Yeah, it was late afternoon. We were trout fishing and as I climbed the bank I looked and there he was.
My best sighting was a pine grosbeak in December 1994. Very rare for NC.
Started feeding the birds a bit early this year. On the first really cold snap (zero), the Black-Capped Chickadees started showing up on the back patio, as if to say, "Feed me."
List to date:
B-C Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
American Goldfinch
Evening Grosbeak
Cassin's Finch
Pine Grosbeak
Steller's Jay
Black-billed Magpie
Dark-eyed Junco
Others in the neighbor hood
Great listing of waterfowl, etc. at lake not too far away
Last edited by sagegrouse; 11-03-2020 at 06:32 PM. Reason: Added stuff
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Yeah, it was late afternoon. We were trout fishing and as I climbed the bank I looked and there he was.
My best sighting was a pine grosbeak in December 1994. Very rare for NC.
Do you get pine grosbeaks often? Very rare here.
My list so far:
house finch
purple finch
American goldfinch
cardinal
pine siskin
tufted titmouse
Carolina chickadee
white breasted nuthatch
brown headed nuthatch
pine warbler
mourning dove
Eurasian collared dove
downy woodpecker
hairy woodpecker
red bellied woodpecker
Blue jay
mockingbird
I have tons of Pine Grosbeaks in the winter. Beautiful and rose-colored. Cassin's Finch (very like Purple) much less common.
My sighting of a single bird in 1994 was just the fifth sighting in NC.
I know Cassin's finch they look similar to the house finch too..House finches are are a western import here.
The legend of the House Finch is worth telling, assuming that the stories I heard years ago are true. It is a Western finch for the drier parts of the country, but it turns out that it really likes to nest on houses and other structures. Part one is that it succeeded living among humans, and its range began to expand in all directions, but mostly eastward.
Part two is that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 prohibits the "killing, capturing, selling, trading, and transport" of protected bird species -- basically all species except game birds and alien species like starlings and house sparrows that came from elsewhere. As it turns out, it was a common practice to sell the colorful House Finch in pet stores. Shortly after World War II the Audubon types in New York went around to the pet stores and informed the owners of the law and their almost certain violation of it. The pet store owners did the only reasonable thing (from their point of view) -- they released the birds from their cages. Thus, it turns out, the House Finch became a released bird in the wild in the NYC area. And it thrived! Moreover, it spread rapidly over the years. And -- I understand -- that the eastward moving wild bird species from the American West has now met up with the westward spread of the NYC released birds.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
You bet. In Steamboat Springs and out to my neighborhood closer to the mountain range -- there are zero, zip, nada Mourning Doves and Rock Pigeons (park pigeons). Not many places in N. America can say that. But we have a lot of Eurasian Collared Doves.
There are also Band-Tailed Pigeons in the region, but they prefer very mountainous habitat -- and I don't know where they go when it's 20 below.
There are Mourning Doves in the drier areas west of town , about where the Steller's Jays become rally scarce and Scrub Jays appear.
Thing about the American West is you go about or down 1,500 feet in elevation and the bird and plant species change, often dramatically. Also true in South America in the Andes.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Last edited by pfrduke; 11-04-2020 at 09:38 PM.
Learned a new bird word today. Irruptive migrant. Learned it because I have some red breasted nut hatches at my feeder and apparently they can be irruptive migrants.
And some fun bird news about a little owl that has been a topic of discussion on this thread.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/us/rockefeller-christmas-tree-owl-trnd/index.html
New feeder bird -- a Juniper Titmouse -- has been coming to my feeder, eliciting some jealous among fellow birders here in the Rockies. It is not a rare bird in Colorado but tends to stick to dry open woodlands that are a mix of junipers and pinyon pines. We are in much wetter habitat consisting of Gambel oaks, aspens and lodgepole pines.
Very furtive little guy quickly grabbing seeds off the ground and flying away, rather than going to the feeder, unlike its bolder Eastern counterpart, the Tufted Titmouse.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
The birds were active around the house yesterday. Some of these were seen at the feeders and others I observed walking my property but here's what I was able to see just yesterday:
Cardinal
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Chickadee
Dove
Goldfinch
House Finch
Purple Finch
Field Sparrow
Downey Woodpecker
Red bellied woodpecker
North Flicker (pair of them)
Blue Jay
Golden crowned Kinglet
Red shouldered hawk
White Throated sparrow
Carolina Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Loved seeing the pair of Flickers. Beautiful birds.
On another note, I'm going to have to take out a loan for bird seed it seems. The finches are cleaning me out!
"The future ain't what it used to be."
I'm pretty new to this so need some assistance. What would you say these two birds are. Sorry about the one pic of the reddish colored bird. He didn't hang around long enough to get a better one.
Bird2.jpgBird1cropped.jpg
"That young man has an extra step on his ladder the rest of us just don't have."
Last edited by sagegrouse; 11-23-2020 at 11:07 AM.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Thanks!
I have a copy of Peterson's Field Guide. Got it at a yard sale. It's from 1985, I wonder if I should get a more recent copy? I was leaning toward the House Finch on the first one but I somehow missed the Yellow Finch page when looking for the second. Definitely looks like a Goldfinch now that I compare pics.
"That young man has an extra step on his ladder the rest of us just don't have."
The bird on the right is an American goldfinch in winter plumage. On the left is I believe a male purple finch..