Woodpecker or?

Man it is cold here. It has been below freezing every night and barely above freezing everyday. Even with that, my bird bath experiment has been kind of a bust. Well, it might be a bust. I have seen a few birds using it, but not the large numbers I had hoped for. It is still early in the winter, so time may tell. The water does not freeze in the bath though. The heater is working as advertised.

With that being said, I looked out my window this morning and there were actually some Northern Cardinals drinking out of the bird bath. I am going to save that picture for later on as I gather them up throughout the winter.

While I was watching them, I caught something big out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at my neighbors yard (2 neighbors over) and and saw what looked like a partridge. It had some red on it and then it disappeared in the yard where I couldn't see it.

That neighbor has no feeders and just a bunch of wood piled up that he puts in his fireplace. I grabbed the camera and waited patiently for the large bird to fly out of his yard to a place where I could see what it was. Eventually it flew up in a tree nearby and I got a few pictures.

In the first picture you can tell what it is and the 2nd picture shows it in all of its glory. It is a very large Northern Flicker.

Northern Flicker

Nice full shot of a Northern Flicker

Guess what? The Northern Flicker is a permanent resident in Northern Virginia so I get to add it to my list. That looks like a male Northern Flicker as it has a black malar under its eye. What is a malar? Think of the black eye shadow that football and baseball players put under their eyes.

World Bird Wednesday VIII

How often do you see birds waiting in line for food? Here is a picture of 2 Carolina Wrens, a Dark-eyed Junco and a Northern Cardinal waiting for a squirrel to finish up before they go and eat.

Hurry Up Squirrel, we are hungry!

Cranky-looking Carolina Wren

World Bird Wednesday VII

When I was out walking around this weekend, I saw lots of Sparrows. I learned a lesson from one of the blogs that I read daily. The person kept an eye on all of the sparrows that he saw and he eventually found a rare Sparrow in his yard. So I have been taking a photograph of nearly every Sparrow I see and checking them when I get back into the house. I did get a nice picture of a White-throated Sparrow, my World Bird Wednesday bird. 

Classic White-throated Sparrow

Huntley Meadows and Dykes Marsh

I went out to Huntley Meadows today as it was a day off of work. There were hundreds of Geese, Ducks, Crows and Gulls out there. Nothing really special. I did get a nice picture of a White-throated Sparrow which will be my World Bird Wednesday Bird.

I did get a new bird for me during my walk. A Red-tailed Hawk circled and circled and circled but would never come down. I had to take the picture almost over my head. This is part of my new action shot practice of 2011.

The Red-tailed Hawk is a permanent resident to Northern Virginia and is the first one added to my list in 2011.

Red-Tailed Hawk

I tried to zoom in a little more

I drove over to Dykes Marsh and walked to the Potomac River. There were also large rafts of Geese and Ducks there as well. I was able to get a new duck there as well. I found 2 male and 2 female Lesser Scaup among the many Ruddy Ducks and Mallards. The Lesser Scaup is a winter visitor to NOVA.

Male Lesser Scaup

Sunday walks

Aren't Sunday walks the best? I decided to walk down around the lake to see if the ice was out yet. There was still ice on the lake although there was open water near the shore. It was a little cold, but there were birds everywhere.

Flock of Ring-billed Gulls on the ice

Very vivid colors on the Mallards

Got pretty close to this Great Blue Heron

This House Sparrow looks cold

Happy New Year!

It has been quite a year here at Birding in Northern Virginia. I really started updating this blog in earnest this year. Birds seem to be everywhere and I took many days off work due to having the bird flu. I went back through my blogs from this year and it brought back a lot of good memories.


I photographed and posted 29 of the 53 permanent resident birds in NOVA. Including those, I saw a vast variety of birds. Here is the list from my earlier blogs of 2010.

American Coot
American Crow
American Goldfinch
American Robin
Bald Eagle
Belted Kingfisher
Black Vulture
Blue Jay
Bufflehead
Canadian Goose
Carolina Chickadee
Carolina Wren
Common Grackle
Cooper’s Hawk
Double-crested Cormorant
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Kingbird
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Towhee
European Starling
Gadwell
Gray Catbird
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Greater Yellowlegs
Green Heron
Green-winged Teal
Hooded Merganser 
House Finch
House Sparrow
Killdeer
Lesser Yellowlegs
Mallard
Mourning Dove
Northern Cardinal
Northern Shoveler
Osprey
Palm Warbler
Pied-billed Grebe
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-winged Blackbird
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Ruddy Duck
Song Sparrow
Spotted Sandpiper
Swamp Sparrow
Tufted Titmouse
White-Breasted Nuthatch
White-throated Sparrow
Wood Duck

Wow,,, that is over 50 different bird types that I saw around my backyard and a few of my favorite places near here. I have to be honest, I had no idea that I saw that many. All and all, a great birding year.

Thanks again for reading my blog and have a great New Year! I will post my goals for 2011 early next week.

Steve

Water, water everywhere

Birds need fresh, clean and unfrozen drinking water throughout the year, but especially in the winter when water is hard to find. I have read that birds will resort to eating snow if there isn't a good supply of water available. With that in mind, I went to the Wild Bird store yesterday and purchased a small water heating rock for the middle of my bird bath. I checked on it this morning and although the temperature overnight was below freezing, the water was not frozen even a bit.

Few things can attract birds to my yard as much as a fresh water supply in the winter months. I set up my camera on the tripod inside the house overlooking the bath to see what will come to the bird bath during the next few days. I will post any interesting visitors.

Heater rock in the bottom of my bird bath

World Bird Wednesday VI

Here is a small collection of the many birds that I find and photograph around my house in Northern VA. I am going to recap my year in the next blog. While these are very common birds in Northern VA, I find them to be very interesting. In the picture is the Blue Jay, Carolina Chickadee, Downy Woodpecker, Great Blue Heron and the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. All of these have been staples in my travels throughout the spring, summer, fall.

Birds of Northern VA

A Very Warm Thank You

I want to thank everyone that has visited my site. Today I reached a milestone as the 1000th visitor viewed my blog site. It has been a lot of fun and very educational as I try and put up good pictures and blogs each week.

Thanks and have a great holiday season!

Birding in Northern Virginia (AKA Steve)

World Bird Wednesday #5

Adding on to my last blog, to foil the squirrels I put some bird seed on top of the ice in the bird bath. This allowed the Carolina Wrens to come in and feed without the squirrels scaring them away.

I am really beginning to enjoy the Wrens. I remember seeing one last year, and up to four now one time this winter. The Carolina Wren Thryothorus ludovicianus is common in Northern VA in the winter. You can recognize it by its prominent white eyebrow.

Carolina Wren eating out of the bird bath

Carolina Wren in the snow eating suet