Large Scale Central

Birding

Two visitors this week, standing on my porch I invited the Roadrunner to come in for a drink…

CaRaKKKKKKKK, said with cracking voice each K pronounced (should ever want to say Hi), I mimicked his call.

Only the steps between us…

This time a round tail squirell chased him off, last week he chased after a dove…

Stopping to pose…

The next day a Bobcat came in. I was inside and shot these through the screen;

He knew I was there as I talked him in too.

With a last look he was off too…

John

Nice John

The watering hole has always been a good place to see critters!

Linda photograghed a road runner at the house next door last week. It is similar, but with a red patch behind the eye where yours has a small pinkish patch. Probably a male and yours is a female.

If you look carefully, you will see that roadrunners are fairly distinct in that they have two toes facing forward and two toes facing rearward rather than the standard 3-1 arrangement.

I haven’t seen one in the neighborhood in a few years.

Re; RR He’s it’s young, I was surprised it’s red patch didn’t show. Could be the cameras zoom filter.

Or thingamabob.

John

edit to neuter(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)

Wow! Awesome wildlife encounters!

Yesterday the scrub jay used the forward feeder and for the first time, and saw himself in the mirror. It’s been out there for about a year and the other birds enjoy it, though the male house finches first attacked their images.

He went BONKERS! I had to cover the mirror before he hurt himself attacking his reflection and trying to figure out how it got in that box. Anyway, it keeps eating half his food, and he’s just not going to put up with that!

He’s now seen it a coulpe times and has settled a bit. I’ll try to do a video.

Todd Brody said:

Yesterday the scrub jay used the forward feeder and for the first time, and saw himself in the mirror. It’s been out there for about a year and the other birds enjoy it, though the male house finches first attacked their images.

He went BONKERS! I had to cover the mirror before he hurt himself attacking his reflection and trying to figure out how it got in that box. Anyway, it keeps eating half his food, and he’s just not going to put up with that!

He’s now seen it a coulpe times and has settled a bit. I’ll try to do a video.

The cardinals were doing that to the side view mirrors on the cars around here for a few years. We had to put plastic grocery bags over the mirrors to keep them from scratching them all up…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

This guy would really mess up your mirror and the paint around it. He doesn’t even care that he’s swept all the seeds away with his tail, that other bird is not going to infringe on his territory.

He’ll peck and scratch at his reflection for 10 minutes or more before getting tired and leaving, then come back and do it again and again. I did get video.

I’ve decided to see if I can teach the local mocking birds to do “Woody Woodpecker.”

I took a 6:30 HQ recording of a mocking bird from YouTube, as well as the Woody Woodpecker laugh. Using Audacity, I interjected the Woody Woodpecker into half a dozen spots in the recoding, during quiet moments and pauses and recorded this to an MP3. I can use my “Lowrider Train” sound system to play the track with a 12 volt battery.

This guy likes to perch on the edge of my roof and on my chimney and I can hear him through the flue. I could probably just set the unit in the firplace and let it repeat over and over when I hear him up there.

May end up being a big mistake, but if you hear mocking birds mocking Woody, you know where it started. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

I am not a birdwatcher, I know the Cardinals, and the Blue Jays, and the Robins, but the other little birds are just birds to me. They like to congregate on the power line above my pond about an hour before dusk, and take turns taking a bath in the shallow end of my pond. It can be quite comical, because if one bird takes too long of a bath, all of the ones waiting on the power line will start chirping at the one bathing to get done so they can have their turn.

A few years back, I had to reline the pond. So its was just a big hole in the yard for a few weeks. The very day that I got the thing lined and refilled, the birds were back, lining up to bathe. Its like a message went out to all the feathered creatures that the pond is back.

The thing is, I have a railroad bridge over the pond, and when I run trains the birds are afraid to take their baths. Its funny watching one try and time the running of the train, so it can dart in, take a quick bath, and get out before the train comes back across the bridge. I have even had the little brown birds on the tracks, and instead of flying to get out of the way of an oncoming train, them little suckers will run.

But the thing that makes me laugh the most is, 2 of my small trees have nests in them. Neither tree is more then 4 1/2 feet tall. I guess they are just under achievers. Talk about aiming low.

We have now begun to get pintail whydahs.

These are endemic to the South Africa and the Sahara Desert, but like the California green parrots and Mannequin (spice) finches, a few got loose in the area and they’ve found that we have some of the best weather in the world, so made this their new home and started breeding.

When finches get away, they usually do so in bunches, then they breed in the wild. We have a flock around our house who wait for me to go outside to feed my Emu in the morning and they beg for bits of bread.

Our Mannequin (Spice) finches have piked up an interesting new behavior that I’ve never seen in birds before.

They hover/circle in close to the food dish (inverted plastic trash can lid) and their wings create enough wind to blow away the spent seed casings (makes a small cloud) while leaving the heavier uneaten seed in the lid for them to eat.

I may need to catch this on video.

Little bit of a territorial altercation going on between the Hairy Woodpecker and Goldfinch.

American Goldfinch & Downy Woodpecker by Scott McDonald, on Flickr

Scott

I’ve had an Oriole family in my back yard. I’ve watched them raise 3 kids. I’m trying to get them to be Red Sox fans though.

Scott’s Flickr Bird Photo Album

Holy Crap is that Darren O’Day in his youth?

Should a Rooster really be making Bird Jokes?

Did a little birding before and in between the National garden Railway Convention and the National Summer Steamup in Northern California.

California Quail

California Quail by Scott McDonald, on Flickr

California Towhee

California Towhee by Scott McDonald, on Flickr

Scrub Jay

Scrub Jay by Scott McDonald, on Flickr

Oak Titmouse

Oak Titmouse by Scott McDonald, on Flickr

Ladder Backed Woodpecker

Ladder-Backed Woodpecker by Scott McDonald, on Flickr

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Black-chinned Hummingbird (f) by Scott McDonald, on Flickr

Found a very sick mourning dove on the patio yesterday. Bird was in obvious distress, shivering, and discharge from the nares.

I put a wash rag over it and put it in a box on its side under the eves to get it out of the weather and keep it warm and gave it some bird seed, but it passed away overnight.

Vector control will come by this morning and pick it up inspecting it for West Nile Virus. I really hope that’s not the case as I’ve got lots of wild birds that I feed daily.

Oh dear. The critter at least got to experience a human caring about him or her. Yes, do hope it is not the virus.