*poof*

It snowed a little

Christmas! Family! Chickadee!

Black-capped Sapsucker

Easterners (2)

Still working on quality, but here are some birds.

Black-throated green...below the feeder at home


Black-capped chickadee


NOT A BIRD!? Black squirrel


Common yellow throat and indigo bunting


Red-bellied woodpecker

Snowed in

It snowed again. This time we got around 6-8 inches. The road we live on is not maintained too well, so it took them a day to plow it out, so we were stranded on the ridge for the night, which was fine. This morning it was still snowing pretty good, so we waited until it stopped around 10 to start shoveling out a couple of the bownets. We had two bait birds out for the day, but only saw a handful of birds flying. It looks like this brings our owl trapping to an end as well.









I've been sleeping in my tent for awhile now, even through the snow I guess.


Also, a quick video of a chickadee being trapped:

Banded Chicks

I just looked up the banded chickadees. Four of them appear to have been banded this year because they are not even entered into the database yet. Two of them were banded in September of 2008. One of them was banded in September of 2007. Old birds it seems to me...

Boredom Trapping

I did see another hawk!


I also did some more chickadee catching. I've caught six of them with different bands. At some point I'll look them up and see where they're from (probably here).

This one had a couple of white feathers growing on its head. Freak.




Hairy woodpecker.




Long inner tail feathers to support its body against trees as it hammers away.


Also, a (notsopurple) purple finch

Cheeseburger

It's been awhile for a post, because it's been awhile since a bird. Since that adult goshawk on Saturday we haven't caught any hawks. There have been a few owls, but we had our first two days of zero hawks and owls the last two days. Not only that, but the only birds we're seeing are the one or two adult bald eagles around.

Winds are bad, and it is November, so at this point we are all just kind of counting down the days, which is fine with me, as I am leaving in 8 (+/- a day). There is hope for more red tails or rough legs, and the occasional gos, but I think I'll be lucky to see another hawk before I leave. With only 7 red tails this year we have caught, by far, the fewest in the 39 years here. Fud has no idea why, but it might mean interesting things for next year.

In order to get some new pictures I set up a little potter trap on our bird feeder.


The first two chickadees I caught were banded. (Also, "Cheeseburger" is supposedly what it sounds like chickadees are saying in one of their calls...according to Larry.)



We also have a lot of red breasted nuthatches poking around and I was able to get one of each sex.

Here's a female, which has a gray-blue cap, as opposed to the male's black cap.


Male


Nuthatch tail

Insanely bored

We thought it would be a good day considering the weather, but nothing's flying, so I left for a bit.