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The thread for birds and birding

LynahFan said:
Where do you live? My company (Melbourne, FL) has a large campus with lots of ponds/lakes/wetlands (I mentioned that it's Florida). The last two seasons, a pair of sandhill cranes have hatched chicks somewhere on the property. I've never spotted the nest, but they walk all over the parking lot, and sometimes block the sidewalks so people have to go into the grass to get around them - totally unphased. A sandhill crane chick looks like a baby turkey on stilts - ridiculously cute.
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A lot of sandhill cranes in our area. They have the coolest call, which travels forever.
 
First time I've ever seen an oriole in the wild and we saw a mating pair today on our hummingbird feeder. Been on my list for years.

we're never put out oranges or jam because we've had issues with wasps and for whatever reason they haven't done much with the hummingbird feeders.

and the hummingbirds have been going nutso this week. Crazy!
 
I've been getting some new birds to my feeders (but not birds I hadn't seen before). Lazuli Buntings and Black Headed Grosbeaks. That's been very cool. The Black Chinned Hummingbirds have been showing up to. Lots of other stuff too. Lesser goldfinch, American goldfinch, red breasted nuthatch, mourning dove, house Finch, Downey woodpecker.

We have a big hummingbird feeding station in the national forest area about an hour away. A few dozen feeders and hundreds of hummingbirds and probably thousands during the migration. Black chinned, calliope, rufous, and broad tailed hummingbirds all show up. So cool to stand in the middle and have dozens of hummingbirds flying around your head sometimes just inches away.

Bought a fancier camera back in 2020. Nikon Coolpix P950. Even has a birding mode. Been getting lots of great stuff. Checked off a lot of lifers the past 2 years because of it.
 
Proud2baLaker said:
I've been getting some new birds to my feeders (but not birds I hadn't seen before). Lazuli Buntings and Black Headed Grosbeaks. That's been very cool. The Black Chinned Hummingbirds have been showing up to. Lots of other stuff too. Lesser goldfinch, American goldfinch, red breasted nuthatch, mourning dove, house Finch, Downey woodpecker.

We have a big hummingbird feeding station in the national forest area about an hour away. A few dozen feeders and hundreds of hummingbirds and probably thousands during the migration. Black chinned, calliope, rufous, and broad tailed hummingbirds all show up. So cool to stand in the middle and have dozens of hummingbirds flying around your head sometimes just inches away.

Bought a fancier camera back in 2020. Nikon Coolpix P950. Even has a birding mode. Been getting lots of great stuff. Checked off a lot of lifers the past 2 years because of it.
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Wait, where are you living to get those hummingbirds? That's got to be much further south.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats the loon on a summer evening at the cabin.
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This.
We have Hummers (only the one kind), orioles, cardinals, woodpeckers- downy, hairy, pileated, redbellied, and flickers, bluebirds, rose-breasted grosbeaks, mockingbirds, redwinged blackbirds, titmice, goldfinches, chickadees, Carolina wrens, nuthatches and some I can't remember all coming to the feeders. Bluebirds and orioles on the suet is new in the last yr.
We've had a shift in when things come back. Much earlier
 
We don't get much in the way of bluebirds in our neighborhood. too densely suburban. But maybe a half mile away I'm sure we could find some on the trails.

the hummingbirds have been coming like mad this year. Just lining up at the two feeders and the trees around them. This year the red winged blackbirds have been sticking around the neighborhood longer. Normally by now they've moved to the meadows and fields. Probably because of the new development going in :-(

on our drive up to Isanti today we saw several sand hill cranes. At least four or five.
 
What is the easiest way to embed pictures in a post? Or is there even a way? I was never any good at it even on the old version of the board. I'd love to share a few of the pictures I have especially of the different hummingbird species.
 
Ok. Trying a pic. Hopefully this works (I didn't intend for my name on them here. I post them on a Birding Facebook group and pretty much everyone puts their name on them, and I don't see an option to crop here)

This is a male Calliope Hummingbird. When displaying they will flare those bright colored neck feathers out in a fan. Pretty cool to watch them to that. Even with a pretty good camera, its tough to get a crisp picture of a hummingbird in flight. Haha.

104466217_10100442870846104_5848846181075384067_n.jpg
 
Black Chinned Hummbingbird. Maybe doesn't show the colors of the chin so much (which are actually a deep purple) but I do like the composition here.

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Saturday evening sitting by the firepit (Grain Belt may have been involved) we saw a little black cormorant "froggin'" down at the river line. That's a first time ever for that species also.
 
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