HOFI, finally

Hey chumpz- Finally added my 2010 HOFI for the yard today. Watch out warning, I am on your heelz.

The Warning speaks

Greetings bird gods. Prepare yourselves for some serious yard birding competition. I started the year off right with some of this action on Jan. 2nd.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

This probable SY male Rose-breasted Grosbeak is pretty rare around these parts, its a first state record for the month of Jan. in Ohio. Definitely a good bird for my Ohio January list (now up to 80 sp.).

A little about myself, I'm about to turn 28, I live out in the overgrown rural area near Sunbury Ohio, on 50 acres. We have a creek running through the property which is lacking in much mature forest, but has a lot of firs successional weedy fields etc which are nice for woodcocks and YWARs, FISP, etc. Other than birding I'm into other naturalist type crap, skiing, rock climbing, trail running and mountain biking. I'm not really the Slagermeister's mentor, but have showed him around Ohio some - where I've certainly learned him a thing or two. I'm ashamed to post my low yard list number, truth be told I've never birded my own back yard too intensively, been too preoccupied by state-listing (up to 319 now).

Today I had a group of about 20 American Tree Sparrows out by the feeders along with the usual Dark-eyed Junco's etc. I've been having a good time watching Red-breasted Nuthatches at the feeders and yesterday I had a Carolina Wren at the feeders, what now?!

This will be a nice excuse to boost my numbers out back and to rub it in your faces. Consider yourselves duly warned by the Warner.

17 and slowly climbing.....and good yard birds of yore

So its a grey day here at the Owl Ranch, but for whatever reason, diversity has been good.

Birds seen so far this morning are
Mallard- 2
Bald Eagle- 1
(Yankee) Herring Gull-8
Rock Pigeon- 5
Mourning Dove- 3
Downy Woodpecker-2
Hairy Woodpecker- 1
Black-capped Chickadee- 12
White-breasted Nuthatch- 2
Bohemian Waxwing- 7
Dark-eyed Junco- 1 (species not seen everyday)
PINE GROSBEAK- 1 (species number 17 for the year)
House Finch- 22
American Goldfinch- 5

So like yoo-hoo for me! All though my sighting of the day would be the 20 Long-tailed Ducks down the harbor this morning. I had been seeing 3-5 when I looked , but there was an influx from somewhere.

Well as I stare at my finchless feeders, I thought a few shots from last years finchy-good time at the house of TOR would be in order. Of of these days I will get out the camera and get some shots of what my humble yard actually looks like.

Well for now, memories of good birds past.....

  Purple Finch  Hoary Redpoll   Hoary Redpoll   Rostrata redpoll

Cedar Waxwings and Mallards

This afternoon, while on the west edge of the property watching the two resident Red-tailed Hawks, a tight flock of passerines flew into view. Within a few seconds 25 Cedar Waxwing (#24) barreled overhead. Close on their tails came an additional 15. They were all heading the same direction downtown and that usually means the fruit bearing ornamental shrubs in front of the insurance office are ripe for picking. A quick drive there found 173 CEDW chowing down. As I turned down my street coming home 7 Mallard flew in front of the car prompting a stop at the base of my drive to see if they would loop back. Two of them did providing #25 for the yard list.

Harry, for somebody who didn't think they would be successful in this competition, you certainly have come from behind rapidly! Dukky seams to be making a good showing too.

BRCR x 2

Location: Highgate Yard & Woodlot
Observation date: 1/16/10
Number of species: 9

Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens 1
Blue Jay - Cyanocitta cristata 1
Tufted Titmouse - Baeolophus bicolor 1
White-breasted Nuthatch - Sitta carolinensis 2
Brown Creeper - Certhia americana 2 - #17 for the 2010
Northern Cardinal - Cardinalis cardinalis 1
House Finch - Carpodacus mexicanus 4
American Goldfinch - Carduelis tristis 9
House Sparrow - Passer domesticus 50

Rockin' & Rollin'

Yesterday afternoon while doing a bit of work from home, I shouted for joy nearly giving my wife a heart attack. Numero dos winged its way over the house and 'cawed' a few times. I haven't seen American Crow 'round these parts in quite some time.

Aahhh....life is good.

AMRO & PISI

A flock of 13 American Robin (#22) flew over as I finished filling the feeders this morning. A subsequent walk of the property totaled 18 species with 4 Pine Siskin (#23) chattering in the tree-tops. The snow is diminished enough now that snowshoes aren't as necessary. Here's the eBird list:

Observation date: 1/15/10
Number of species: 18

Herring Gull (American) 1
Mourning Dove 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 2
Blue Jay 5
American Crow 3
Black-capped Chickadee 4
Tufted Titmouse 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
American Robin 13
European Starling 5
Dark-eyed Junco 8
Northern Cardinal 8
House Finch 5
Pine Siskin 4
American Goldfinch 11
House Sparrow 42

ATSP

Finally got a Tree Sparrow at the feeder (Spizella, not Passer, Harry), albeit only briefly, for my 2010 list today. It ain't easy being behind the Duck boy, and especially being behind Haas, so it felt good to move ahead of them losers. Now, if I can just get a CANG with all this thaw up... And Harry, are you really at 18 for 2010? If so, that's incredible, and enjoy your lead while it lasts!

Flyover Watching at Its Finest

Dudes! I'm excited to be entering the fray. Some of you may have it bad in terms of yard "habitat." However, I challenge any of you to top THIS! Funny, eh? There's seriously no natural habitat anywhere within the sight lines of my "condo." With the exception of the occasional ornamental pine tree or flower plantings, I'm left with nothing but sky. Not so bad on an autumn day with a stiff northwestern wind. Raptor watching can be quite interesting. After 4 months at this location, my yard list has yet to top 30. I do have some good ticks, though. Merlin flying down the street chasing EUSTs. High flying flocks of Sandhill Cranes. A quick flyby of a small group of Bank Swallows while checking the mail. If anything, I've learned to always remember to look up occasionally when birding amidst proper habitat.

Too bad Hammel Woods (to my southeast) isn't in my backyard...those lucky b-tards in the trailer park have it all!!!

Well, thanks for the invite and I'm glad to be a part of this historic occasion. My list to date stands at 1. Granted I have been out of commission for several days, and my work schedule dictates that I sit in an office from well before sunup to well after sundown, I'm still rather proud of at least getting Canada Goose. I'm predicting Prairie Falcon as #2.

Oh...does anyone know the finer points of separating out Blackpoll and Bay-breasted nocturnal flight calls??????

Later-

Booner

2nd Place 4 Duck Boy

EUST - 15
BLJA - 16
Look out, I'm on a roll! :)

The European Canon is here...

Hi all,

First off, the excuses. My garden is tiny, it is surrounded by concrete, the avifauna of Ireland is impoverished, as is usual for island fauna in general, we are too far west, with no great landmass to the north and no land due south for hundreds of miles, to be on a migration route, I tend to bird elsewhere, and, perhaps, in your American vernacular, I may even suck...who knows?

Now, for those of you living in the home of Uncle Sam, I understand that the average American (meaning people less intelligent than you lot, presumably...you are all birders...but let's not make any assumptions here) has a very poor grasp of geography, so: Ireland is a relatively small island nation, divided into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, sitting on the western edge of Europe, blocked from getting so many mouth-watering Siberian birds by those Brits (I have British friends, I won't start!), and is probably the best place in the world for seeing Buff-breasted Sandpipers, given that they appear to dematerialise on the breeding grounds and reappear somewhere in South America. Cork is on the south of the island, though, regrettably for me, Cork city is not on the coast proper, even if it does meet the saline waters of Cork Harbour...we might get passerine migrants, including rare ones, if it was.

My garden is tiny, as I said. Caleb kindly sent me a pic showing the position of my house from the air...we won't even ask what a US Air Force unmanned drone was doing flying over my house, though, even had I seen it, I'd probably have misidentified it as a Raven or maybe my first garden Common Buzzard at a push. Here it is.

What do you mean you can't see it? Oh well, here's a closer image.

A not so subtle plug of the one time my team won the Great Island Bird Race (no, I didn't just steal the trophy, and the reason I was so glum is that we won it in January 2008, yet the pic was taken that November).

So, basically, with a running garden total of 52, all I can hope is to offer tantalising glimpses of bird life in a whole different region, some of which may have vagrancy potential to North America.

Given the recent increase, for example, one of these may stray to somewhere like Newfoundland some day...

So, at the moment, we're suffering our worst winter for over 25 years, and I understand this to be the case in much of the US also. Hopefully, this will not cause any extinctions here in Ireland, be they local or national, but it is inevitable that many species will exist at greatly reduced levels for at least a few years. That said, this weather has led to a new species for my garden, in the form of 1-2 Fieldfares, and it was no surprise that there were also a few Redwing for the last 2 days, a species that I saw there as a kid way back in the early 80s, but which I had only recorded flying over on migration since. A male Blackcap also put in a brief appearance yesterday.

That said, I may have had more species this year than I have listed: had I known that I would be taking part in this challenge, I could have kept track. Needless to say, I shall be more vigilant now...I don't know why I bother, though, I'm going to finish rock bottom anyway...

Our first Palearctic yardbirder! (Welcome Harry)

Well guys, things are about to get more interesting. I would like to introduce to you my friend Harry Hussey of County Cork, Ireland (!): our newest yardbird blogger! For him, American Robin would be a mega, while Fieldfare, Blackcap, and Black-headed Gull are basically trash.

Also, Harry seems to be much more mature than any of us, but from chatting with him over the past year on all matters birds, it is apparent that his skill level is just as low as ours. So, Harry- let's see what your yard looks like, and then you can start educating us about all things Palearctic!