Bird Watchers Out There

[Rockyrepose]

I was curious as to how many birders have the app called Merlin from The Cornell Lab. I have a feeder in the yard that I enjoy and have found that this app is becoming quite the indispensable tool not only here at the house but also while I'm out traveling. I particularly like the function called sound ID. It uses the microphone on your phone to pick out birds in the area. The pictures I've taken of the birds that I might have missed without the use of Merlin are not great because I was using heavy zoom modes to avoid scaring off the birds I have identified.

I also have used the app to bring in birds for visualization with the recorded calls and songs from the app. I had a Black-capped Chickadee really searching for the call I sent out flying within a few feet in the trees overhead. This has worked well with a lot of species, a Yellow Warbler this last weekend up in the Wind River range while I sat on the edge of a brook smoking the pipe.

Here are but a few of the shots I managed around the house.

A wild turkey brood that I didn't need the app for yesterday in the front yard.









A screenshot of the app.




I have dozens more but you get the idea, I highly recommend Merlin.

 

[didimauw]

I wouldn't call myself a bird watcher. But I always stop to look at em if they are around.
I've been feeding a crow at my work for two weeks now. He will watch me throw food and swoop down next to my jeep and grab it. I now save some of my food especially for him. I call him Poe. He's cool.
Something about birds.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

The Sound ID feature is very handy. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much variety in PA or NY lately.

 

[Servant King]

I don't use a cell phone, so I just go by sight, sound, and various resources on the internet. There's also an octogenarian ornithologist in the area. I pick his brain every chance I get, and if I'm ever stumped on an ID, all it takes is one email to him--he nails it every time. Summer is the off-season for birds here, since there's so much forage in the forest. I probably won't put out seed again until September at the earliest.

Great pics...that's a nice black-headed grosbeak! Chickadees are my favorite. It's the only bird I've ever gotten to eat right out of my hand. ?

 

[Rockyrepose]

I wouldn't call myself a bird watcher. But I always stop to look at em if they are around.
I've been feeding a crow at my work for two weeks now. He will watch me throw food and swoop down next to my jeep and grab it. I now save some of my food especially for him. I call him Poe. He's cool.
Something about birds.

I've been hoping to befriend crows in the area but no luck so far. I've heard the best chance is to be able to interact with them at a consistent time of day which hasn't happened. They are smart and will pretty much do whatever they want.

 

[Rockyrepose]

I don't use a cell phone, so I just go by sight, sound, and various resources on the internet. There's also an octogenarian ornithologist in the area. I pick his brain every chance I get, and if I'm ever stumped on an ID, all it takes is one email to him--he nails it every time. Summer is the off-season for birds here, since there's so much forage in the forest. I probably won't put out seed again until September at the earliest.

Great pics...that's a nice black-headed grosbeak! Chickadees are my favorite. It's the only bird I've ever gotten to eat right out of my hand. ?

I like the Chickadees a lot too, quite the distinct song for such a little guy.

 

[Pipeoff]

During the Winter in w NY feed the birds every day. The BlueJays call each other and are the first to arrive then Cardinals and others finally the large Doves that clean up seeds on the ground. It costs me about $18 a week for quality seed but well worth it.

 

[didimauw]

I've been hoping to befriend crows in the area but no luck so far. I've heard the best chance is to be able to interact with them at a consistent time of day which hasn't happened. They are smart and will pretty much do whatever they want.

Yes. Bought my wife a crow call earlier this year cause she wants to befriend them. Didn't even know crow calls existed. And yes now my crow friend hangs out and waits for me on my lunch break, in hopes I give him more bread lol.

 

[CoffeeAndBourbon]

I have both the Merlin app and the Petersen app!

 

[CoffeeAndBourbon]

I like the spunky little Carolina Wrens we have around here.

 

[mso489]

Love to watch birds and go out with real birders when I can. Seems like the more expert ones often go mostly by sound, tracking down the birds visually by following their songs. They already know them by their calls.

In the last few years, I've missed what used to be our ever-present mockingbirds singing up a storm. I'm told they're still around, but I don't see them.

We do have the Carolina wrens, which nested one year in a bag of mulch, and another in a watering can. Now i have a birdhouse on a tree, but relocated it because I realized it was too close to the air conditioner noise. No tenants this season, though I am hoping for a pair with a second brood.

We do get brown thrashers from time to time, which are supposed to be fussy nesters. Yesterday I saw a bluejay, pretty common, but not in our yard lately.

Canada geese became a real local pest, leaving droppings all over lawns and mugging picnickers, but in recent years they've become respectable citizens. People don't feed them, so they keep their distance and have tidy little nests on parkways and any grassy patch in among the cars and people. Like a whole different bird.

Crows are general here, as everywhere. I talk to them, and they answer back. I fed them for a while, and they brought me presents. I had to give up feeding them because it drew squirrels that got in the attic.

I like chickadees, titmouse, robins of course, towees, house finches, cardinals (the N.C. state bird), goldfinch, kinglets, etc., and hummingbirds are always a big deal.

Now and then we get owls in the creek bed across the street. I love their call, the hoot owl, but they seem to move along.

 

[irishearl]

I'm an avid albeit amateur birder-been at it less than 4 years, taking it up when I retired. Don't use the app as I don't even own a cell phone. Am lucky in living 6 miles from a world-class inland marsh refuge. Last year saw my first whooping cranes there as well as snowy owls among many other species. Live only a few miles from a prairie dog town and saw my first burrowing owl there last year.

 

[agnosticpipe]

A couple of years ago I cut down a dead tree in our front yard, but left the stump there to remove later. I got a little help from a Pileated woodpecker who hammered away about 1/8th of it. Man they are big birds, (like a crow) and can remove a lot of wood in short order. I used to do a lot of bird watching from our porch, but gave it up when I took the bird feeder down because of health issues. I think I'll be able to start again this fall.

 

[mso489]

There's a man-made lake not far away that has great blue heron and the occasional egret, as well as cormorant which are a very old species, a water bird that doesn't have enough oil in its feathers to waterproof it, so it sits out on logs and drys out its wings. It looks ancient. You can really see the dinosaur in that bird. We get gulls there in the winter that get fed stale bred to great excitement.

My most memorable birding experience was spending eight months on Midway Island in the mid-Pacific and watching the Laysan Albatross hatch their chicks, feed them up, and eventually watch them learn to fly. The adults are awkward on land, sometimes tumbling to a stop when landing. Naive people flying through on the old Pan Am flights called them Gooney Birds, out of ignorance. Albatross have a six-foot wing span, travel for months over and on the water, and are truly the lords of the air. They have a mating dance and a sky call. A total bird immersion, they are.

 

[Hillcrest]

I don't have the app but I did sign up on the birds in your area email alert and unfortunately now regret it as I get way too many emails. I love watching the birds and am always curious about new ones I spot but my sister is more of a birder in her state and occasionally goes out with the local club that has a famous ornithologist in it. She also maintains a bird feeder. Right now she is babysitting two mallards that have taken up residence and some cardinals. I live between a reservoir and a small pond about 2 miles apart so I see birds migrate between the two daily; such as great blue heron on Tuesdays and Thursdays most weeks, the occasional night heron, once a bald eagle flying along the river that feeds the reservoir (they are nesting in the woods next to reservoir ! Funny story the Dept of Environmental Protection "discovered" the eagles near the reservoir and had a big front page story about it ... but no mention of the guy who called them three weeks before and reported the bald eagle flying along the river on Martin Luther King Day ... (me !). That's the State for you ! My yard also sees cardinal, titmice, wrens, orioles, catbirds, bluejays, crows, woodpeckers - redheaded, pileated, and ladderback, occasionally tanigers, field hawks, harrier hawks, screech owls at night, hoot (horned) owls, barnswallows. The great blue heron has about an 8 foot wingspan. I also saw a cormorant fly over once but nobody believed me. It was heading to Long island Sound about 10 miles away by air.

I'll post some pictures when I find my scandisk.

 

[bullet08]

I don't watch them on purpose. They just sorta fly around here.

 

[warren]

Being a wildlife photographer I use Merlin often. It's a great tool, birder or not. I'm not.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Merlin is a superb app.

 

[Servant King]

Wife got these two shots of a Hairy woodpecker female...

Inert:



...and mid-peck!:



There's also a photo of a Western kingbird couple mating, but I'm trying to keep it G-rated here... ?

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

My wife loves Merlin