What is this Hawk on my Sparrow Trap 2019?

Learn to identify the hawk that is trying to get at a bird in this house sparrow trap and find out the identity of the bird in the trap.

Time to Prep Bluebird Nest Boxes for Nesting Season

I think sometimes we forget to prepare our nest boxes for the coming nesting season.  Bluebirds should be looking for nesting sites soon.  Now is a good time to make sure nest boxes are cleaned out.  If last year's nests weren't cleaned out they should be.  Also mice sometimes move into nest boxes in the winter.  Paper wasp nests are another issue. Look for their nest attached to the inside roof of the box.

And if you live where there are house sparrows be prepared for them to compete with the bluebirds.  I find using nest box traps a good way of dealing with the house sparrows.  Here is my video on "How to trap house sparrows in a nest box"

Identify Ring-necked Ducks 2019

How to Catch Sparrows in a Repeating Elevator Trap 2019

Learn How to Catch Sparrows in a Repeating Elevator Trap using an elevator trap, a shelter box, decoy sparrows, and white millet.

What is the Calling Mystery Bird?

What is the Calling Mystery Bird?

List of birds seen on Jan 30-31, 2019
https://feederwatch.org/pfw/count/sum...

In my Topeka, Kansas yard on January 31, 2019 I was trying to get some video of house sparrows feeding on this sparrow trap. Find out why I trap house sparrows by following the link at the top of the video. No house sparrows showed up. Instead I got a recording of a bird call that I do not recognize. Some notes do sound like a northern cardinal, but other notes do not. In the background you can hear American tree sparrows.
This is what the area around the trap looks like. Many birds spend time in the shrub and below the shrub feeding on the ground. As an added benefit, I was counting birds for Project Feeder Watch the day before and the day of the video. You can find a link in the video description to all the birds I recorded in my yard those days. That should be enough background information. I’ll shut up so you can listen to the mystery bird.
That’s the end of the recording. If you have a guess to the identity of the calling bird, leave a comment.

Small Hawk Eats Cardinal 2018

In my Topeka Kansas yard on December 14, 2018 I heard a bird hit the window. I jumped up to look outside and saw a half dazed cardinal on the ground. Almost immediately I saw this small hawk diving from the top of a tall tree heading straight at me behind the window. I knew hawks don’t attack people! He was really diving at the injured cardinal on the ground below me. He captured the bird and flew behind the base of this shrub.
Let’s determine the identity of the hawk. The most commonly seen hawks capturing birds in backyards across North America are the Accipiters. Accipiters have long tails and short wings that make them adept at flying through trees in pursuit of their typical prey – song birds. We have two commonly encountered species in the winter in the United States: the larger Cooper’s hawk and the smaller sharp-shinned hawk. Adults of both have blue-gray backs and white breasts with rufous barring. This bird is definitely an adult. There are two things that are visible on this bird that helps us identify it, the eye position and the nape color. The eye is about halfway between the front and the back of the head – making it a sharp-shinned. On a Cooper’s the eye would be near the front of the head. The nape color is the same blue-gray color as the cap of the bird, another trait of a sharp-shinned. If it was a Cooper’s the nape would be lighter color.
You can find a link in the description that compares all of the features that distinguish Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned hawks. It’s not every day that you get to witness a predator eating its prey in your backyard. I hope you found the video educational and intriguing.
Compare Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned Hawks:
https://feederwatch.org/learn/tricky-...