y’all just need to come to dallas in the early spring. all the birds stop here to rest on their way back north. from central america. each year i see some new birds in my back yard trying to rest or nest. (would be cool if the mega ravens stuck around. those things are badass.)
last 2 years it was cardinals building a nest in our bushes. this year it was mockingbirds. one of the babies died falling from the nest (dogs got it) the 2nd one fell also, but i got to it before the dogs did. hid it in the “garden shed” on the side of the house for a few days (and kept having to rescue him from getting tangled in the aint-bird grape netting (go figure)) while the parents kept feeding it. it eventually was able to get it’s wings strong enough to fly over the fence. hope it survived.
5 Likes
I took down a dead small little evergreen tree in my front yard this spring and didn’t see the birds nest in it ahead of time so it fell out and three babies came down with it, but my wife and I got the nest put back together in a little Tupperware container and tied it into a tree nearby we could see from our window and they all made it and got big enough to fly out of the nest! Was really cool seeing them grow and their feathers come in and them starting to be able to move more.
6 Likes
That’s what I do. It’s a little game of random chance to see what kind of birds will show up at my feeders while I’m watching. Some are cooler or rarer than others. The fun to me is spotting birds you don’t normally see and figuring out what kind of birds you’re looking at if you see a new one.
This is my only Blue Jay that comes to my feeders so I always know it’s the same guy every day. Makes it feel like he’s a temporary outdoor pet.
9 Likes
That’s one of the reasons I love kayaking man. If I don’t feel like fishing there’s tons of things to watch going on with the birds or the dolphins or manatees or sharks etc I know up in your general area there’s some bad ass kayaking to be done too.
4 Likes
It’s not always peaceful tho one time I had headphones in with a doobie lit sun was just coming up so I couldn’t see in front of me and out of nowhere I scared a manatee in shallow water and that fucker lifted the front of my kayak out of the water before he took off I about shit myself lmao also had a tiger shark pass by me a few times and a few times had some gators tailing me but everytime they minded their buisness eventually lol
5 Likes
@PatHealy all you need is one of these bird feeders and you will not even have to go outside they have video ones also
4 Likes
Yeah, but then I’d definitely see the smaller birds getting killed. Haha I’m good on that.
2 Likes
Y’all checkout the app called Merlin Bird Id, put on by Cornell University…you turn it on and it listens to the birds and tells you what it is. Pretty cool, especially when you have a whole choir of them doing their morning songs
7 Likes
That merlin bird app is one of the coolest things Ive ever used. I cant believe i didnt remember that thing earlier. Good call.
6 Likes
Used to work for a dude that would stop mid sentence and be like you hear that? And name off the bird I’m like dude there’s no way you have all these bird sounds memorized lol
8 Likes
Lmao, thats awesome
People have weird fascinations like that, and it will be from such a unluckily source
3 Likes
It actually counts as a bird encounter if you just hear /record the call of it. You can mark it as found on the list, having never actually seen it.
8 Likes
Thanks for letting me know about this app!!! Cool stuff. Lame to mark it on your list if you don’t actually see it. Some cool birds in my area. I guess the peacocks are just in this area from someone wayyy back in the day. Kind of cool. I want to see this Painted Bunting!!!
6 Likes
My friends have peafowl on their farm. So god damn loud. Anytime they get spooked they start alarming.
3 Likes
Yeah, they’re cool with me, so far, but they’ll get loud and run up on others. Them and these Sandhill Cranes make some real noise.
1 Like
I had a pair of Trumpeter swans messing with during a canoe trip to the Boundary waters.
2 Likes
Those are some bigass birds too!! I had a buddy I golfed with and birds constantly went after him really hard. Any big bird. Turkeys, swans, egrets, always chasing him down a fairway or chasing his cart. It was weird. Never happened to anyone else.
5 Likes
We have a few bluejays and some other assorted birds around, but my favorite bird to watch here are the hummingbirds, so cool
5 Likes
Yeah they were huge. Tried to upload a video i have but unable to.
10 Likes
Goodmorning @PatHealy and all of og!!
5 Likes