Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Counting Crows
It was only 2 crows, but I liked the title.
Join Shirl for the great global birdwatch this weekend, if you haven't already. Here are the birds I saw this morning. I counted most of these between 7:30 AM and 8:30 AM, but the Downy Woodpecker, the Blue Jay, and the Red-bellied Woodpecker came along later (about 9:45 AM). Since I wasn't doing an official count for the RSBP, I thought I'd include them to make my list look better <grin>. Oops, I just noticed that birds flying overhead don't count, so I'd better strike those crows from the list.
I'm trying out Birdstack, a new online system for tracking bird observations. Not sure how much I'm going to use it. I've been using eBird for years and I've gotten very accustomed to their reporting form. Birdstack is somewhat different, but they intend to coordinate with eBird in the future. One piece of information I'd like to see in the reports is the number of birds of each species for each observation. Most of the above were one or two individuals, but there were 15 Dark-eyed Juncos! They've just discovered the feeder I put up a week ago in central Virginia.
Been playing with my new camera lens, but I could use some more practice. By the time I get done fiddling with the camera, the picture comes out like this:
Labels: birds
6 Comments:
Hi again, Entangled :-)
Great to have you join in with a bird count - you had quite a few birds too! I really must get a book to become more familiar with your birds. I had never heard of eBird or Birdstack but I really am new to watching the birds having only really observed them for two years now :-D
I am thinking about participating in the British Trust for Ornithology’s bird counts and observations in the future which are done quarterly. They are also interested in highest numbers of species seen. I think that will be quite interesting and fun to take part in :-D
Enjoy the birds in your garden and your new camera lens to capture photos of them :-D
This is cool! I had no inkling that there were computer programmes for tracking birds. The list of birds that you counted was impressive (coming from someone who didn't have any birds here today - not in these temperatures.)
You know what? I happen to really, really like crows! We have a few (somewhere around 6-10 tops) that come visit our back yard. I throw out bread, cereal, etc for them, as well as seed, and 'talk' to them when I'm outdoors.
Had never heard of those programs...what I need is some sort of software for my gardening stuff, like an e-journal. I might keep that current better!
Like the title of your post, HA! We seem to have the same bird visitors as you. I get excited about the big woodpeckers, guess they are so easy to spot without the binoculars. Those websites for keeping your bird counts are nice to know about, will check them out. I agree with Jodi, a plant record keeping site would be good too, for blooming times, etc. Thanks for the heads up!
Frances at Faire Garden
The birds in your garden are very different from mine, that much is sure. I wasn't able to go counting crows as there weren't any. I usually have a few Jackdaws in my garden but not while birdwatch was going on. I was more into counting sparrows and chaffinches. Doesn't have the same ring to it, though. ;-)
Shirl: Birdstack is new, and one feature I really like is that it's global. eBird is, I think, limited to North American species.
I love your UK robins, BTW. They're so much prettier than ours. There are some good online bird ID resources here. One of the best is Cornell University's All About Birds.
Cornell conducts a 4-day bird count late in February, and they also have a longer-term study called Project Feeder Watch.
Kate: I hope you get a break in the weather soon. At least we're almost finished with January. Our wooded lot gives us a lot of bird-watching opportunities.
Jodi: I think crows are handsome, but they irritate me by leaving remnants of food in the birdbath for me to clean up. Ummm, you talk to them? If I could figure out how, I'd ask them to keep their trash out of the birdbath ;-)
A collaborative garden journal would be interesting. I imagine it could be something like LibraryThing, except for plants instead of books. Dave's Garden is a step in that direction, but I haven't participated.
Frances: I'm a fan of the big woodpeckers too, especially the flickers. We have pileated woodpeckers, but I haven't seen one lately. Definitely don't need binoculars to see that one!
Yolanda Elizabet: I just Googled Jackdaw and found a Celtic-rock band. LOL. Probably not the same as the ones in your garden ;-)
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