I have enjoyed birdwatching for a long time. Yet only recently have I become obsessed. I live in Southern Connecticut and one of the very best places to go birding is Milford Point in Milford, CT. The Connecticut Audubon Society has an outpost there which is very informative and quite cool.
They have a 24-hour Osprey webcam which is damn awesome. I see it online and I got to look at it within 100 yards. I got amazing pictures of the osprey bringing sticks back to the nest as a gift and to maintain the nest.
http://67.86.143.68:81/view/index.shtml
I also got lucky enough to watch a beautiful Copper's Hawk swoop down, miss a small bird, perch about 10 feet from me.....stayed statue-like still for 5-10 minutes, then done down from the low branch and attacked a finch-sized bird, and flew away. It was breath taking to see the wanderful act of nature hapening 5 feet in front of me.
If anyone knows birds...or doesn't...heres a list of what I saw yesterday between 6:40 and 9:45am. I have pictures of 75% of the birds I saw.....I took 413 pics yesterday (good thing my CompactFlash card holds 430). If anyone wants to see a pic of a specific bird I'll post it.
(male and female are the same unless specified/some several of each species)
Red-Winged Blackbird (male only)
Common Grackle
European Starling (male only)
Mourning Dove
American Crow
American Robin
Pine Siskin
Common Redpoll
House Finch (male and female)
Northern Cardinal (male and female<-female one of my favs)
Song Sparrow
??Vesper Sparrow??
House Sparrow (male and female)
Swamp Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Clay-colored Sparrow
American Tree Sparrow
Great Black-backed Gull (adult and immature)
Black-footed Kittiwake
Herring Gull (adult and immature)
Osprey
Cooper's Hawk
American Goldfinch (one of my favs)
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Red-Bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Yellow-shafter Northern Flicker
Canadian Goose
Mute Swan
Mallard (male and female)
Blue-Jay
Monk Parakeet
Northern Shrike
It was great. There were many more seabirds that were too far off shore to identify. There should be a forum, here designated to birds.