Category Archives: Wingscapes Birdcam

BPW: Totally Nuts!

I’ve been well pleased with the birds we’ve had stopping at our peanut feeder this fall so far, especially the regular visits from both Red-breasted and White-breasted Nuthatches. Both species were rare back yard sightings in the past. I set our Wingscapes Birdcam out to capture some images over the last few days.

There were a few surprises – birds that normally aren’t considered nut feeders. These guys didn’t stay at the feeder too long.

Dark-eyed Junco
Juncos prefer to forage on the ground – usually not on feeders

House Finch
House Finches don’t seem to be big peanut fans

European Starling & Red-winged Blackbird
These guys looked lost (European Starling | Red-winged Blackbird)

Pine Siskin
OMG a Pine Siskin! Haven’t seen these in the yard for ourselves yet – thanks Birdcam!

Then there were the expected birds. I’d like to see Red-bellied Woodpeckers more often, and these nuts seem to bring them in more than the suet & nuts in the shell (yay!).

Black-capped Chickadee
Black-capped Chickadees snatch nuts throughout the day

Downy Woodpecker
Female Downy Woodpeckers seem to visit more than…

Downy Woodpecker
… male Downy Woodpeckers

Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker seems to prefer our suet feeder – nice to see a peanut visit

Red-breasted Nuthatch
At least two individual Red-breasted Nuthatches visit regularly

I’m really happy to have both of our regular nuthatches visiting on a daily basis. Last year we had one Red-breasted stop by for one or two days, and that was it! Now several individuals of both species are visiting daily. The White-breasted is a new yard bird this year! And boy, do they love the nuts. They also like to pose for the camera. I found a lot of photos like these:

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

Hopefully they’ll all continue visiting during the winter. Tomorrow, though, I’m putting the camera on a finch sock or something. I mean, really, a Pine Siskin!?!?

Bird Photography Weekly is a regular collection of user-submitted bird photos from all over the world. The new edition comes out every Sunday. Go have a look at this week’s submissions!

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Posted in Bird Photography Weekly, Wingscapes Birdcam, Yard Birds | 10 Comments

More Bathing Beauties

As I mentioned in the last post, I see mostly Mourning Doves and House Sparrows at the ground birdbath during the day. The Mourning Doves like to park in the water for a long time and rarely seem to splash around, unlike the robin who just got down to business right away. Sometimes the doves have a party. It usually starts with one bird lounging in the bath.

One bathing Mourning Dove

Soon another joins the fun. This one started blowing bubbles to liven things up a bit.

Mourning Dove blowing bubbles

Then a third dove will join in, but the bath might be too crowded so she has to wait on the side. Sometimes it might get a little awkward.

Third wheel Mourning Dove

At this point one of two things might happen. 1) The party gets crashed by House Sparrows.

House Sparrows & Mourning Doves bathing

Or 2) dove orgy. A female Red-winged Blackbird walked in on this threesome.

Blackbird breaks up dove orgy

Shocking, I know!

Shocked Red-winged Blackbird

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Posted in Funny, Wingscapes Birdcam, Yard Birds | 1 Comment

2 new yardies

We’ve seen European Starlings in the trees around our house almost since we moved in, but I didn’t really want to count them as a yard bird until I had a photo. I didn’t think that would be too hard, but how wrong I was. Last week was the first time we spotted one on our feeders. I’ve always known Starlings to be bold and gregarious, but the ones in our neighborhood seem to be skittish and wary. This Starling visited our feeders very early one morning when it was still nearly dark out. The photo was taken by our birding robot, the Wingscapes Birdcam. I had to brighten up the image a lot so you could tell what kind of bird it is – yard bird #14, the exotic, endangered European Starling! 😉

European Starling

The Birdcam found yard bird #15, too. It would be several days before we saw this one for ourselves – the American Tree Sparrow.

American Tree Sparrow

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Chattanooga Cowbirds

Last November we took a short road trip down to Tennessee and the Carolinas. While in Chattanooga we saw this huge flock of Brown-headed Cowbirds feeding along the road.

Cowbirds in Chattanooga

Cowbirds in Chattanooga

Cowbirds have recently returned to our area. We’ve even seen them in our yard!

Brown-headed Cowbirds

I wonder if any of our Cowbirds are the same ones we saw in Chattanooga…?

Cowbirds in Chattanooga/span>

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Peekaboo Goldfinches

It took a few days for the resident American Goldfinches to figure out the nyjer sock but today they were out in full force. Well, maybe more like half force. Every time I looked outside today there were two to four birds on the sock. But the Birdcam only got peekaboo shots like these.



There were actually a LOT more photos like the last one, but this isn’t that kind of blog.

American Goldfinch is our 15th Birdcam yard bird.

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Temperatures fall, woodpeckers hit suet

It’s just cold all over, isn’t it? We were supposed to get a winter blizzard here in Lake County last night but I think we ended up with less than an inch of accumulation. Heavy snow predicted for the rest of the week has also been downgraded to dustings – so far. The low temperatures are here to stay, however, for the next week at least. We hit the low 20’s today, tomorrow’s predicted high is 14°F and Thursday we’ll only reach up to 3°F.

With the cold temps, our resident woodpeckers have been attacking our suet feeders. I set up the Wingscapes Birdcam to take some videos of one suet log and captured our three usual suspects.

Downy Woodpeckers were at the feeder all day. This video shows them going at it from the morning to the late afternoon.



We also get Hairy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers. On this video you can see all three: first a Hairy gets chased off by a Red-bellied. After the Red-bellied flies off, a Downy comes in. You can easily see the size difference of the Hairy and Downy in this short clip.

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