Yesterday's yard list almost exclusively at the feeders. Stupid starling is my 20th year yard bird.

Observation date: 1/10/10
Number of species: 13

Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 2
Blue Jay 1
Black-capped Chickadee 3
Tufted Titmouse 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
European Starling* 1
Dark-eyed Junco 42
Northern Cardinal 3
House Finch 1
American Goldfinch 12
House Sparrow 20

Yes, I'm eBirding...

Location: Highgate Yard & Woodlot
Observation date: 1/10/10
Number of species: 5

Cooper's Hawk - Accipiter cooperii 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - Melanerpes carolinus 1 (#14 for 2010)
Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens 1
Dark-eyed Junco - Junco hyemalis 3
House Finch - Carpodacus mexicanus 4
House Sparrow - Passer domesticus 50

*Just a note, you can't paste this info into the blog post while in Html

My first official site survey

Well ladies. Here is the damage in 10 minutes of "site surveying" my yard:

1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Hairy Woodpecker
1 American Crow
1 Black-capped Chickadee
5 Tufted Titmouse
2 White-breasted Nuthatch
4 Dark-eyed Junco
4 American Goldfinch

This is an interesting subsample of the bird present in my yard each day, which includes at least 14 DEJU, 6+ TUTI, likely 8-10 BCCH, 4+ DOWO, 2+ HAWO, etc.

Also had a Kestrel about 1 mile up the road, which would still be a life yardbird. And I had an unknown Buteo sp. fly over briefly. Rough-legged Hawk is high on my mind. And my dream yardbird for winter would definitely have to be CORA. I am far enough north that there are a very few individuals around, but most of the time they seem to stick to the larger forests such as the Rogue River State Game Area (where I saw my only Kent Co. CORA last spring).

For some reason I am still missing my year yardbird HOSP, EUST, HOFI, and some other seemingly easy birds which have been here in numbers as recently as December.

Where have you been!

Yes, it's crazy that this is a life yard bird, but today I FINALLY saw my first American Tree Sparrow in the yard. Where have you been the last year and a half! That's 107 and 13 for 2010.

Año Nuevo!

Spent 40 minutes out in the cold and saw the following species. 5 species were new for the year and here's the complete checklist.
Welcome Skye, and Aaron should be on board soon.

Canada Goose - 7
Cooper's Hawk* - 1
Red-tailed Hawk* - 2
Mourning Dove - 7
American Crow - 2
Black-capped Chickadee - 4
European Starling - 78
American Tree Sparrow* - 19 (high count for the "yard"...thanks to two feeders within view from my designated area)
Dark-eyed Junco* - 13
Northern Cardinal - 1
American Goldfinch* - 1
House Sparrow - 6

Bonus mammal:

Coyote - 1

Welcome to the Jungle

Hey beeya-iches,

That's right, what this little seance needed was moi!

I'm sure you all are drooling over my yard Solitaire, of which I had numerous times over 3 months, including a morning when it sat in a cedar and sang! But what I really want to point out is the Carolina Wren! That's right Carolina Wren. Quit yer snickering, that's like that Buckeye birder (yah, I'm talking to you!), getting a Bohemian Waxwing at his place, (of which I had 7 in the yard this morning.....)

Also why Put-out lists Clay-colored Sparrow as a highlight of my little yard, a regular spring and fall migrant, when obviously the 4 different Glaucous Gulls I've had are so much better, well that's just a sign of his provincial ignorance......

It's ON!!!!

TOR

'Haastage" starting from 2nd place in all-time list

Just got the "Haastage taker"'s all-time yardlist updated, and have come to find out he is in 2nd place already! Even worse, he already has the following species on his YARD LIST:

-Townsend's Solitaire (GEEZ)
-Harris's Sparrow (still a STATE bird for me)
-Carolina Wren (great bird in UP, esp that far north)
-Greater White-fronted Goose
-Clay-colored Sparrow
-All of Michigan's regular finches!

Time to get busy overcoming this gap...

Satisfying!

You know how satisfying it is to see Mr. Fitzbirdo in 4th place?! VERY!
And, yes, I see all of your bantering aimed at me about eBird... well, a wife, 2 kids and 2 jobs have put me nearly 2 years behind on my own life list work...(how's that for a sob story?). Seriously, I want to get onto eBird more, I'll see what I can do it being a new year and all.

Sky Dreamer is in + new columns in table

So, Skylark (Skye Haas) is IN. He currently is without a computer and internet in his humble domicile in Marquette, MI, but will have it within a few days. I look forward to whipping his tail over the next year, even if he scores Harris's Sparrow and Greater White-fronted Goose as yard birds.

Secondly, there are 3 new columns in the tally spreadsheet requiring attention:

1) Fitzroy's All-time Illinois yard list.
2) Duckstra and Slobber 2010 yard list.
3) Skylark's All-time and 2010 yard lists.

So, is Aaron Boone officially out? Are there any others whom we should invite?

CP

2010 UP and RUNNING

OK Dweebs. Just made my first entry into the spreadsheet and am up and running with 13 species for 2010. Best bird so far: Brown Creeper which came to the trees near the feeder with chickadees this afternoon (first in months, actually!). Big misses: Eastern Bluebird (seen in the subdivision this AM but not in my yard), Turkey (Dec 28), House Finch, House Sparrow.

If you're all OK with it I will invite Skye Haas to join us (Marquette, MI), who has an interesting yard with quite different diversity than us.

Thoughts?

Merry Christmas to all!

Well I spent the past two and a half days up at my folks for the holidays. I kept an eye on the feeders to some extent, but obviously was spending time with family for most of the time. The coolest thing for me was having a lone Wild Turkey come under the feeders every couple of hours.
And then, I filled up the peanut feeders in the midst of the snow on the 26th, and had five woodpecker species on them within a half hour of them being filled. This also marks the third consecutive winter that both a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and a Northern Flicker have wintered in my parents yard and been regular guests at the feeders! I think there is a very solid case that these birds are the same individuals (since I've never had either species ever winter or come to the feeders for the ten years I lived there prior to the last three...) which also is pretty amazing that species like these have that kind of wintering site fidelity...
Anyway, I hope you all had a great holiday and here's to a great 2010 (will the competition reset?)!

Surprise guest

I know this is going to give Curtis all kinds of identification trouble (heck, I won't be too surprised is all of you have trouble), so I am going to make him/you suffer (mwaaahaaahaaa). After last night's full 12 inches of snow I was very surprised to see this at my feeder with the new frenzy:

without a doubt my latest ever for Michigan (!) by at least a month. Wonder where this bird has been over the last month or two? Also had the fall's first yard American Tree Sparrow today. Bring on the BRSP for a Spizella trifecta.