Birding delight…Tina shares her pictures!
Have I got a treat for you today! All the pictures in this blog are from Tina in Pennsylvania. She emailed me some of her recent favorites, and they are great! Plus, they add some fun variety with some different birds. At right is what looks to be a female downy woodpecker (males have a small red spot on the back of their head). Downy woodpeckers are very similar to hairy woodpeckers, but “hairies” have longer beaks and are larger. Also, “downies” have a few black bars on their outer tail feathers (seen in picture), while those on hairy woodpeckers are all white. The bird below is a male “yellow-shafted” northern flicker. Flickers are fun birds that I used to see a lot when I was a kid.
Tina also sent in pictures of a house wren nest building (top left), a tufted titmouse, and a really cute baby bluebird (by the flower pot). This was the fledgling’s first flight and it landed right on her deck! She said it stayed there several minutes before finally moving on.
Lastly, Tina shared some Carolina chickadee pictures, including a chickadee nestling peeking out of a birdhouse. Now, this house looks strangely like the same one the house wren was looking to build in, so it appears the chickadees were victorious…or maybe it was just different nesting seasons. Tina, you’ll have to post a comment and let us know…but thank you so much for sharing all these wonderful pictures!
Again, I welcome anyone to email me their photos (as attachments) at dheiser@wncn.com. Hope you enjoyed them today as much as I did! Dave
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Comments
Excellent! That’s really fun to get different birds nesting in the same box each year. I like the decorations on it, too!
We grew mammoth sunflowers, and I nailed a big “head” to the tree closest to our porch. It was really fun to watch birds try to “take out” the seeds: nuthatches were the best at it, but downy woodpeckers came by and gave it a shot as well. Got a great picture of both trying to get the seeds!
(Yes, we also ate some of the sunflower seeds — mammoths, quite tasty — ourselves.
Tom, thanks for writing in! The sunflower head sounds like a great idea and very entertaining! If you’d like to email the picture, I’ll be glad to post it for everyone to see.
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Thank you Dave, again I appreciate your kind words and am very glad you enjoyed the photos. The chickadees claimed the nest box in May of this year and raised 5 babies, quite successfully! The wren’s brood fledged about a month ago. She raised 4 chicks. This is the third year that the chickadees nested first followed by the wrens. My husband and I were wondering if members of the same family are returning each year?? The nest box is about 18 inches from my enclosed porch so getting close up pics was very easy!!