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-...

Lapland Longspurs 2019

On January 14, 2019, a couple days after a snowstorm, I decided to go searching for lapland longspurs in the Kansas River Valley west of Topeka. The river valley is flat agricultural land with few trees. That is perfect habitat for lapland longspurs. And the best time to search for them is after it snows when they can be found on gravel roads.
After searching for about an hour I came upon a road covered with birds. I knew they were lapland longspurs. I just turned off the truck and set the camera on the side mirror. This is the video I captured. There were at least 200 of them.
Lapland longspurs breed in the arctic but spend their winters in most of the United States. They are called longspurs because of a long claw on their hind toe.
Once I recorded this, a truck drove by and they flew out to the middle of a field. I think I got lucky to be so close to a large group of them.
I hope you get to see lapland longspurs someday as they are such interesting birds.

Savannah or Song Sparrow Feeding 2019

On January 14, 2019, the day after a snow storm, this unusual streaked sparrow showed up in my Topeka Kansas yard. At first I thought it was a song sparrow, as I’ve occasionally had them visit after winter storms. But this sparrow looked different.
To identify this bird we need to look at all of its traits. Both savannah and song sparrow have streaked breasts and both have a central breast spot. A savannah sparrow has finer streaking and a smaller spot than a song sparrow. But those traits are relative and we don’t have a song sparrow for comparison.
Song sparrows appear to have a bigger head and a larger bill than a savannah sparrow. The head and bill on this bird do not look big, but again this isn’t obvious when you don’t have a song sparrow for comparison.
The savannah sparrow has a yellow lore but the song sparrow does not. The lore is the area between the eye and the bill. But in the winter the lore is faded and can be difficult to see. In contrast, the lore is bright yellow during breeding season.
In winter, I think the best way to distinguish a savannah sparrow from a song sparrow is using the length and shape of the tail. The song sparrow has a long tail with a rounded end. The savannah sparrow has a short tail with a notch in the end. The short notched tail is obvious on this bird.
This bird has a small bill, a faint yellow lore, and the short notched tail. Therefore this is a savannah sparrow.
Something I noticed on this sparrow that I do not think is shared on a song sparrow is the two parallel white lines on the sparrows back. Do you know if that is a unique trait of a savannah sparrow?
In the 25 years I’ve been feeding birds in my yard, this is the first time I’ve had a Savannah Sparrow. They generally are seen during spring and fall during migration in Kansas. But they are seen in the country where there are few trees. They are NOT a bird of suburban landscapes.
As far as their presence in winter, they generally are found south of Kansas but a few do remain in winter – more so in the southern half of the state. The fact that they are NOT common winter birds in Kansas and that they are not backyard birds makes it that much more unusual to have one in my yard.
Let’s identify the other sparrows seen in this video
The small gray faced sparrow with a rusty cap is an American tree sparrow.
The larger sparrow with a tan and brown striped head and long tail is a white-throated sparrow.
The dark gray sparrow with the white belly is a dark eyed junco.
All are native sparrows of North America.
Our native sparrows are ground feeders. To attract them to your yard, feed cracked corn or white millet on the ground near cover, such as a shrub or an evergreen. If you don’t have natural cover, construct a brush pile and feed around it. I’ve included some links to bird reference books in the video description.
Thanks for letting me share wtih you my first yard savannah sparrow.

Best Feeder for Ground Feeding Birds 2018

You see, the best feeder is merely feeding a variety of seeds directly on the ground near cover. Most birds are ground feeders and hence that is the best place to feed them.
I mostly feed on the ground under this aromatic sumac shrub. It offers plenty of cover. And birds seek out cover to protect themselves from predators like hawks.
If you don’t have a shrub you can build a brush pile and have instant cover for your birds.
If you have an evergreen like this spruce, feed under and near it. Evergreens provide excellent protection for birds.
The seeds I feed are a combination of cracked corn, white millet, and black oil sunflower seeds. If I had to choose between the three, cracked corn seems to be the favorite among the birds.
It’s important to feed daily but only put out enough food that the birds will eat in one day. If you feed too much at a time, the seed may spoil on the ground. This is especially true if the ground is wet.
Let’s identify the birds coming to eat
Here we have a group of slate colored dark-eyed juncos. The males are dark gray with a white belly. The females are similar but with more brown.
The rusty bird in the upper left is an eastern fox sparrow. Note its gray head and streaked breast. The red bird on the right is a male cardinal. Note its black face and all red body.
The bird in the upper left is a white throated sparrow. Note the dark brown and tan striped head along with the white throat.
The 3 gray birds to the left of the white throated sparrow are house sparrows. The one on the left is a female while the ones with the black chins are males.
I think you will find ground feeding satisfying as you will attract a great variety of birds. Just remember to feed near cover and only feed as much food as the birds will eat in a day.