Any Birders here?

[savage270]

Went for a walk and found the juvenile great horned owl has a sibling.

Nice set of hooters you've got there

 

[Maddog]

My son's friend took this photo.

 

[scrotcaster]

Wow ,, in ND?

 

[Allen]

Wow ,, in ND?

Most likely, they come through the Missouri River corridor in their migration routes. Long Lake NWR down by Moffit tends to be one of their stopping over points. I live just east of Lincoln and last year (or year before) I had over 100 of them circling above my place for a few hours on their spring trek north. By far the most I had ever seen at one time before that day was less than 10 in a flock. If I would have thought to grab the camera that day I could have gotten some nice shots of them in flight as they'd come over the house about 30 yards in the air.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Thats an awesome photo.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Magpies are related to crows, smart birds and fun to watch. We've had a pair of them in the yard for as long as I can remember and now a nest right next to our house in an evergreen tree. They get pretty social and make a variety of sounds / calls . A few days ago the cat was outside and a magpie was sneaking up behind him trying to peck his tail. We also have a resident pair of fox that show up once in a while and he does the same to them.

Update on the Martins , The whole colony showed up yesterday the 22nd and they are building nests. We had just that one and a couple here and there that came and left but never started building .
There are a few vids online of magpies playing with cats.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Didn't want to hijack the bird ID thread but we have some blackbirds coming into the feeder that I thought were just red wing black birds but wife said they sound way different so she looked them up and researched them and they are tri color black birds. Instead of red and yellow wings these are red and white as snow. We wouldn't have even noticed if it wasn't for a different sound. Supposedly only in California and the population is declining fast but I suppose it's possible that they are migrating further north.


https://abcbirds.org/bird/tricolored-blackbird/

 

[risingsun]

Didn't want to hijack the bird ID thread but we have some blackbirds coming into the feeder that I thought were just red wing black birds but wife said they sound way different so she looked them up and researched them and they are tri color black birds. Instead of red and yellow wings these are white as snow. We wouldn't have even noticed if it wasn't for a different sound. Supposedly only in California and the population is declining fast but I suppose it's possible that they are migrating further north.


https://abcbirds.org/bird/tricolored-blackbird/

Even the birds are leaving and hate California too !!!!

 

[Maddog]

Wow ,, in ND?

That was last fall over by Harvey.
Photo by a friend of the family.

 

[Sluggo]

A little update here regarding martins nesting in my house. A pair of martins stopped by this spring and would try to go into an empty hole. A dang sparrow would grab them by the tail and ride them to the ground. That torqued me off so I started cleaning the sparrows out every couple of days. Lo and behold, 1 day I saw the martins taking nesting material into the house hassle free. So 1 pair nested. I believe the young are mature now and I have a whole school of them visiting now. Next spring I will do things differently and hopefully several pairs will nest. The pic below is from today.

 

[svnmag]

Very cool.

 

[IFishND]

A little update here regarding martins nesting in my house. A pair of martins stopped by this spring and would try to go into an empty hole. A dang sparrow would grab them by the tail and ride them to the ground. That torqued me off so I started cleaning the sparrows out every couple of days. Lo and behold, 1 day I saw the martins taking nesting material into the house hassle free. So 1 pair nested. I believe the young are mature now and I have a whole school of them visiting now. Next spring I will do things differently and hopefully several pairs will nest. The pic below is from today.

Turf wars man.

 

[Prairie Doggin']

I've got at least 4 Cooper's Hawks patrolling my yard, so not much other bird activity. Fun to watch them zip around, though.

 

[svnmag]

It would be cool to watch a few of them zip through a cloud of #7 1/2's.

 

[svnmag]

IMHO: WW AA Super Handicap is a superior upland shell in 12ga. If you have a Nickel Steel M12 Win FC at your disposal; it's possible to blow the ass through the beak of a late December rooster within the parameters of exaggeration. These are great shells if you do your part.

 

[Davey Crockett]

A little update here regarding martins nesting in my house. A pair of martins stopped by this spring and would try to go into an empty hole. A dang sparrow would grab them by the tail and ride them to the ground. That torqued me off so I started cleaning the sparrows out every couple of days. Lo and behold, 1 day I saw the martins taking nesting material into the house hassle free. So 1 pair nested. I believe the young are mature now and I have a whole school of them visiting now. Next spring I will do things differently and hopefully several pairs will nest. The pic below is from today.




Are you sure you only had one pair nesting ? I have the same thing going on here , some days there are half a dozen and the next day there might be none or 2 dozen. I'd never thought about colonies visiting other colonies but it might explain where they go sometimes. Some days they are way up high in the sky floating around for hours.

 

[Sluggo]

Pretty sure there was only 1 nesting pair. The flock only showed up recently. A birder buddy said they group up in preparation for migration. Of course, some are young of the year too.