Set up your feeders in a quiet area of the garden close to trees so that they can fly to and fro. The most activity takes place in the first hours of daylight and an hour or two before dusk, so try to fill the feeders at midday, if possible. Try not to spill seeds and nuts on the ground as spillages attract rodents.
I don’t think a passing bald eagle or even an infrequently soaring hawk would cause birds to shy away from feeding areas for any length of time. A sudden local shortage of birds can result from a frequent, unwelcome visit from a resident hawk. When a sharp-shinned or Cooper’s hawk appears on the scene, birds appear to “freeze” without any movement and can remain motionless for as long as a half-hour.
Interesting contest.
Jordans is the only cereal brand in the UK that asks the farmers that grow their grain to dedicate 10% of their farmland to wildlife habitats, so that birds, bees and butterflies can thrive
We've teamed up with Jordans Cereals to offer readers the chance to win a hedgehog house and bird feeder.
Black-Capped Chickadees, Chestnut-Backed Chickadees, and Nuthatches come to my bird-feeder and birdbath
Interesting video showing the bird feeder in slow motion and at normal speed.
Video shows us how to make a bird feeder from a pine cone and peanut butter and seed.
Not a normal sight at most bird feeders:
Peregrine Falcon at our Bird Feeder
Find out how to apply for a grant from this organization:
The James L. Baillie Memorial Fund for Bird Research and Preservation was established by Bird Studies Canada in 1976. It is funded by the annual Baillie Birdathon and by private donations.
"Bird Conservation Nepal (BirdLife Partner) has launched a documentary to highlight the value of Important Bird Areas (IBAs: critical areas for biodiversity conservation) to people and therefore the importance of conserving these sites. Despite great efforts being made to conserve biodiversity in Nepal, the country still lags behind in protecting natural habitats."
This is a fun exercise. Click Bird Color Challenge to participate.
"We'll show you a bird for five seconds, then take the photo away and ask you to recall the bird's main colors. After you've chosen, we'll show you the responses that other players have selected. The game sharpens your powers of observation—and teaches Merlin about the ways that people perceive and describe colors."
It's time for the next WeLoveBirds photo contest.
Welcome to the 4th WeLoveBirds.org photo contest! We will be accepting photos up until Nov. 21 at midnight, eastern standard time; then community voting will take place from Nov.28 to Dec. 9. Click below for more information.
This film is an enjoyable tramp through America’s wilds and through the familial tangles of its three main characters. Peppered with polite humor, a bit of slapstick, and many gorgeous—and remarkably accurate—birds, this PG movie, directed by David Frankel, will entertain most any family, birding or nonbirding.
Louisiana's barrier islands provide critical and unique habitat for a range of migrant and wintering bird species. Shorebirds in particular utilize a variety of specialized feeding techniques to harvest their own favored types of prey.
This is fascinating article and amazing to think this footage was hidden for so many years.
"The last documented sighting of an Imperial Woodpecker took place in 1956 in the state of Durango in the high-altitude old-growth pine forest of the Sierra Madre. It was this sighting, by Pennsylvania dentist and amateur ornithologist William Rhein, that drew the attention of woodpecker researcher Martjan Lammertink and me and eventually led us to launch an expedition in March 2010 to explore the area where Rhein had filmed a lone female Imperial Woodpecker. Amazingly, the 85 seconds of 16mm color movie footage Rhein shot in 1956 is the only photographic documentation ever captured of this species in life. Yet for decades the scientific community knew nothing about it, and that might still be the case if not for Martjan’s tireless efforts. It was he who first found a mention of the film while reading through a 1962 letter in James Tanner’s personal correspondence, archived at Cornell University." Click below to continue reading this great story.
Bill Oddie explains how timid birds can be when a new bird feeder is placed in the garden.
Great video showing a blue jay and a chipmunk selecting peanuts:
"It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on here since we don’t really know what goes on inside a bird’s brain, but it is likely that this jay’s behavior has something to do with food storage. Jays and other corvids cache (store) food for later consumption. It looks like this jay might be trying to find the best peanut for its cache."
Animals determine information about food in two ways: sensory input and physiological feedback. The sensory input in this context is taste. A hummingbird uses taste to immediately determine the caloric quality of a food. A food that contains more calories will taste more desirable.
