1:00 AM – Here’s a selfish Dove keeping the other Doves at bay. It doesn’t deter the interlopers, though.
Nice video of a male House Finch grazing in the platform feeder.
And a Red-bellied Woodpecker. You never know where these will show up, though they’re at the compressed seed cylinder most often.
1:00 AM – Several Blue Jays have been around lately, mostly on the platform feeder. They particularly like peanuts, of course.
Other platform activity. A Finch of some kind – It’s hard for me to tell the difference between a House Finch and a Purple Finch. Then a White Breasted Nuthatch arrives, selects a seed to take with him, and departs. The Finch doesn’t mind.
Finches feeding and squabbling while a squirrel calmly eats peanuts in the background. Squirrels around here have it good.
1:00 AM – The finch sock ran out of thistle, and most of the Finches have relocated somewhere else. That leaves room on the feeder for the ‘regular’ birds, in this case a Dove, a straggling Finch and a Blue Jay.
Sometimes these female/immature Finches have really vivid markings. Not sure if these are Purple or House Finches.
4:16 AM – More platform feeder activity. Yesterday’s videos showed some scuffling and squabbling. In today’s clip the birds seem to be a little more tolerant, though there are a few moments. Maybe more than a few, but in general, they’re all grazing peacefully next to each other. Like cattle.
Bluebird and Pine Warbler on the cylinder feeder. Nice colorful birds on a gray afternoon.
3:22 AM – We have plenty of current videos on hand, so we’re skipping the Retro-Sunday feature until next week.
Another ‘snow video’, this one some random birds eating during a lull in the snow fall. Although it snowed all day, it was not a very heavy snow fall. The birds were able to get out and feed throughout most of the day.
And, trying to drink from the frozen birdbaths. We put some liquid water in them, so every bird got their thirst quenched.
From before the snow, colorful birds on the Squirrel Buster – a House Finch and Pine Warbler.
12:48 AM – The Squirrel Buster feeder is jammed with Sparrows until a House Finch shows up and clears the deck. Or rather, tries to clear the deck. The Sparrows just keep on coming back. Near the beginning of the video, a little Brown Headed Nuthatch sneaks in for a few bites.
Another mealworm feeder video, this one of a Yellow-rumped Warbler.
2:46 AM – This is a long clip – about three minutes – of the action on one of our ‘satellite’ feeders. It’s a Squirrel Buster stationed away from the deck out in the yard. The video was taken with our new camera, so the quality of the video is a little better than that of the security cams.
There are several parts. In approximate order of appearance are Sparrows, White Breasted Nuthatch, Red-bellied Woodpecker, House Finches. The last clip is a dance between a House Finch and Sparrow, around the feeder.
To balance the previous lengthy video, we present a short clip of our new resident, the Eastern Phoebe. We hadn’t seen one for a couple of weeks, but it looks like they’re here to stay, for a while. This one (or more) are carrying off mealworms, I assume to nesting mates or chicks.
2:57 AM – Assorted birds on the Squirrel Buster feeder. We have a Cardinal, a female House Finch and a White Breasted Nuthatch. The Finch and Nuthatch come and go, but nothing keeps the Cardinal from his meal.
It’s sometimes hard to tell the Purple Finch from the House Finch. The mediocre quality of our cameras doesn’t help (though they do pretty well for budget security cams). In this case, the color of the bird looks purple, not red. But he’s got stripes on his belly, which Cornell Labs tells me is the mark of the House Finch. On the other hand, I’ve found images of the Purple with stripes too. I’ll call it a Purple Finch. It’s a pretty bird, either way.
2:17 AM – Another bird identification problem. I think this is an unusually colored House Finch. The Cornell Labs website had an image of one that looks like this – the yellow markings on the breast and back, but no vivid stripe near the eyes. The beak is the right shape, and the tail is slightly notched – both features of the House Finch. Also, he was in the company of a pretty standard female Finch. If anyone has a better guess, I’d like to hear it. In the meantime, here are some videos. This is the first time this bird has been here, hopefully not the last time.
Another video of that probably House Finch on the Squirrel Buster feeder. He stands up to a Cardinal that tries to run him off.
2:42 AM – We’ll start with the Blue Jays doing some synchronized gobbling. Be sure to watch all the way, at the end of the clip is a high speed version.
More finch action. A male and female Purple Finch are feeding, and are joined by a female Cardinal. They get along just fine until a male Cardinal shows up on the water dish, and chases the Purple away. The Cardinal is molting bad – maybe he was irritable.