Very productive day of birdwatching....

[chiefMOJOrisin]

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.

[SixFeetUnd3r]

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[littlebigpuff]

thats quite cool mate disregard the comment from SixFeetUnd3r.
im not into bird watching be i do enjoy watching bird in trees and squirrels and what u saw sounds realy cool

[Zylark]

Not really grasped the fascination of birdwatching. But that is me. Seems you have great fun with this hobby chief, so much so that I almost envy your enthusiasm for it.

Beats being some beer'n'snacks guzzling TV-sports addict in my book. But then again, most hobbies that take place outside and/or mandates some activity, do

[chiefMOJOrisin]

Originally Posted by Zylark

Not really grasped the fascination of birdwatching. But that is me. Seems you have great fun with this hobby chief, so much so that I almost envy your enthusiasm for it.

Beats being some beer'n'snacks guzzling TV-sports addict in my book. But then again, most hobbies that take place outside and/or mandates some activity, do

Hey, the herb and beer often comes with me

[tooking]

watching birds high must be fun

[Pink Oddity]

My ecology professor was sort of a birdwatcher/nature nut. She did an article about the barn swallows in new england (i think?) and about how other birds nonrelated to the two mating birds help out in the nest. She and her team discovered this third party of 'helpers' ended up killing the babies: picking them up, flying off, and dropping them like little h-bombs.
Pretty interesting stuff. Never been into bird watching my self, but I loved listening to this woman go on and on about her barn swallows.

[Budder81]

For some reason I love watching crows, they seem to think more.

Today on my break, I saw 2 birds about the size of a pidgeon but more crowlike, but was metallic dark blue. It's mate (i'm guessing) was tanish brown but they were flying togeter and landing together looking for food. What was it? It was interesting to watch.

[chiefMOJOrisin]

Originally Posted by Budder81

For some reason I love watching crows, they seem to think more.

Today on my break, I saw 2 birds about the size of a pidgeon but more crowlike, but was metallic dark blue. It's mate (i'm guessing) was tanish brown but they were flying togeter and landing together looking for food. What was it? It was interesting to watch.

There are several birds that most would call a 'blackbird'.....when in reality, the species most likely doesn't even have the word 'black' in it's name. There are grackles, crows, anis, ravens......

The first questions I must ask.......where (geographical) did you see the bird?? Did it have yellow or red eyes?? I've only just really gotten into birding....but one thing I have heard over and over (and is very true) is that the more you scrutinize a bird you see, the easier it will be to identify it later on.....and it will build your skills in noticing field marks on the bird.

My first guess would be a European Starling. They are an introduced species but are very prevelent everywhere. The male is about the size of a small robin, black, with colored specks and somewhat iridescent. The female and juvinile is smaller, but all brown with some dark markings on the back and wings.

(male-left/female-right)

It could be a common grackle if it was iridenscent/holagraphic-looking. Awesome birds....its possible to determine 5+ colors on one bird that from from away, looks totally black.


(I took this photo so you may need to zoom in to get a good look....or just google it)


If it was all black, and had a brown/bronze head.....and the female was grayish with some hard-to-see lines on the closed wings, with a very faint brown head.......then it was a Brown-headed Cowbird.

[Ugyatag]

How did you get into birdwatching?

[Pink Oddity]

Today out of the corner of my eye (i was in the parking lot at school) i saw this huge thing swoosh down and scurry on the ground. I looked over and it was this huge hawk/falcon creature. It was so big! He was attacking/chasing a smaller creature (i think it was a smaller bird cuz i think it came from the sky too?).
I stopped the car and gawked. Stopped up traffic behind me, heh.

[Budder81]

Originally Posted by chiefMOJOrisin

There are several birds that most would call a 'blackbird'.....when in reality, the species most likely doesn't even have the word 'black' in it's name. There are grackles, crows, anis, ravens......

The first questions I must ask.......where (geographical) did you see the bird?? Did it have yellow or red eyes?? I've only just really gotten into birding....but one thing I have heard over and over (and is very true) is that the more you scrutinize a bird you see, the easier it will be to identify it later on.....and it will build your skills in noticing field marks on the bird.

My first guess would be a European Starling. They are an introduced species but are very prevelent everywhere. The male is about the size of a small robin, black, with colored specks and somewhat iridescent. The female and juvinile is smaller, but all brown with some dark markings on the back and wings.

(male-left/female-right)

It could be a common grackle if it was iridenscent/holagraphic-looking. Awesome birds....its possible to determine 5+ colors on one bird that from from away, looks totally black.


(I took this photo so you may need to zoom in to get a good look....or just google it)


If it was all black, and had a brown/bronze head.....and the female was grayish with some hard-to-see lines on the closed wings, with a very faint brown head.......then it was a Brown-headed Cowbird.

No it was none of these, the male was much larger than it's supposid mate. It is much more slender, and I believe correct, I think the beak and feet were black as well. Could it just be a juvenile crow? And the brownish bird is just following? The eyes were yellow, and location is desert foothills of california.

I have a customer saying he can find me a raven chick, is it illegal to own one? I saw this lady who owned one and it followed her to work and chilled in the trees all day, and followed her back home. It was on TV, but this lady is beastmaster.

I always wanted to raise a wolf pup, raven chick, tiger cub and ferret/wolverine all at the same time and raise them together like beastmaster to protect my house (future house that is) in the woods.

[chiefMOJOrisin]

Originally Posted by Budder81

No it was none of these, the male was much larger than it's supposid mate. It is much more slender, and I believe correct, I think the beak and feet were black as well. Could it just be a juvenile crow? And the brownish bird is just following? The eyes were yellow, and location is desert foothills of california.

I have a customer saying he can find me a raven chick, is it illegal to own one? I saw this lady who owned one and it followed her to work and chilled in the trees all day, and followed her back home. It was on TV, but this lady is beastmaster.

I always wanted to raise a wolf pup, raven chick, tiger cub and ferret/wolverine all at the same time and raise them together like beastmaster to protect my house (future house that is) in the woods.

The bird you saw could be a raven as well. Or one of a couple types of crow. California birds are pretty different than New England birds. I'd love to go there for a week.


As long as the bird you keep isn't endangered, and it isn't against state/local laws you should be fine. I would check it out first for sure.

[cheebaa]

I'm not a bird watcher- but I can see why you would enjoy it.

I remember last year hiking- I had gone off trail up a rock formation to grab a toke and some lunch. Well as I was sitting ontop just relaxing in the sun- a hawk comes landing into a tree not 10 feet from me. It just sat there for a couple minutes while it was (what looked like) grooming itself making some weird noises.

I was just sitting there trying not to move and be as quiet as I could. I didn't want that thing to get freaked and try taking me out. Its a good sized bird.




Its a little frightening when you really don't know jack about birds.

[Medicine Al]

I got some pretty cool twitters on the hill here in El DoCo.

Black Phoebe
Cedar Waxwing
Redtail hawk
Turkey Vulture ( they look like condors, almost as big )
American Robin
Pacific Bluebird
Scrub Jay
Thompson's Goldfinch
Ruby throated Hummingbird
Bushtit
Tufted Titmouse

I had to buy a book to identify them, there's lots more that I can't remember right now, plus the season is just starting. We get a lot of summer visitors here, too. I definitely see the attraction, its fun to get baked and try to see what the hell is flying around.