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Finally found the snowy owl who's been in the area the last week. No good flights shots and they are better in a natural setting but I was delighted to see her and get this.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
My camera is a Canon EOS Rebel SL1. It’s probably 10 years old but still doing good. The game changer for me was a Sigma 150-600 telephoto lens. Sigma offers similar quality to Canon but a lower price. Everything is in range with this lens and still crystal clear. I still take an incredible number of bad pictures but knowing that compensate by taking a stupid number of every shot knowing something should turn out good .
Reminds me of Mel Allen doing Yankee games when I was a kid, hawking White Owl cigars. Tasty, and good for you, too!
Question -
I'm back up to the place at Smith Mountain Lake. I left a feeder full of food here when I left after Thanksgiving. It's still almost full. My backyard birds seem to be gone. Not just from the feeder, but when I sit out on the porch I don't even see or hear them twittering around in the trees. I've now been up here for 4 days and haven't seen the first bird at the feeder. I saw a chickadee this morning before it got light but he was only around for a few seconds and never hit the feeder.
Any thoughts as to why?
I took down the feeder and made sure it wasn't clogged. Seems to be fine. The seed is the same seed I was using all summer and they seemed to like it. (just a general blend)
I saw a hawk over Thanksgiving but he would always swing by on occasion and never seemed to bother anyone.
Now for the second half of the question. I watched a beautiful Bald Eagle fishing my little section of water this morning for about 10 minutes. I've only seen one here once before and it just cruised by without stopping. The water is maybe 50 to 75 yards from the house. I wouldn't think that the eagle hanging around would literally chase all my small birds away, but...?
Thoughts?
"That young man has an extra step on his ladder the rest of us just don't have."
Well, you would certainly have lost some activity due to the winter migration. I'm in PA and while we have some year-round residents (Cardinals, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers) we also have a changeover in winter to more dark-eye juncos and chickadees but less activity overall. If you've had a lot of rain in the area, the bird seed may also have become saturated and you just need to change it out with a dry mix --- and one targeted toward winter locals. We mostly stick to sunflower seed this time of year.
If a feeder has been empty or bad for too long, birds will start avoiding it and you'll have to work to develop their memory preference again by providing a sustained period of good food and access. You're near water so that's not the problem.
I'd probably try checking your feeder, cleaning it, and filling it with new food - black oil sunflower seeds - and see what happens.
just resumed feeding today, waiting for my first customer...
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Got a sassy shot of this beautiful girl about a week ago. She has been pretty scarce since. I keep reading of others up and down the jersey coast. I hope she comes back or someone else decides to visit.
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One more - I love seeing them in nature.
I got the Yankee Flipper for mrs pie this christmas....hilarity ensued...
"One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese