Wildlife Sightings

[JSparrow]

So, our first Spring in our Honey Island Swamp location! (It's getting noisy, ) And busy too. But the best I've seen so far is a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers! Spotted yesterday in our neighbor's oak that is probably like a hundred years old. Yes with the moss and everything! Awesome.

The whistler ducks love it here too, so every evening they flock the skies and tweet there whistling calls. One particular pair like dabbling in the standing water that the swamp has sent into our yard.

We have a huge empty nest high in a dead pine tree at our edge of the swamp. I have a great view of it from my back porch. I have high hopes for some interesting pair of birds to take residence soon. I saw a night heron checking it out the day before yesterday.

So, yeah, SPRING!

Lets share what we are seeing, though it is so abundant here you might get tired of hearing it from me.

Other sightings in the past month:
cardinals of course
Blue Jays
Little blue Heron
Great Blue Heron
Barred owl pair
White herons
bluebirds (nesting in a box in my daughter's yard)
other varieties of woodpeckers
2 alligators
And turtles too
And now I just saw that I have Louisiana irises growing at the edge of our swamp in our back yard. I was hoping for that!

Can't wait to hear what you all are seeing.

Fall views of my back yard. The Spring views with the whistlers haven't transferred over into my Google images yet.

 

[Triduana]

I love this idea for a thread! I'm more than happy to join in and talk about wildlife. This will be really interesting seeing as we're all in different parts of the world.

Edinburgh, UK here. For context, I live 4 miles from the city centre - it's still fairly built up but there's also some good patches of woodland, some old parkland trees and some old pasture - this is slowly getting developed but the trees have been protected. I don't have to go very far before I'm out in the open. I can post some pictures of my local patch when I'm able to!

The house sparrows and starlings have all returned - sparrows disappear over winter but in spring / summer they're all over. My neighbours on both sides usually have them nesting above their front doors - we usually have starlings in the eaves at the back. I haven't seen any signs of nest building yet but they are definitely checking out venues!

The bus stop I use for work is a good spot for birdwatching. There's been a chiffchaff singing just across the road from it since the end of last week, I haven't managed to see him yet though. Just a short walk from here is an area of scrub woodland and swamp which is brilliant for warblers, I'll leave it a month or so before I go there.

Not far from home there's a watercourse with the wonderful name of the Burdiehouse Burn - over the past month I've seen a pair of mallard here and a grey wagtail.

I've also seen carrion crows carrying nesting material around this week, and a pair of dunnocks on the garden yesterday.

I'm determined to encourage more wildlife into the garden this year. The trees we planted when we moved in are providing a bit of cover for birds now, I've got plants for pollinators, I'll be building a bug house soon and at the weekend we bought a nice bird bath.

I could go on all day, better stop now!

 

[Hostajunkie]

Fun thread! I'm in central NY with snow on the ground, but the wildlife loves my gardens. How unusual that I also recently saw two pileated woodpeckers across the street in the neighbor's birch tree! They are huge and gorgeous, aren't they? Then last week I couldn't believe my eyes, but it was a turkey vulture flying across the yard and then perching on top of the telephone pole. Amazing. The house is very near to a lake and last week the snow geese showed up at the lake on their semi-annual migration. I see all kinds of wildlife here.

My yard regularly has rabbits, skunks, and deer. I did have a porcupine visit once many years ago, and last November I couldn't believe my eyes when an opossum showed up in the yard and decided to have a standoff with my little cat. Birds love my gardens, so it's full of cardinals, bluejays, mourning doves, various sparrows, chickadees, gold finches, robins, ruby-throated hummingbirds (not til mid-may), nuthatches, juncos, starlings, crows, etc. I remember a neighbor once saying it was because I "have a target-rich environment". And don't get me started on the grey and red squirrels, chipmunks, and shrews.

 

[Schuee]

Regular visitors to my garden are blackbirds, house sparrows, wood pigeons (nesting in the ivy), jackdaws, gulls (which fly overhead), magpies, blue tits (I think you call them chickadees), a resident robin, crows (that pass by - they are more woodland birds than garden ones), occasionally I see bull finches and gold finches, too.

i hear other birds on my walks, chiffchaffs, wrens, woodpeckers, etc., and see swans and herons and, very occasionally, kingfishers - my favourite bird.

It’s interesting to hear about the birds you see.

 

[Hostajunkie]

Wild turkeys are everywhere here too! Re woodpeckers, it's common for me to see Downy woodpeckers around the yard, but Pileated woodpeckers hang more around the edge of the lake. Here's a pic of the first one I ever saw in a neighbor's tree. They're huge and awesome.

 

[ZenDruid]

Never got a picture that good, but we do have at least one Pileated woodpecker in my neighborhood in northern New York. He's seldom seen but he's heard hammering on trees. We also get wild turkeys and Whitetail deer on our property...

On the nearby Saranac River and Lake Champlain we get migratory ducks and Canada geese, Bald Eagles, Osprey and Blue Herons. Around our house, skunks, racoons, possum, red, grey and black squirrels, woodchucks, coyotes, black bear, it's a zoo. For neighborhood birds, we get Baltimore Orioles, Bluebirds, Finches, Hummingbirds, Downy and Hairy woodpeckers, Starlings, Grackles, Red Wing Blackbirds, Robins. I think we're on a migratory path.

 

[Hostajunkie]

Great photos, ZenDruid! Your turkeys look really fat and happy. Turkeys and deer are what I see regularly on the golf course here.

I only have Baltimore Orioles show up in my apple trees when they are in bloom, or in the raspberry patch when they are ripe. lol!

And, ugh, I forgot about chipmunks! Since losing my oldest cat, chipmunks have started taking over the yard/gardens!

 

[ZenDruid]

And, ugh, I forgot about chipmunks! Since losing my oldest cat, chipmunks have started taking over the yard/gardens!

Thanks Hostajunkie We have two indoor/outdoor house cats and two barn cats, they've scared off chipmunks and mice.

 

[Schuee]

Spotted a little goldfinch today, drinking the water I put out. I’ve not seen one for a while, so I hope it’s thinking of nesting nearby. They are so pretty, one of the most colourful birds we have here. I have seen a spotted woodpecker in the apple tree in the past and green woodpeckers out in the fields.

 

[Triduana]

I'm loving all the wildlife news and photos.

The pileated woodpeckers look like impressive birds. We have great spotted woodpeckers in the woods and parkland here; last year I saw one in a tree in the middle of a busy traffic roundabout while I was on my to work.

I'm hoping to increase my bird list this year so hopefully I'll have fun things to share with you.

 

[snoball]

Spring has sprung in the beautiful Ozark too. We regularly see from 6 to 9 deer in our yard, and we have wild turkeys, pileated woodpeckers, red headed woodpeckers, cardinals, robins, sparrows, finches, juncoes, and of course the raucous jays. Skunks, possums, squirrels, chipmunks, groundhogs, just a wide variety of wildlife. I think most of the bald eagles have left until next winter though. I love my Ozark Mountains.

 

[ntl]

The weather has gotten a bit nicer in central Indiana, USA, and birds have returned to the feeder--no hummingbirds yet, though. Today I saw both a Bluejay and a Northern Cardinal as well as I think, several Chipping Sparrows. There are a few Canadian Geese on the retention pond.
There is also a clutch of a few days old bunnies in the middle of the lawn. I hope they survive, I'm afraid chances are slim.

 

[Triduana]

I'm working in the far north of Scotland (Shetland) at the moment. Spring is trying to arrive but it keeps getting beaten back by snow showers! There are a few birds starting to return to the hills again to nest - things like curlews and golden plover and redshank that spend winter by the coast. The gulls are starting to pair up too - they nest on some of the buildings I can see from the window.

The mountain hares are good fun at the moment too. They've been pure white all winter and now the snow isn't settling anymore they really stand out!

 

[Terri]

Such happy reading!! I recently moved from a small, rural town in the Southern US to a much more urban area outside of Detroit Michigan. I know my little barn swallow friends have arrived by now - along with tons and tons of thick, yellow pollen. I will miss them.

So far, outside my mom's house where we're staying until get our own house, I've spied fat gray rabbits, black, red and gray squirrels, one possum who visits at night, and lots of Canadian geese and ducks. It's more than I expected to see, and makes me happy!

My mom doesn't put out bird feeders due to the thieving squirrels, so I will have to become familiar with the locals just by looking around the area.

Spring is trying to make her presence known, but it's a slower process. I'm enjoying it immensely!

I do envy all the woodpecker sightings!

 

[JSparrow]

I love reading these!
It has been super hard for me to get much time on the internet lately, including four days with my service down. Real quick, here is a couple of pics of the whistler ducks. I'll try to come back again soon to read all these awesome sightings again, and add my comments.

And a little bonus image: I really wanted to see these growing here. If they didn't grow natural I was going to special order some. But here they are. Louisiana Iris.

Hope to get back on here soon!

 

[Sue]

So glad I found this thread, loving hearing about sightings in so many different places

I'm in Orkney, first set of islands off the north coast of Scotland so not quite as up as Shetland but Spring is also struggling to get going here - a day of warm sun and little wind followed by several days of it blowing a hoolie with heavy rain, hail and snow.

Despite all that we are doing well for the wee garden birds at home - we feed throughout the year so have some residents and others that visit on a regular basis. List so far includes Starling, Blackbird, Sparrow, Robin, Wren, Dunnock, Siskin, Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove, Hooded Crow, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Hawfinch - this last a real bonus, appeared this week and a first for our garden and quite rare on the island generally. The Goldfinches have been building up over the last couple of years and we now regularly get a group of 10 - 12 and are fairly sure they are breeding in a patch of shrubbery across the burn from us. Beginning to see some of the seabirds appearing - Lesser Black Back Gulls, Herring Gulls have been around for a couple of weeks and we also saw a pair of buzzards over the farmland below us last week. We usually get Hen Harriers quartering the field behind us but not seen them this year yet, I did however see the first hares this week in the field so looking forward to watching their antics when they get going.

No photos of anything unfortunately - I don't have a good camera so have never bothered but will perhaps have a go with the tablet camera and post if they show anything.

 

[Artyczar]

Hannah is the one who takes all the pictures around here, so I will get here to share them with me so I can post them. We have a ton of wildlife around here.

 

[Artyczar]

Here is an elusive desert tortoise coming to visit. We took some video of him eating a flower off of a prickly pear. I can't upload the video, but here's one of the pictures of him.

 

[Artyczar]

Here's a couple of more wild things...

The bunny with the F'ed up ears that comes around all the time. We call him "Loopy."

A Scott's Oriole in a giant Yucca plant:

A random roadrunner:

And a baby coyote. We had five of them a while ago and they destroyed our patio furniture like crazy puppies.

 

[Triduana]

I had a really nice walk around my local patch this morning. A few chiffchaffs and willow warblers were singing in the trees and I heard 2 grasshopper warblers in some of the tall grasses. Plenty of other birds too: chaffinches, goldfinches, pheasants, buzzard displaying, robins and wrens. There were a few peacock and tortoiseshell butterflies around too and lots of bees. I also found some deer tracks, which was a nice surprise.

@Sue - a hawfinch is a fantastic garden tick! I tried to find some last week but wasn't lucky.