Found some first of winter species feeding yesterday afternoon during a freezing rain not far from the lake. Their numbers are low this year at my traditional sighting location near home.

How many species can you birders find, and can you name them?

Jonathan

Larkspur?

I think I see three.
Horned lark
Lark sparrow
Snow bunting

You guys did pretty well. The two birds to the left in the first photo are Snow Buntings

Here is a close-up of a Lapland Longspur (left) and a Horned Lark.




Jonathan

We get snow buntings and horned larks here. The snow buntings often fly in a loose gaggle of maybe 50 birds, especially when snowing and blowing.
Horned larks also hang along the shoulder of the road after the grader scrapes it clean.

Coonlove, Thank you for your comments. The same is true.

Today at the location I worked yesterday, a pair of Red-tailed Hawks was preying on the Horned Larks picking gravel on the shoulder of the road.

Jonathan



Video
https://flic.kr/p/23doJny

Jonathon, caught this guy on the barn roof this evening.

Wish my head could swivel around backwards like that.

Are the darker snowys young ones, some are lil bit dark, some all white

If I recall, the all white ones are male and the females and juveniles are mottled. I have seen some heavily mottled, some barely mottled and some white as a snowbank.

Had a snow day here last week and my yard was full of Eastern Bluebirds, couple hundred maybe. Don't know if they are slow going south or way early going north but highly unusual here in February.

I haven't been out and about much this winter to spot any Snowys, but my daughter has seen some. We get lots of the L. Longspurs with the Snow Buntings too, you just have to look close. You will find the H. Larks in most open areas like fields, especially those that have a lot of dirt showing through the snow. They are year around in most of the farmland south of me.

Had this Barred Owl hanging around all spring - now he's back and have seen him a number of time on his "perch" looking for field mice.

Here is a winter snow bird. They love carcass fats and I have put out coonfat up high for them. I have recently buttoned up my chicken coop to keep them out of there and that is where I found this one.

I have no idea what they are though. They can survive 30 below up here.

They look dead, didn't survive? Looks a little bit like a starling but different

Here’s one from a Snowbird living on the Gulf, not a rare sight at all.

Les, That doesn't look like a woodpecker, unless it was since you saw it as "a bird in hand". The bill appears too long and narrow to be a woodpecker. Any chance it might be a shorebird?

Jonathan

Looks like a starling, Les ?

Nice shots shared by everyone -thank you .

I don't know my starlings I guess. I found it dead in the coop, and have since shored up the holes in the exterior. I wondered if it was a starling though. These birds wont stand for a photo shoot, and fly away from suet at the sign of a shadow in a window. Very messy too.

That bird layed in the back of my pickup for a month as I was to attempt to get a positive ID. Starlings aren't protected here either, not that I would shoot in town, lol. People don't like them, I hear .

The beak seems long and narrow for a starling. I just googled some pics, and some had different colored, shorter, thicker beaks . There are similarities though.

That's an Ohno bird, Les. Listen for the distinctive call when they come in for a landing.

Les, your chicken coop freeloader is absolutely a Starling. A nastier, filthier bird doesn't exist.....oh wait.....yes they do....CHICKENS!!! But at least they (chickens) pop out eggs, as well as taste good, sorta like, well......CHICKEN!! I had a pet Red fox as a kid. It ate about anything I could catch/shoot for it, except it would not eat a Starling.

So....my chicken coop is a starling trap. I had about 2 dozen of them in there with the chickens one day when it was real cold. The key would be to shut up the holes after they are in there, and somehow go in there with a tennis racket. Pretty tight quarters with 10 chickens in there and an 8x8 fish house chicken coop with a 7' ceiling. Probably need to lock a cat in there with them .

It's funny, but here at my place I don't see Starlings at all during the winter, yet 2 miles away in town, they are all over the place. I usually start seeing them in late March when the darn things start house hunting and tend to spend a lot of time paying attention to my various birdhouses. I generally blast them. I think if I went off to the west 3-4 miles I'd see them at all the farms too, especially any with stock. Around these parts, Starlings are "people birds" that you don't see off in the wilder sections of woods.

I never saw them until I was leaving beaver fleshing tailings from frost scraping in the snow around the boards. Every once in a while you'll find one dead, and I'm not sure why. They love coon fat.

I need a decent air rifle for in town here.

Sharon and J.Morse know what critters are attracted to chicken coops, and Starlings are big time visitors.

There is never a shortage seeing numbers of them once they find a steady food source, if you live in town or the country. I live in a rural area with large dairy farms nearby. I stopped at one yesterday and saw a few zipping around the barn yard where they were hauling silage.

Jonathan

Jonathan, yes I too have seen them most around grain areas.

Years and years ago , I had one wandering through that stayed a couple weeks at my feeders. Just one. It mimicked to perfection the beautiful song of a Western Meadowlark.

When I first heard the song, I was greatly surprised, as Meadowlarks were nowhere near my deep woods habitat-they are in the open pastures and fields miles away. I then saw the starling ,and mused over something I learned that day.

I admit I enjoyed the starling's perfect mimic of that beautiful Meadowlark song, amidst its own whistles and creaks.

I sure wouldn't want them in the huge flocks at the granaries , though.

Sharon, they can be photogenic when in adult plumage colors.

Jonathan

Les, as kids we would crawl up into the haymow at night and shine a strong flashlight at the pigeons. This would blind them causing them to fall where we would catch them. Things would go smoothly until the starlings started to bombard us! The lights would blind them too and it was like getting hit by a kamikaze! Maybe you could try this in your coop, I would think it would be alot easier than a tennis racket.

I used to deer hunt in a woods that was frequented nearly every afternoon by a few owls. A tree near my elevated box stand was a favorite of theirs. I eventually learned it was easier just to watch the owl than to scan the woods all around for deer. The owl would always see their movement first and I could determine in which direction it was looking.

Jonathan, oh yes, starlings as a species are among the most colourful birds around.

Too bad they're such invasive pests.

Charles, you have it spot on. To those who notice and take time to listen to the birds , they can know many important things happening around them. Including any big nasties hiding in the bush out of sight watching us in turn !

I imagine a fella could trap the starlings similar to how pigeons are trapped .

Johnathon, awesome thing to witness, to bad they are disease carriers

Built a repeating sparrow, starling trap. The kind with the counterweight that lowers the bird to a hole into holding cage.
Works great.

Don't like how they get into the crevices and fill them with garbage to build nests. No closed season on them here.

Starlings are unprotected here, I believe.

So that Horned Lark, I wonder what sub-species it is, since some of them are really high Artic breeders.

One of my old Breeding Bird Surveys I had for 15 years; 49 of 50 stops with them on it. The survey now only has 15-20 stops with them on it. Now AGRICULTURE has changed our landscape.

Starlings are vermin..nothing but flying rats.

Shoot on site here, invasive species. Starlings & English sparrows.

Winter is almost over. With spring on the horizon, the first "Rainbirds" are migrating to the area for the nesting season. Most of the snow has melted here, and with the frost melting, worms are showing up under the surface on lawns.

Jonathan

I'm afraid the robins will not be here this season... We got dumped on with deep snow, and 25degrees today... doing the Evening chores two Big Swans flew just over my head and the Chicken Coop.

330, The large flocks of migratory Tundra Swans and White-fronted Geese near me left for the far north over a week ago.

Jonathan

Pretty sure it is not a starling, bill is to long. I also think it is some kind of shore/water bird. How big is it?

Im glad Im not seeing any robins or other spring type birdies now.

The Juncos are having such a hard time here ....I have been broadcasting millet all over the side porch of my cabin for them....and they are camped out under my stairs day after day .

The ones who love suet are all over the cages I fill and wait for me ,sometimes inches away, waiting and watching me as I refill them. They fly onto the cages as I pull them up and secure the cages on the tree trunks. They don't even wait for me to finish securing them on the hooks .

I had a Flicker knocking on the cabin siding early this morning as he waited for me. I call him Uzi

About like a black bird. Odd thing is the long thin bill, otherwise has starling coloration .

Because the starling was a Tropical a different molt occurs than the northern migrants

There is another name for them......TARGET BIRD

Jonathan and 330 Trapper,

I've never seen anything like what went on with the robin migration this year. We saw robins bunched together in what looked like the 10s of thousands down here. They totally overwhelmed the woods! Some evenings, they would fly over the house for 30 minutes at a time in huge flocks! I saw several yesterday, but the huge waves went through about 2-3 weeks ago. We always see robins in central Texas, but I talked to the old timers around here at the coffee shops and none of them have ever seen that many robins coming through around here. Seems migration patterns may be changing. Chancey

Everything about that bird screams Starling but the long bill. Many years ago I caught a Starling with a abnormally long bill and even have a picture somewheres with a tape measure beside it. So I know it can happen. Nothing makes my blood boil like a starling, I am glad most folks try to irradicate them.

That's too many Robin's, good for nothing noisy things

The whole flock is like that. I first encountered them a couple winters ago, in 10 below plus conditions when I was frost scraping beaver, and the scrapings landed on the snow outside a window of my fur shed. They would be there every day, and fly at the slightest disturbance. Very wary birds . I had found one dead outside the picture window...same beak. I wouldn't have thought they could fly fast enough to break a neck on the window.