Paul set up the camera, and the "gee whiz" moment occurred. They were American goldfinches, and they were landing next to, grabbing onto, and sometimes hanging upside down from sweetgum-balls on the trees, busily extracting tiny seeds, one at a time.
Attracting birds to your garden has many benefits. Birds eat insects and add life, color, and song to your outdoor surroundings. Planting a few small trees and shrubs that provide food and shelter for birds will make your garden an avian paradise.Read more: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2011/07/27/1697267/birds-of-a-feather-flock-to-these.html#ixzz1TvbehgWm
More and more people are putting up bird nesting boxes and bird feeders around their own places and also in wild places. Some bluebird nest box routes have boxes numbering in the hundreds. Many more people are giving attention to building boxes to suit the needs of particular bird species and placing them in the corresponding habitat. Seventy species of birds are known to nest in or on manmade nest structures.
Are you bothered by too many house sparrows scaring off other birds at your bird feeder? Here is some information you may find helpful.
Nearly everyone who feeds birds encounters problems with house sparrows. They're pigs at feeders and a large flock may drive away the cardinals, finches and chickadees.
This hunter has become more of a watcher now. Read his interesting post.
I used to think that bird watchers were really strange people. The ones I had run across at wildlife management areas and refuges ran around in weird clothes with optics and cameras that had names I had never even heard of much less could afford.
