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ThePopeOfFun posted:Can’t quite id this guy who has been hanging around the neighborhood and causing much strife amongst the jays. I’m thinking Prairie Hawk, but I’ve seen him on the ground with dark gray plumage. Maybe peregrine falcon? Midwest USA Looks like an accipiter (Cooper’s or Sharp-shinned), and the habitat looks good for it too. Peregrines are much more tall building/power tower/tall dead tree next to a wetland with ducks.
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Jun 22, 2023 15:12
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Ah yeah, they look very close. I’m guessing Cooper’s for the size. I’ve turned my place over looking for my binoculars to no avail!
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Jun 22, 2023 17:01
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hey friends! I've had a couple of interesting incidents lately that have motivated me to seek this thread out before diving into the research on my own my tldr question is this: are birds known to have cross-species friendships or engage in protective behavior of other species? I live with my parents in a pretty rural, forested area. Probably 3 out of 4 mornings I'll look out the kitchen window while I'm making coffee and see a little brown bunny in the middle of the yard foraging for food. I remember thinking the first few times I saw it that this bunny isn't very bright, it is very exposed out there in the middle of the yard with no cover. I will also often see a distinctive red, black-faced, be-mohawked bird (google tells me this is a northern cardinal) hanging out in the trees back there, swooping from branch to branch in a beautiful red flash. I assume both of these animals make their homes nearby but one thing to consider is that the boundaries between my parents' property and all the neighbors' properties are left to grow wild so it's a pretty active wildlife thoroughfare, so I'm not even sure if these are the same animals each time. Regardless two incidents in recent weeks have me scratching my head. I was driving home recently, making my way around the S-bend that leads to my parents' road (which also happens to be adjacent to my parents' property) when all of a sudden I see a red upside-down arc flash mere feet in front of my windshield, causing me to pump the brakes. I was processing that a bird had just swooped me when, as I was coming around the bend, I see a brown bunny smack dab in the middle of the road. so I come to a stop, allowing the bunny to take way too much time considering its options before it decides to escape off into the bushes. Then, not even a week later, as I was letting my dog out first thing in the morning, I absentmindedly opened the door without checking the backyard for wildlife and... there was the bunny right in the middle of the yard. My dog tensed up and then immediately bolted toward the bunny who was just Not Moving. Then, as if everything was happening in slow motion, me standing by the back door with my hands on my head in horror watching this all unfold, my dog at full gallop ready to tear this bunny apart, I saw a familiar red arc materialize in the air above the yard. The cardinal dropped from the branches up above and swooped right in front of my dog, the nadir of its arc like a foot in front of my dog's face. He stopped dead in his tracks and the bunny ran off unharmed. I'm aware I'm probably anthropomorphizing here but tbh I am having a really good time imagining this no-nonsense cardinal is reluctant friends with their oblivious bunny friend and is constantly having to get them out of trouble. Anyway I bought some binoculars and plan to spend more time looking at these fascinating creatures.
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Jul 31, 2023 12:30
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The logical/cynical explanation would be that the cardinal has a nest nearby. Birds do have mixed species foraging flocks for safety (ie chickadees and titmice) so maybe it could extend to mamals too? A rabbit might be a nice sentry to have.
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Jul 31, 2023 15:43
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I once saw a male Cardinal feeding mulberries to a hungry baby Robin (by the time I retrieved my camera, he was gone), so maybe some of them have a strong paternal instinct.
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Jul 31, 2023 19:03
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If I remember correctly Cardinals are one of the few (maybe only?) kinds of birds that will feed their adult partner so maybe cardinals in particular are just big softies. I kinda dislike them because they make so many different noises constantly but maybe I should pay more attention to them being comrades and try to appreciate them more.
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Jul 31, 2023 19:35
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God Hole posted:
My guess is cardinals are pretty common in your area and are using some of the same forest edge habitat that bunnies also use. Could be a time of year when the male cardinals are a little more active for whatever reason plus they have shared predators like cats and (at least historically) Homo sapiens so it might not be Cardinal protecting Bunny but Cardinal protecting itself/family and bunny happens to be there too. And bunnies aren't always the smartest. quote:
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Jul 31, 2023 21:42
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Some can: cattle egrets and livestock come to mind.
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Aug 1, 2023 19:32
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I live right up next to a really great stretch of New England forest and have a ton of diverse birds at our feeder and in the woods beyond. I am also a fairly decent amateur woodworker and I think it would be fun to build and put up some birdhouses on the property. What I'd like to know are if there are any good resources for optimal sizes/dimensions for birdhouses for different types of birds along with advice on where to place them to be most likely to be used? I don't care about these being ornamental or interesting looking per se, just more looking for some set of parameters of "you have wood thrushes and they want something roughly this size mounted this height and away from x,y,z etc if possible. Any info out there?
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Feb 14, 2024 17:36
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Maybe start here? I'd also recommend seeing if there's any bluebird or other nest box trails near you to see what works to keep the local predators out of the boxes. Good luck and have fun!
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Feb 15, 2024 04:41
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I apologize if this is a question you get a lot but I wasn't able to find it using the search feature. My kids have been getting interested in birds and I've always had an interest so I'm thinking about getting one of those feeders that have a camera to help us identify the birds around our house. I've seen the Bird Buddy advertised on Instagram but the reviews are pretty horrible and I'm not sure what to make of the reddit posts for it. I'd rather hear what birding goons think about these things.
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Apr 27, 2024 19:18
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My sister has a Bird Buddy and she likes it so much she got me one. She has a nice big garden in a semi-rural area and gets lots of birds on her camera. I live in a flat in London and I'm not supposed to feed birds on my balcony so I have to keep the feeder quite sheltered and as a result I have had Zero birds since I got it... I guess it's been a year now. YMMV. I'm on the BB owners Facebook group and the pictures seem pretty cool. The feeder and the camera seem well-made and pretty sturdy at least.
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Apr 27, 2024 22:09
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E: wrong thread - I keep doing this for some stupid reason.
nunsexmonkrock fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Oct 3, 2024 |
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Oct 3, 2024 14:15
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Can someone tell me what kind of bird this is? A friend found it on vacation in Charlotte, North Carolina and a fun hour of looking at Wikipedia's list of North Carolingian birds only left me chasing frigate bird facts. The water is a big artificial pond at a hotel.
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Nov 5, 2024 18:54
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kaschei posted:Can someone tell me what kind of bird this is? A friend found it on vacation in Charlotte, North Carolina and a fun hour of looking at Wikipedia's list of North Carolingian birds only left me chasing frigate bird facts. Great Blue Heron
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Nov 5, 2024 18:58
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Is the crest/fringe some kind of juvenile plumage? Heron was one of the few guesses I looked for but I didn't see any photos with that kind of tousled look.
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Nov 5, 2024 19:01
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I believe that's just wind-tousled feathers, a juvenile has an all-dark crown
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Nov 5, 2024 19:16
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Tell me about jerks assuming the worst of you when out looking for birds! Last week I went for a walk down behind the university church's back carpark (I'm in Australia), looking for the resident pair of Barking Owls that hang out in the pine trees by one of the mountain bike trails. I did not see them, and I hadn't seen them the previous time, months ago, I was down there, but I was having a good time away from my office and I saw some other things. Fledgling parrots getting fed, give-no-fucks magpies, and the usual assortment of very difficult to identify small brown birds. On my way back up towards my office, the driver of a car at the loop in front of the building below mine waved me over. He introduced himself - I forget his name - and then proceeded to insinuate that I was up to no good with a story about the university's Vice Chancellor and his desire for privacy - the "cottage" (mansion), a heritage-listed building the university puts its CEO (literally they call themselves that) into, down a long driveway and separated from everything else by a wide band of thick vegetation, fences, and no-trespassing signs. That I was nowhere near. He made some comment about small children, for gently caress's sake. The cherry on top was the woman in the passenger seat talking happily about the not-owls that used to live down there, who happily agreed when I repeated, "Barking owls". Are they not owls? Anyway, that bit of paranoia kind of ruined my little walk. Tell me about the ways people have looked at you and your binos and made a stupid leap to something!
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Nov 6, 2024 00:38
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ExecuDork posted:Tell me about jerks assuming the worst of you when out looking for birds! Just be glad you're in a country where every black object you're carrying isn't assumed to be a gun. I run into this every once in awhile, although it's typically in rural areas with houses/farms/etc. Generally I've been able to de-escalate it, but the common thread is that it's almost always some person who thinks they know way more than they do about birds and also local laws. I had to look it up, but Barking Owls are definitely owls. A lot of those Ninox/Boobook owls have small heads and don't look like you'd expect and owl to look, so I can understand someone being confused.
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Nov 7, 2024 19:39
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I don't need anything identified, I just wanted to share this shot I took with you guys
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Jan 3, 2025 00:52
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That rules.
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Jan 3, 2025 05:27
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Sorry for the extreme digital zoom. Young great horned you think? I heard one in the fall so they're around. This one on my patio awning was still kinda fluffy looking, though he flew away just fine so fully fledged I guess. Kind of weird that he was out completely in the open in the middle of the day though?
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Jun 20, 2025 22:14
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Barred owl most likely.
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Jun 20, 2025 22:27
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sexy tiger boobs posted:Barred owl most likely. Yup, that would be my guess. Nice!
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Jun 20, 2025 22:35
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Gotcha, I can totally see that, thanks! I definitely have heard a Great Horned in the area, since the call seems to be quite different. But not like I can't have two kinds of owl around. He was staring right through the window at my cat, which seems a little optimistic since the cat weighs 13 pounds. Rescue Toaster fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jun 20, 2025 |
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Jun 20, 2025 22:41
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I've had a Barred Owl try to take my head off and I weigh significantly more than 13lbs.
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Jun 21, 2025 02:00
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40-60 Mississippi Kite families visit my small ranch in rural central oklahoma during the summer to raise little kites. They make the sweetest sound a bird could make when they take off and land or just whenever they feel like it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXuf1hqDegI. They catch bugs in the air and get way, way up there when they're scoping out potential prey (bugs). In August they all get together in a big tree and talk about their route back to Brazil. I've also seen them all get together on a random morning probably talking about bird stuff. It's quite fascinating to be honest.
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Jul 1, 2025 02:22
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Excuse the weird photo. But when you run into weird poo poo at a random rest area in Idaho, you shoot with what you have. I guess these guys were on their way to a falconers' gathering. This man was very nice. I offered to stay further back because the young lady bird was agitated but he said she was just still mad from her hood training. We have a couple of Coopers hawks here in my neighboorhood and I've gotten some great shots of them over the years. But this was just quite unexpected.
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Oct 30, 2025 04:53
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pumped up for school posted:Excuse the weird photo. But when you run into weird poo poo at a random rest area in Idaho, you shoot with what you have. Colloidial silver fan or just some color filtering on the photo? Also that's great, have a seen Coopers Hawk's in the woods behind our old house, watched them once murder a starling right off our bird feeder once.
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Oct 30, 2025 12:44
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That Works posted:Colloidial silver fan or just some color filtering on the photo? IR-converted sensor (590nm). I usually just run it mono but wanted to try and pull some of the bird colors out. Not used to false color at all. The Coopers we have, typically are noted by the yard getting very quiet. Except for the scrub jays, they'll bitch from a higher perch and generally annoy the hawks away. pumped up for school fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Oct 30, 2025 |
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Oct 30, 2025 13:48
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