Buddy's Backyard is a photography blog on all things wildlife that visit his terrain. The photography is by Kat Nequette, she enjoys taking wildlife photos of all sorts of birds and wildlife critters that visit Buddy's backyard.
TIP: After looking seeing it with our eyes, always look among the Starlings or even Grackles and Cowbirds. They tend to blend in with the other birds around.
TIP: Look at their chests, they resemble an sparrow or thrasher with that pattern
TIP: Look at their beaks, Long and black. Along with looking at their crown pattern there's a hint of a reddish/goldish brown color.
TIP: They do have a slight hint of red on their shoulders like the males.
We have not seen the blackbirds in the past couple weeks, this typically happens once the female starts to show and they are off to a nearby location.
Buddy's Backyard grew increasingly busy for the month of May, as you know many of our birds fly south for the winter then travel back to us for the late spring to early fall. We did attend the Back Bird Day event in our local area. We discovered other potential locations to go to when I the camerawomen have a day off work.
Our Baltimore Orioles returned on May 8th and then our Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks (both Male and Female) returned on May 9th. The catbirds have also returned around that same time. I had been away down in Lacrosse, WI which is another great location to scout birding. While on a boat cruise, I saw at least four bald eagle and one Sandhill crane in flight. On the waterfront, there were tons of mallard ducks and robins, starlings, grackles you name it. I even saw a muskrat!!!
Returning home, excited to see my new returnees and camera fully loaded,. So doing an complete bird count kind of makes it hard when half of the bird count are birds we regularly see.
So let's TALLY!!!!
Baltimore Orioles, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Canadian Goose Goslings (Two families!!), Catbirds, Brown Thrasher, Yellow-Rumpted Warbler, White-throated Sparrows, Cowbirds (female included), Red-Winged Blackbird (female included), Indigo Bunting (Sorry no pictures!!) Barn Swallows(Those guys are hard to get picture when they're gliding), Hairy woodpecker made an appearance as did Petrie our Pileated Woodpecker.
WE been hearing Robins but we have not been seeing them . . . until today. There were three total but unfortunately the third one took off before the picture could be snapped.
We also have the Grackles back, at least one blackbird and one red-winged blackbird in the near distance. We been putting out nesting materials and every morning the nesting material has been gone.
We are also keeping an eye on one of our cardinal pairs, last year the female had decided to build a nest in one of the large bushes we have at the front of the house, but many other birds were not happy about it. A lot of chatters (angry chatters), but sadly someone had gotten our cardinal eggs, most likely a squirrel because the nest wasn't too disturb.
We're thinking that it's the same pair because they are attempting to try that area again but we're going to try and direct them to an different area and hopefully they can build their nest there.
Buddy is getting into his routine walk again, now that we're getting nice weather and he's spending all of his days on the porch.
Also tonight we heard a small group of Herring Gulls fly across us, which is unusual for us to see them. We're also hearing Sandhill Cranes in the far distance, echoes off from the Pond. Maybe one of these days we'll see them in flight????
We have sandhill cranes in our local area but now they are flocking near our large Pond that is an habitat to many other birds.
I know this blog has been very quiet, I'll try to work into focusing on posting about our birds. After all spring will be here before we know it and birds will be coming back to our backyard.
We are currently putting together a puzzle that I brought for dad that had showcase some of our birds, we been doing puzzles for a couple years now on New Year's Eve and we try to finish it before the new year comes. We are still working on the puzzle but it will look so great when it's put together.
We mostly have gotten all the birds together and the birdhouse they're sitting on, we got the cardinals pair, an bluebird, goldfinch (Male), a sparrow (maybe house) and then we have a chickadee. Once we have the puzzle together I'll share a photo.
Speaking of our backyard, everyone been pretty quiet or staying warm. We must have had our cooper's hawk earlier this week because there were feathers. Our crows are an fascinating creature of bird and smart too!
We now been tossing out old bread for them and they come for their dinner/breakfast, even some dip the food in the water of our heated birdbath.
Hope we have a great year with all sorts birds both old and newcomers!!
Buddy's backyard has been quiet because of the cold, but we did have some of our old spring/fall visitors come through. Our European Starlings. Where they been I'm not sure but they came back.
We have had our usual critters, and the raccoons been in hibernation since early November.
Ever wonder what would be some perfect birding gifts?
This year, I've receive and given gifts that is perfect for our backyard birding.
1. Is the 365 day calendar
2. I receive an "rite in the rain" which is an journal that is rain proof and a pen that is rain proof with a little zipup.
3. I've gotten dad a bird puzzle that features the Cardinals, Nuthatch, Chickadee, an Eastern Bluebird, and a goldfinch. <-- this by far is the best gift I could give to dad
4. Part of an Hallmark ornament series "The Beauty of the Birds" this year was the Pine Grosbeak, they did have a female limited edition but that was completely sold out on the first release day.
5. Next I gave my dad two new feeders because our squirrels have been destroying our small feeders.
6. I got my dad a stuff animal plush Squirrel which only until later tonight, I realized that the plush little squirrel is a replica of one of our squirrels named Sweater.
7. You know that commercial with the Raccoons?
Here's the video
I've found this little figurines that features three raccoons and it's honestly the perfect thing I could get dad.
I know it's been extremely quiet on this blog, I swear once I'm on school break I'll start posting some photos of Buddy's Backyard creatures.
We finally have gotten cold temperatures and I think that all of our raccoons has taken shelter, there's no snow on the ground yet but I think this cold front we got will tell them to go hibernate (although they don't really hibernate).
The Moles that lives underground has really done a number on our neighbor yard, they are just tunneling all over and creating big unearthed holes. You could probably dig about less than a foot before you seen an actual hole that lead deep underground.
Other backyard titbits, our crows DO eat Peanuts!!!!! I've read somewhere that Crows eat Peanuts but we always throw peanuts out for the squirrels that we never seen them take an interest in until one day a crow must have watch me put peanuts in an unusual spot and sneakily took them but we witness it.
Here's some Winter Tips for your backyard creatures,
Heated bird bath, that's has to be one of the best thing we have for all our of birds and deers to have water access.
IF you feed Feral cats, start building those shelters now or start bringing them out if you already have made those. If you never made these shelter before here's a video on building them
Keep food available, we may go the extra mile to make sure that everyone has food. There's not much we can do for warmth for squirrels (If I could and if it would work I would totally buy an heated shed and have little houses fit for squirrels and birds)
