Bird count results and a bird behavior question.

It's been fun seeing how many other bloggers participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count this year. I wonder if there will be a noticeable increase in participants this year?
Since it was mostly rainy during the counting I did I took most of the pictures on this post from inside. I also thought I'd try out some new settings to help with the poor light. This was also one of the only times I've used the optical zoom on this camera too. While it helps to get pictures of the birds at a distance, the quality isn't as good.

Pine Siskins have made their debut for the year in the garden during both bird counts I've done. They shared the bird feeder together for a long time.

February 12 (counted for one hour)
Black-capped Chickadee 7
Chestnut-backed Chickadee 2
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
Bewick's Wren 2
Song Sparrow 1
Dark-eyed Junco 10

Spotted Towhee in a just starting to bloom forsythia bush. I used the Optical zoom from inside and set the ISO to high. A couple of friends that do photography for a living told me that raising the ISO helps prevent the need to use flash. Not that good of a picture, more of an experiment with the settings.

February 13 (counted for 45 minutes)
Black-capped Chickadee 4
Chestnut-backed Chickadee 2
American Crow 3
Song Sparrow 1
Dark-eyed Junco 5
Pine Siskin 7
American Robin 5
Spotted Towhee 1
Seagull 1

A Dark-eyed Junco, our most common year round visitor.

I've been trying for awhile to get a picture of how some of the Juncos look here this winter. There are quite a few with these white patches all over their body. Some have much more white than this one. Any ideas to what it could be?

February 14 (counted for 45 minutes)
Black-capped Chickadee 4
Chestnut-backed Chickadee 3
American Robin 5
Townsend's Warbler 1
Spotted Towhee 2
Anna's Hummingbird 1
Dark-eyed Junco 6
Seagull 2
European Starling 1

February 15 (counted 30 minutes)
Black-capped Chickadees 7
Chestnut-backed Chickadees 4
Pine Siskins 2
Bewick's Wren 2
Dark-eyed Junco 5
American Crow 1

It's pretty interesting to go to the detailed reports page to see which states have had the most checklist or types of species turned in. I noticed that in our town's results only one Townsend's Warbler was seen during the whole count, and that was from my count.

Black-capped Chickadee

I also saw the strangest bird activity I've ever seen yesterday. While the Littlest Gardener and I were outside I noticed a neighbor cat walking through our yard. Minutes later I saw what looked like an injured Chickadee flapping around on the ground. Feeling upset that the cat hurt the bird, I realized as I got closer it was actually two Black-capped Chickadees and one appeared to be attacking the other. It was pretty aggressive too, with feathers flying around them. Once we were about 3 feet away they both flew off, neither appeared injured. The birds have been very noisy and appear to be looking for nesting places already. I wonder if this fight had anything to do with this. I'd love to learn what this behavior could have meant.

Kylee at Our Little Acre will be putting together a post with links to bloggers that participated in the Bird Count.

Countdown to the bird count.

I looked at my calender the other day only to realize that it's almost time to start counting. The Great Backyard Bird Count starts this Friday, February 12th. I'm hoping we find some interesting birds to count this year. I've been a little busy and unable to take many bird pictures, although we've had lots of visitors lately.
I have a feeling the Juncos will outnumber all the birds again like last year. Chickadees and Nuthatches, along with Sparrows and Wrens have all been at the bird feeders. I've also noticed a new hummingbird hanging out in the Cherry tree in our front yard. I can't figure out what it's going to, I haven't seen it at the feeder, just flying in and out of the tree.
I peeked outside to see a Spotted Towhee hopping around and singing in our front yard. He flew off before I returned with my camera.
This little guy was so into his bath he didn't notice me taking pictures.

This Song Sparrow would sit and rest, almost like he was daydreaming, before he would dive down into the water.

Here he goes, ready to get wet...

Splishing and

splashing his little heart out. How can they make such a big splash with so little water?

He must have repeated this whole bathing routine three times while I was outside.

I'm going to get all the feeders filled today so that the birds will continue to visit during the count. Someone mentioned in their post last year about putting some seed or food close to the house so they could get some good close up pictures, I think I'll try that too this year.

Get ready to count!

The Great Backyard Bird Count has announced the dates for next year's bird count. It's February 12 - 15, 2010. I've always been a backyard birdwatcher and this was a fun way to make my hobby mean something.

Click on the picture above to learn more.

Black capped Chickadees are always regulars at the feeders here.

The Anna's Hummingbird has been here every day. She just keeps posing for me.

Song sparrow has been a recent visitor.

I'm so happy to see the Red-breasted Nuthatches have been returning. I love watching these birds hop up and down the tree trunks or visit the suet feeders in the winter.

I've also been spotting a Townsend's Warbler again at the bark butter feeder. There is a picture of one on my sidebar that was visiting our garden this time last year. Hopefully I'll be able to get a picture of one with my new camera soon.

Last year my 11 year old daughter and I participated for the first time in the bird count. Click here to read our counts. She was even more excited about it than I imagined. This is a good time to practice your birdwatching and learning about your local birds. You only have to count the birds you know, so don't be intimidated to try.

The results are in.

Our first Great Backyard Bird Count was a success. We started off slowly on February 13th with a cold and cloudy day. Not too many visitors made an appearance. Luckily the following three days we had lots of visitors. In fact so many some times we had a hard time getting everyone counted. My oldest daughter had so much fun helping, she was out before 8 am yesterday with her camera and binoculars. She is very good at identifying birds. Here she is all ready to count.

I took as many pictures as I could. Unfortunately I had a hard time photographing any of our more uncommon birds since they were not always close enough to get a good picture of with my camera. Maybe next year I'll have a better camera and better photos. Some of these photos were taken by my helper.

I discovered that the Steller's Jays and chickadees have found the new seed feeder. I didn't see any birds on the peanut butter feeder, but I did see the squirrels eating all the bark butter off of the tree I had put it on. The Dark-eyed juncos were our most common visitors. They seem to be in and around our yard most of the day. The American Crows were mostly fly overs, although they like to sit in the high branches of our pine tree. We also see seagulls on a regular basis even though we don't live very close to water. They seem to be around the same times the crows are here. I think I counted 14 different types of birds over the 4 days, not bad at all.

So here are the results:

Day 1

American Crow 9

Black-capped Chickadee 5

Bushtit 1

Bewick's Wren 2

Dark-eyed Junco 14

Day 2

gull species 1

Steller's Jay 1

American Crow 23

Black-capped Chickadee 2

Chestnut-backed Chickadee 4

Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1

American Robin 4

Dark-eyed Junco 17

Day 3

gull species 1

Anna's Hummingbird 1

Northern Flicker 1

Steller's Jay 5

American Crow 15

Black-capped Chickadee 14

Chestnut-backed Chickadee 6

Bushtit 1

Bewick's Wren 4

American Robin 7

European Starling 2

Dark-eyed Junco 24

Day 4

gull species 2

Steller's Jay 2

American Crow 4

Black-capped Chickadee 6

Chestnut-backed Chickadee 5

Red-breasted Nuthatch 2

American Robin 5

European Starling 7

Townsend's Warbler 1

Dark-eyed Junco 24

We spent about 1 and a half to 2 hours total each day counting birds.

I think seeing the Townsend's Warbler was one of my favorites. It is a beautiful bird and it stayed in our yard for awhile on the suet feeder and resting in the shrubs.

For all the results you can look at the Great Backyard Bird Count. It is broken down into many categories and was fun to see how many bird species were counted in our city and state. We'll definitely participate again next year.