Bird Watching

We have had many visitors this past week - feathered visitors.  We have set up 3 bird feeders and 2 suet feeders along with a bird bath beside to thick bushes in our side yard.  There is also a large maple tree close by.  While we are in the school room or eating (since our school room is our dining room), we can watch the birds.  The boys and I began, in our nature journals, a list of birds that visit our yard.  We have also drawn some of the more rare and more unique birds. 

Our first rare visitor was a Yellow Breasted Chat.  Ryan and I each got an opportunity to see this bird in the bush.  I had never seen a yellow bird this size before (we get many visits from goldfinches, but this one was much larger.)  I thought at first it was some kind of Oriole.  I got the video camera and recorded it because I was the only one home and I wanted to show everyone else!  Then I got our Audubon bird book and went to identifying it.  After finding the Yellow Breast Chat, I wanted to read more about it.  It said it is a relatively shy bird and more often heard than seen.  When Ryan came home for lunch, he was able to see it also.  We have not seen it since that day.

Over the next weekend, we had our first visit from a Rose Breasted Grosbeak.  It was eating from our suet feeder.  The males (which is what we saw) have a red throat, white belly and mostly black with some white spots on their backs.  Their beaks are quite fat and short.  It has visited us a couple of times since.

During our school day, we saw a small sparrow-sized bird with a bright white stripe on its head.  We had never seen one of these before, so after doing some video recording, we identified it as a White-Crowned Sparrow.  They have been plentiful since we noticed them.  We see them mostly in pairs. 

After seeing these birds, we decided to watch the other birds coming to our feeder - a nature day.  We videoed every bird that we saw that day.  Another more rare bird we saw in the fields were Brown Thrashers.  They have spotted bellies and long beaks.  They were picking leaves up in the field and tossing them aside looking for bugs.

Here is the list of other birds we saw during the next couple of days:

Cardinals (male and female together)
Goldfinches
House finches
Robins
Nuthatch (likes to travel up the tree trunks - upside down)
Chipping Sparrows
House Sparrows
Cow Birds (male and female together)
Mourning Dove
Tree Sparrows
Downy Woodpecker (male only - with the red spot on their heads)
Red Bellied Woodpecker
Blue Jays

Then, my dream happened :)  An Oriole visited our backyard.  We're not sure what kind it was.  It doesn't match any descriptions in the Audubon book.  It looks like a Bullock's Oriole, but had a black throat.  It was yellow with white bars on its wings.  We have only seen it this one day - the boys and I.  It was gone before Ryan got home for lunch, but we were able to get some video.

Our last find was a pair of House Wrens nesting in a decorative bird house I have on my front porch.  They have a loud song that we have come to recognize, so we know when they are there.  We've heard and seen them every day since in the bird house.  Even with a flashlight, I cannot see inside to see if there are eggs yet or not.

We continue to watch for new birds.  I'm more interested in the ones that are not common, like the Grackles that we saw today, and the many varieties of sparrows.  I keep waiting for the Oriole to return.

I will post pictures (either the real birds or the drawings we have done.)  If we can get the right cord and software, we can freeze frame the video into still shots.  That's my hope - eventually.