Why I Oughta...

This isn't a net new entry to the [ bird visitor log ] here on the blog as I've already documented the Blue Jay in March of 2019 here .  But, I spotted this beauty the other day hanging out by the feeders and he was showing off his blue feathers for a minute or two.  I snapped the photo above (and below) with my phone real quick before he flew off.   Above, he's showing off his full colors on his back.  Below, he's facing the house. I dug around a little bit on the web and learned that Blue Jays are part of the Corvidae family - which is the same family as crows  - that we commonly call "Corvids".

It is hard to see, but inside of that little red circle is a Blue Jay.  Adding him to our [Bird Visitor Log] here on the blog .  And despite the zoom'd photo above being not so clear, it was *very* clearly a Blue Jay when I laid eyes on him.  The funny part?  That's exactly how the passage in our bird watching Field Guide book starts the Blue Jay entry:  "Nothing else comes close to looking like the Blue Jay.  It is instantly recognizable to almost everyone in Illinois -- bird-watcher or not."

Look who I spotted on our fence?!?  A bird of prey.  See him perched on the top edge?  In the photo above, you can see how close he is to the fly-thru feeder that we see a lot of song birds eating at most mornings.  I'm pretty sure he's a Cooper's Hawk.  But, I'm not too adept at identification of hawks and my phone's zoom only does so much in terms of quality photos.  I was too excited to spot him and wanted to be sure I got a couple of photos of him, so I never got around to grabbing the binoculars and peeping at him closely.   For those keeping track at home, this is the second time I've posted about this kind of bird of prey visiting.  The first time was back in 2012 when I posted about a hawk coming into Nat's parent's backyard in Naperville.  Photo here .  Turns out, identifying this particular hawk is not the easiest as according to the folks at FeederWatch , even more advanced bird identification experts get Cooper's Hawk confus

Back in January, I mentioned that we had a big, beautiful Northern Flicker visit our feeders but I was unable to get a useable photo of the bird for the blog.  I posted about it anyway .  Welp, fast-forward a month and guess who's back?!  The Northern Flicker.  And why do I know?  The yellow flight feathers are a tell-tale sign.   Also, the size.  Check out this guy in the photo above and how his body is dominating the suet cage in terms of size.  He's much larger than the other woodpeckers who visit our cages and feeders.  Mark it down, dude.  Northern Flicker.  See the yellow in the photo of him taking off below to confirm:

I've already added both the female and male Cardinal to the bird visitor log , but on a recent morning, I spotted quite a few Cardinals milling around.  Mix of males and females.  The photo above is using zoom, so it isn't perfectly clear, so I went ahead and circled the birds.  Eight of them.  And a squirrel (in the red box) munching on some Winter treats.  Way, way better than the normal lot of House Sparrows that we get at our feeders most of the Winter. 

The last time I added an entry to the [backyard bird visitor log] was back in April when I documented the American Goldfinch.  Today, I'm adding the Northern Flicker to the list.  You'll have to trust me because I didn't have my phone on me when I was watching the feeders, but due to the yellow feathers and the huge size of this bird, I'm confirming a Northern Flicker.  I recognize that this isn't quite how it supposed to work but ever since Nat gave me a pair of binoculars as a gift last year, my bird viewing has improved, but my camera skills have remained flat.  So, I'm seeing *more*, but not necessarily photographing *more*. This is the second woodpecker that we've added to the visitor log - the first of which was the Red-Bellied Woodpecker . Full [ bird feeder visitor log ] set of seven entries here on the blog: This Northern Flicker. Not in our backyard, but up in Wisconsin - this pair of Scarlet Tanagers A series of American Goldfinches A

We were up in Twin Lakes recently and as we pulled out of the driveway, we saw these guys.  No...not the geese in the background.  I'm talking about the bright red birds.  They were small, finch-like with black wings.  But super vibrant red body and head. I haven't come across birds like this before, so off to the Field Guide I went.  And found this:  the Scarlet Tanager.  From the book: "Migrants (late April - May, Late August - early October) are fairly common and can be found nearly anywhere.)   Checks out. 

We have had a few new visitors to our feeders recently and they're all colored gold.  Or yellow.  They're American Goldfinches and you can see one of them in the photo above.  We have both - what I think are - males and females.  Males with a much more striking gold and the females with their winter plumage.  I snapped the photo above out of kitchen windows one morning recently.  And we knew what it was immediately.  But we went to the Field Guide anyway.  Here's the listing for the American Goldfinch below: The one you see above is at our squirrel-proof feeder that I've filled with thistle seed.  Let's call this one the fifth species that we've documented as part of our [ backyard bird visitor's log ] here on the blog. The other four from this Winter/Spring: Red-bellied woodpecker House Sparrow Male and Female Cardinals White-breasted Nuthatch

Since the beginning of this year, I've started to chronicle here on the blog some of our backyard bird visitors .  First, there was the red-bellied woodpecker .   Then, the House Sparrow .  And most recently, I snapped photos of both a male and female Cardinal .     Today, here's a few photos of a new visitor:  the White-breasted Nuthatch.  I found him hopping around the ground under one of our feeders on a recent morning.  He's very pretty with blues, blacks, greys and whites all over and a striking black streak across the top of his head.     As a reminder, I take these photos quickly, through screens in the windows on my phone zoomed all the way in.  So they're not great.  But, they're here to diary (for me) some of the visitors.  Here, below, is a different look at the same bird: As soon as I saw this guy, I, of course, grabbed my Field Guide to Illinois Birds and tried to figure out what he was.  After thumbing through a few pages, I came

Two weeks ago, I posted about the new fly-through bird feeder that we added to our backyard birding setup and mentioned how we had not yet witnessed it being used (but...knew it was due to the bird poop on the squirrel baffle).   I've posted two visitors to our feeders here in the [ bird visitor log ] tag but they were on different feeders.  First was a red-bellied woodpecker on our suet feeder .  Then just last week, I posted a photo of a house sparrow on one of our hanging gravity feeders.  When we put up the fly-through feeder, I was hoping for Cardinals.  Guess what?  We had a few visitors!  While these photos aren't awesome because they're with my phone all zoomed in and through Winter windows with screens, I'm hoping you can make out what is happening. First...this beautiful red male cardinal.  If you look closely, you'll see he's on there with a House Sparrow chowing down. And like two minutes later, he took off and stood guard.  So his lady co

Back a few weeks ago, I posted a photo of a Red-Bellied Woodpecker that had visited us on our suet feeder as the first documented bird since I was gifted the Field Guide to Birds of Illinois by Nat and the kids for Christmas.  When I posted that, I also created a new tag here on the blog [ Bird Visitor Log ].  That's now a *thing* here on the blog.  And this, becomes the second entry. I snapped that photo above through the kitchen windows (and screens) of what I'm pretty sure is a House Sparrow perched on our feeder.  According to the Field Guide (which you can see below), this is the #1 bird to get to your feeders.  So, that fact coupled with the feathers/patterns/colors make think that we're checking the "House Sparrow" box. From the entry in the book:  "When you put up a new bird feeder, there's a very good chance that the first bird to attend with be a House Sparrow." Turns out, it was introduced to North America from Europe in the

Just a few days ago, I posted a photo of the Illinois Bird Field Guide that Nat gave me for Christmas and today I can share that is already paying dividends!  We had a visitor to our suet feeder that I was able to get that grainy photo you can see above.  There's a screen up in that window and I didn't want to get too close for fear of scaring him away, so you're going to have to deal with the Zapruder film-version of my woodpecker.   But..that's him up there.  I've posted about woodpeckers before here on the blog last summer when I showed our tailprop suet feeder back in Elmhurst here .  But for the first time, we're able to identify our visitor - which is very exciting!  (at least to me...) I snapped that photo before the bird flew off and then scurried over to my office to open up the field guide to figure out who it was.  As you can see in the photo above, he has a red head, right?  Welp...that would be a big tell!  He's NOT a red-headed