If you feed the birds, do you have a favorite species?

I do feed them but I don’t know what types they are.
I also buy shelled peanuts for the squirrels.

Chickadees. No question about it. They talk to you and will land in your hand. How cool is that?

I love tufted titmice!

I have a soft spot for hawks.
I don’t feed them in my yard, but I have fed them, yes.

I’ve had a tufted titmouse land in my hand too but it is rare. I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

@LuckyGuy that was really cool.

<————-My user name says it all

Well, sort of. Actually, I love all wild life. We feed the ducks, geese, land mammals, and have lots of favorite birds.

This time of year I find the starlings & juncos interesting to watch. Soon enough, I’ll spend time watching the robins, then the orioles-etc.

I also have a soft spot for chickadees. Last summer we had a couple in one of our front birdhouses that like to fly right over my head when I took the dogs out.

I love to feed and watch hummingbirds. I use to put out suet feeders for mockingbirds, but now that I’m in Florida I am going to try a tray feeder with berries to attract them. If I can just keep the squirrels away. Someone told me to try safflower seeds to keep the squirrels out of your feeders. I don’t know what to do to keep the squirrels away from the seed trays though.

We have an array of large birds who feed on our golf course. It is an interesting and beautiful site to see the large sandhill cranes in the mornings on the third tee box.

@bkcunningham Have you ever heard the hummingbirds chirp when they fight for territory?

Yes. I’ve heard them chirp and watched them dive at each other like drunken kamikaze fighters with their wings stirring the air into a buzzing frenzied sound.

The black-capped chickadee is my favorite! they are such a wonderful sign of life in the bleakest winters. I have very fond memories of them from when I was little. I have a sculpture I bought on ebay of a chickadee perched on a branch. It was done by a Chinese artist and it is amazing.
Mariah I also like the tufted titmouse. I didn’t realize anyone else paid attention to birds enough to know about them! I saw one out my window one day and was so entranced I had to know what it was. I looked it up on the internet to find out. I almost bought another sculpture of a titmouse. I even added my sighting to the Christmas bird count!

@Earthgirl We have a store in the northeast called Wild Birds Unlimited. They have some awesome bird feeding stuff.

It makes me feel good that there are others who enjoy birdwatching. I’m proud of you guys. I’ve kept a little record of the birds I’ve spotted over the years. Dates, times and locations. It forces you to discover what type of birds you are spotting.

I have a little book where I wrote down the birds with my two natural born children and the amazing things they would say about the birds. It is something I treasure. If I would lose my eyes, someone could read that book to me and I’d still be able to envision the good times I had with my children and the birds in those few short years.

Adirondackwannabe Did you ever make suet for the birds? I was reading recipes once but I never tried it.

My sister has a beautiful garden and she loves the hummingbirds that come.

I’ve made my own, but the commercial mixes work better. Get one with lots of stuff mixed in, like seeds, fruit, etc. They love it much more than plain suet. The hummingbird mixes are much better too.

Adirondackwannabe There is a Wild Birds Unlimited very near to me. I think I’ll go buy some suet and sit in wait for the birds…...I guess I better do it on the weekend. I come home after dark these days.

@Earthgirl Suet will bring in some birds. A varieity of foods will bring in the most birds.

Our (Illinois) state bird, the northern cardinal. I’ve become familiar with their call and I love their bright red color. It really stands out in the snow. They are beautiful birds imo.

We got bird feeders in the backyard that we regularly maintain. (by regularly maintain, I mean the caretaker of my building does it, not me lol) You can see lots of different birds. Sparrows, cardinals, others I don’t know the name of. One we see often kind of looks like a magpie, with a long tail. It’s black, with white and red tips on the wings and tail. I’d like to know what kind of bird this is.
But mostly, huge ravens just come by, scare the shit out of every bird and pig out on the grains. They’re not even afraid of the abundance of stray cats that keep marauding the backyard grounds. :/

Fortunately for me, I love ravens. Even when they’re eating carrion or picking out of the garbage, they look majestic.

Also, sometimes squirrels are messing around on the bird feeders lol.

@Symbeline, it could be a red-winged blackbird: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/PHOTO/LARGE/red_winged_blackbird_4.jpg

Symbeline yeah, or sitting on tombstones saying “Nevermore…” lol

I do love crows and ravens too. They are so common in folk art. I even wrote a poem once about some noisy crows I saw one morning on the way to work.

And here is a Winnie the Pooh video with crows!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmTo35ZhI08

@bkcunningham That isn’t it, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that one you linked. Where I saw those was on the outskirts of Winnipeg, near marshy areas. I may be mistaken though, but if that wasn’t it, it looked similar.

@Earthgirl Poe rocks. :)

Cbickadees, the tiny birds with the great big hearts. They sing through the coldest of days.

If I had to pick one bird, it would be the winter wren. It is a very small bird with an enormous and long song.

Winter wren

Song in middle of the page.

I don’t feed them because I moved and we don’t have them here, but my favorite is the cardinal. It’s the only bird I can whistle like and it whistles back to me. I’ve no idea what we’re saying, but there’s a definite whistle, and then response whistle.

Robins. I love their fat and furry orange tummies. Last year I had the pleasure of watching 3 robins hatch and grow right outside my back door. The kids used the front door until the robins grew big enough to fly away.

I don’t actively feed birds but I have a huge Scots Pine tree in my back garden that attracts seed-eaters. The best bird I’ve seen in my garden was a bullfinch

Cardinal

Wow, @downtide. That bullfinch is beautiful.

I love all birds. But the ones I have and feed are love birds, Mourning Doves, Black Francolins, Chakurs (Partidge) and Cockatlel Parrots.

I love the little chick a dees. When they start to sing you know spring is here. I also love to feed the woodpeckers and cardinals. I love all wild birds but I dislike domestic birds, especially parrots of all kinds.