Black-capped Chickadee, taken with my little Canon point-and-shoot, and cropped in Photoshop.
The New Haven Bird Club's winter feeder survey is once again underway - which means we keep a weekly tally of individuals seen in the courtyard. Food sources include our three feeding stations, fruiting trees and shrubs, ornamental grasses, and despite the best efforts of the groundskeepers - weeds! Sparrows love weed seeds.
If chickadees become habituated to your feeding stations, and your movements, you may be able - with MUCH patience - to get them to take seed from your hand.
I'm not implying I had any success in that department - at least not here at West Campus. After all, I don't get paid to habituate chickadees!
This week's birds:
Wild Turkey
Canada Goose
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull, Larus marinus - #104
Merlin
Red-tailed Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Northern Harrier
Wednesday was a wild day, with gusty winds from the south, and we kept an eye to the sky for wind-blown birds. The result was our first Great Black-backed Gull for West Campus - common on the coast a mile away, but the first time we've recorded it in our airspace!
Then today (Friday) was also windy - and we had a pretty good batch of raptors - Cooper's and Red-tailed Hawks, a Merlin and a Northern Harrier.
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Northern Flicker
Downy Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Blue Jay
American Crow
American Robin
European Starling
Northern Mockingbird
Black-capped Chickadee
Carolina Wren
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Warbler sp. either Pine or Blackpoll
Either one would have been a great bird - the Pine new for West Campus, and the Blackpoll a new bird for me - but sadly I had only a fleeting look, and for me these birds are pretty similar-looking... more yellow, less yellow, more streaky, less streaky, yellowish eye-ring, whiteish eye-ring... just too many important details that I missed
Northern Cardinal
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
American Goldfinch
House Finch
Purple Finch
Brown-headed Cowbird
House Sparrow
Thirty-one species for the week - still quite respectable for early morning, late afternoon and a little lunchtime birding.
my November birding gear
Info on feeder survey, taken from NHBC's website:
NHBC 18th Annual Winter Feeder Survey
November 1, 2010 through March 31, 2011
This is a yearly census to help determine the number and frequency of birds visiting feeders in the Greater New Haven area. You are invited to observe and record the activity at your feeder at least once a week for the entire time period.
Contact-Peter Vitali: 203.288.0621,vitali_peter_e@sbcglobal.net
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