You see, I always thought bird-watchers were dorky. I became very rigid in this opinion during college; one of my co-workers at Starbucks was a birder, and I thought she was very silly. She had another unfortunate hobby that didn't help, either. She was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronisms.
The SCA were big fans of the medieval era of history. They met at state parks and fairgrounds, and held fairs, in which they dressed in medieval costume, did medieval crafts, jousted, drank mead, and called one another "milord," and "milady." I wasted no time telling her how nerdy that was. This did not phase her at all.
Next, she began telling us all about her birding adventures. She would prance into the store, chirping and warbling about seeing a Western Meadowlark or a Pine Siskin. So I stopped calling her a nerd and started calling her a Tufted Titmouse. This delighted her.
Fast-forward fourteen years: I'm a mom with two active boys, and I notice that the cooing of doves in the neighbor's trees has a calming effect on the hurricane that is my mind. I decide to steal the neighbor's doves, and buy a bird feeder at the farm store.
Fast-forward three months: I'm daft. I'm a bird nut. I have a bird book. At the dinner table I chirp and warble when I see a new bird out the window.
I never knew a simple wooden feeder and a bag of seed could provide this much entertainment. Below, I'll list the birds I've seen at the feeder. To see pictures of many of these birds, try Northwest Bird Photography by Ron Green. He has photographed many of them, and done a great job.
Birds at the feeders:
- American Goldfinch
- Common Yellowthroat
- Yellow Warbler
- Evening Grosbeak
- Black-Headed Grosbeak
- Spotted Towhee
- House Finch
- Rufous Hummingbird (these guys fight with one another)
- Lazuli Bunting (very pretty)
- House Sparrow (pretty song)
- Dark-Eyed Junco
- Song Sparrow
- Red-Winged Blackbird (my favorite song)
- Brewer's Blackbird
- Mourning Dove
- Allen's Hummingbird
- European Starling (vermin)
- Chickadees - a couple different varieties
- Nuthatches - red and white-breasted (the cutest)
- Red-Tailed Hawk
- Barn Owl
- Cedar Waxwing
- American Robin
- Western Scrub-Jay
- Northern Flicker
- American Kestrel
- 2 Turkey Vultures (in the street in front of the house, eating roadkill)
- Bald Eagle (in the field across the street, eating a rabbit)
6 comments:
“Someday when you’re older and things go wrong
You’ve gotta need a pretty bird song
Because everybody loves to hear a bird sing
The prettiest music you have ever heard
That’s how to make friends with the bird”
Tom T. Hall
Haha! I'm right there with ya in the former making fun of people like that. The bird people and the wildflower people were the ones I always made fun of. Now I am taking pics of wildflowers,and I'm occasionally impressed by a bird. I might be fanatical next year. Next I'll be joining the red hat society. (God forbid.)
Awesome! I had crows make a nest a couple months ago in the redwood tree outside my office window at work. Fun to watch the whole process from start to finish with eggs, little birdies, and then poof - one day they were all gone!
That's an amazing list! I started a list when we moved to this house and received a bird feeder as a house warming gift. My list never got as long as yours! I'd love to get a pocket sized book for birds too. :)
Very cool, ya bird nerd. We have a pair of red tail hawk out in the pasture in front of our house and I just love watching them hunt. I want to do everything I can towards encouraging them to stay here as I'm pretty certain they will help keep the rodent and snake population down here : )
2 things I've thought of since you wrote this post.
You don't have quails on the list. You can come up here to see those guys, they're all over the place. They have cute little feathers on top of their heads that wobble when they run.
There's an amazing amount of birds up here... so many, they fly in front of the car with some regularity. We have actually hit 6 of them while driving, and very narrowly missed a hundred more. The birds here don't respect road space like the birds in the Couv, apparently. At least I never noticed it there, here if you're driving, you've got birds flying in front of your car, it's very weird.
Ok, I'm done. :-)
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