Wild Birds

I love to observe and listen to birds. I think this attraction stems from my childhood, when I used to sit quietly under a tree in our back yard and just listen to the sounds around me. When you think about it, bird songs are really the soundtrack for nature. You can almost always hear bird calls no matter where you are outside, and it kind of blends into the background. Your brain registers and remembers the sounds, and you can recall memories just by hearing a certain bird song. For example, the Redwing Blackbird call always reminds me of days when I would hunt for frogs and turtles in (and I mean "in" ;) Shaheen's Pond in Irondequoit, NY. I can almost smell the algae and feel the warm, humid summer air right now. :) Or, the call of the American Robin inevitably beings back the feelings of Spring for many people.

I have a few feeders in my back yard: one with only sunflower seed for chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and cardinals; a variety seed mix for juncos, sparrows and jays; a thistle feeder for almost exclusively American Goldfinches; a suet feeder for woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees; and in the summer, a hummingbird feeder. Last year I built 4 bird houses and put them out to see what I could attract to our trees. Only one was actually used (although most were explored by a few pairs) by a pair of Tree Swallows, who raised a brood of chicks! It was exciting! :) I hope I can attract wrens and chickadees this year as well, and maybe I'll even build a Bluebird house. :)

Here's a link to a site that deals with Backyard Bird Feeding. We all need more fat birds.

And here's an internet 'zine for people who like wild birds: The Virtual Birder.

So, here's a little quiz for you. See if you can unscramble the bird songs below that are linked with the pictures. These are birds that I hear and see (haven't seen that Wood Thrush yet though - rats! :) in my back yard:

Last week (Jan 1997) I bought a new birding program called Thayer's Birds of North America 2.0. It's an excellent program for bird identification and keeping an observation record. It has a bird handbook linked in as well. You can also buy from Thayer a companion program for keeping lists and records of your bird sightings. Here's a link to Thayer's Web Site.

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