wrens, who are very interesting, charismatic birds but tend to be aggressive to nearby nesters).

Prothonotary Warblers are the only warbler in the eastern US who will nest in birdhouses.

Step Two: Nest Material

I’ve never actually tried this one, but it sounds like a great idea to help out nesters! Just fill a mesh bag or make a pile with twigs, moss, human hair, pet fur, dead leaves, bits of string, grass clippings, spiderwebs, or feathers. Hang the bag from a branch, or if you prefer to leave it in a pile, put it in a visible and accessible location. If even that sounds like too much work, you can always just make a small mud puddle somewhere in your yard – the robins will flock to it, and before you know it there’ll be muddy robin nests popping up all over your yard! Easy for the birds, and even easier on you!

This female House Finch took a bit more nesting material than she could carry!

Step Three: Predators

This one is incredibly important – If you invite birds to nest in your yard, then failing to do everything you can to remove predators is like luring the baby birds into a death trap. True, you can’t just get rid of snakes, raccoons, and other wild predators, but you can install baffles to any birdhouses that are on posts, and keep cats indoors. Also, unless you’re a certified NestWatcher and following their Code of Conduct, avoid visiting the nest. You might enjoy watching the baby birds grow up, but any predators who follow your scent trail right to the nest will enjoy eating them for lunch even more.

Opossums, like this one, are cute to humans but a serious threat to baby birds.

Bonus: Nest Cam

The best way to keep an eye on a nest without leading predators to it is putting a cheap camera inside the birdhouse (make sure to do this before anyone nests there!) Then, you can watch the goings on inside from your own home. Learn all about it at https://nestwatch.org/learn/all-about-birdhouses/installing-a-nest-box-camera/.

Now, armed with these tips, you can easily become the most popular bird landlord in the neighborhood this spring!

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More Than Just Watching: Befriending the Birds

Certainly, I like all birds and all types of birding. It’s amazing to explore new places and new birds, and I love finding a new species in my own yard. But the ones already there contain a wealth of birdwatching potential, or even a chance at a wild new friendship (you see what I did there?).

This male House Finch liked to relax here last spring after helping his mate with the nest.

It’s always exciting to see a new bird for the first time, and I love to find an unexpected bird in my backyard, but the regulars are beautiful, funny, and interesting to observe over and over. And most birdwatchers begin, over time, to start seeing our most frequent visitors to the yard as individuals with strong, unique personalities. It’s not uncommon, either, to see an especially dedicated birder calling their backyard birds by name. I proudly include myself in that group, whether it makes me sound like a crazy bird lady or not!

To the average non-birdwatcher, this probably sounds really weird – and possibly crazy – but getting to know the birds at your feeder personally adds a whole new aspect of birding. Befriending every individual gives you lots more visitors to watch for than constantly waiting for a whole new species, so for me, it doubles the joy of birdwatching.

These two Barn Swallows are among the several who nest under my deck.

When I point out my favorite birds to non-birding friends (no offense to the non-birding friends, of course), it typically goes like this:

Me: *wild pointing* “That downy usually comes to the suet with his girlfriend, over there! Ooh, and that robin has a nest in my neighbor’s yard!”

Non-birder: *blank stare* “What? Where? What are you talking about?”

Me: *impatient gesture at a little blob in a tree somewhere* “There, see! Isn’t he beautiful? That one’s the funniest little guy.”

Non-birder: “How do you tell him apart? He’s just a bird.”

‘Just a bird’.

For a experienced birder who’s used to seeing these birds daily, they can usually be told apart by slight variations in color and pattern, special habits, and distinctive personalities, but to most people, they all look the same. So pay attention to your birds! Does one have an unusual pattern on their feathers? Maybe they routinely come to the feeder at a certain time? Or perhaps it’s a downy woodpecker – each male has a slightly different red spot on the back of their head. Before long, you’ll have a mental database of certain charismatic birds that visit your yard – and just like that, you have a feathered family!

Here’s some of the members of my own feathered family:

A chickadee I call Hammer, who always pecks on the window feeder when he’s trying to get a seed.

A male Red-bellied Woodpecker named King, who’s rather flighty but an occasional visitor to feeders and a fan of hackberries.

A Northern Flicker called Fluff, who during the winter is fond of perching on a tree trunk, fluffing up until he’s barely even bird-shaped, and sitting there until it warms up a little. He’s made a guest appearance on this blog once already.

Fluff is one weird little woodpecker, but I love him for it.

Honorary Birds:

An acrobatic red squirrel named Copper who appears addicted to hackberries and will go to any length to get them.

Copper showcasing his incredible cuteness as he snacks on hackberries

A grey squirrel with an incredibly long tail (named, naturally, Longtail) who likes to empty my feeders about every ten seconds. I’m too fond of him to hate him, unfortunately.

A raccoon named Bernie who during the summer robs my suet feeder no matter what I do to keep him out of it. The raccoon I think was his wife (who went by Bernadette) got hit by a car last August, but that didn’t stop his life of crime.

I enjoyed sharing my feathered (and not-so-feathered) family members with you. Feel free to comment about your own!

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Species Spotlight: Northern Flicker

Nice to have you back again! Today, I’d like to acknowledge one of my favorite birds – the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus).

Flickers come in two varieties: yellow-shafted and red-shafted. True to their name, the biggest difference is the color of their flight and tail feathers – when a yellow-shafted takes flight, you see a flash of yellow, if you see a red-shafted, its wings and tail show red underneath. There are even some flickers with pink shafts, which comes from eating an invasive species of honeysuckle (read more about it at https://www.audubon.org/news/mystery-solved-invasive-berries-blame-turning-flickers-feathers-pink ). The two will sometimes interbreed where their ranges overlap (yellow-shafted live in the east, red-shafted are found in the west), resulting in orangish feathers and a mix of the two types’ features. Here, I only get the yellow-shafted variety, but both are gorgeous birds!

This flicker’s yellow shafts are plainly visible in flight.

Flickers are woodpeckers, but unlike most woodpeckers, who are black and white with the occasional red or yellow, they’re a collage of colors and patterns – brown heads, striped backs, spotted stomachs, black collars, and for males, a red cap and a black (or red, depending on which type it is) mustache.

Northern Flickers, like this one displaying his bright red nape, are beautiful birds, with unique striped-and-spotted plumage.

They live year-round in most of the US, and during the breeding season can be found in most of Canada. You’re most likely to find a flicker on the ground, where they forage for ants or beetles, rather than hitching up a tree like a traditional woodpecker, but they nest in tree cavities like most woodpeckers, and will readily move into a nest box.

Northern Flickers are very similar in appearance to Gilded Flickers, but their range is much larger – Gilded Flickers only live in the Sonoran Desert. Unless you live in that area, you shouldn’t have much trouble telling this unique species apart from the other local woodpeckers!

Most people in the flicker’s range have probably seen one, as they’re very common, and if you have, you’ll understand why I love this amazing, unusual bird!

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Enjoying Winter Birds

Welcome to the debut post of this blog! I hope to continue it for many years as I expand my birding skills and experience all sorts of new things in the pursuit of birds! I’m Sydney, the MN Birdwatcher herself! Welcome to my brand-new blog abut my adventures in birding here in central Minnesota – I can’t wait to share them with you!

House Finches, though not native to the eastern US, are a common bird in Minnesota.

My yard certainly doesn’t look like a very interesting place to go birding right now; outside my window there’s snow, ice, and not much else. But my feeders have a steady stream of common birds a lot of birdwatchers might be tempted to ignore- dozens of Black-capped Chickadees; foraging House Sparrows; the occasional flock of American Goldfinches, colorful Northern Cardinals, or American Tree Sparrows – it can seem dull at first glance, but when I have the patience to sit, wait, and observe what there is, I remember how fascinating the winter residents of my yard are. Though they aren’t as flashy or colorful as the spring migrants or summer nesters we all remember so fondly around this time of year (forgetting, remarkably, about the rain, heat, bugs, and whatever else tries to prevent us from going out and birding for most of the year), I love my winter birds!

American Robins may be associated with the arrival of spring, but some may stay up north all winter, if they can find enough food.

For example, whenever I come out to fill the feeders, a flock of chickadees will start to make noise around their favorite feeder, and one or two will remain while I fill it. When I’m done, the rest of the chickadees will all swoop in as soon as I’m a safe distance away, and dig in!


And that’s just one example of the wonderful birds I share my yard with, even in winter. I’ve also been seeing a Brown Creeper (a cute brown bird that climbs around on tree trunks, like a nuthatch – I recommend looking it up online if you’ve never seen one) on the trees in my yard for the past few days, which is great because not only do I love watching them, I also didn’t know until then they even lived here during the winter. I also saw a pair of Yellow-shafted Flickers (my favorite woodpecker!) eating hackberries from a tree in my backyard yesterday. It seems like all sorts of birds love those – I’ve seen cardinals, robins, and Cedar Waxwings, as well as Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied, and even Pileated woodpeckers eating them in the past. I’m happy my yard can be a safe home for so many amazing birds, summer and winter!

I occasionally see huge Pileated Woodpeckers, like this hungry female, snacking on hackberries in my backyard alongside more regular visitors.

Thanks for reading! I’m so excited to continue sharing stories from my backyard and things I’ve learned well into the future!