Snowy Valentine's Day Great Backyard Bird Count Pictures

Because of the pandemic, my city was already planning on one part of its Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) event being virtual, but due to the weather, all of it was moved online. I hosted two livestream sessions. One on Friday, February 12 where I gave background on and how to participate in the GBBC. We added a livestream on Saturday instead of heading out in the weather for socially distanced guided bird walks. In this livestream, I chatted with a member of the Fort Worth Audubon Society about her birding experiences and we discussed several local birds featured in photos provided by another resident. You can find both of these videos on my personal Facebook page.

These images are from today. Click on them to enlarge them. Even though I have only been counting from inside my house and the bad weather, I think I have counted more species than I have ever counted during a four day GBBC and we still have Monday to go. I have seen at least one of each of the following birds: American Crow, American goldfinch, American Robin, Blue Jay, Carolina chickadee, Cedar waxwing, Dark-eyed junco, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Gull sp., House finch, House sparrow, Lincoln's sparrow, Mourning dove, Northern Cardinal, Northern Flicker, Northern mockingbird, Pine siskin, Red-bellied woodpecker, Red-tailed hawk, Ruby-crowned kinglet, Tufted Titmouse, Turkey vulture, White-winged dove, Yellow-bellied sapsucker and Yellow-rumped warbler. There are other birds that can be around my property this time of year, but I think this is pretty good. In fact the bird in my last post showed back up for me to count. If I do not get a correct guess in the comments as to what it is, I will add another photo and identify it after the GBBC is over.

If you have not gotten a chance to count birds for the GBBC this year. If you are cooped up because of our strong winter storm in Texas, take some time to count the birds. Merlin is a great, free app for android or iOS that helps greatly with bird identification. The count runs through Monday, February 15, 2021.

A New Twist on Putting out Seed for the Birds

Some flowers ripen into seedheads that add interest to the garden. However some of these same flowers will bloom again if you remove or deadhead them. Additionally, the seedheads can provide food for wildlife you want to attract to your yard. One such flower in my gardens is coneflower. I have tried a variety of treatments to try to achieve all three benefits. This year I tried a new approach that has been very successful.

When my conflowers developed dried seedheads, I clipped them back to where they looked like they might bud out again. This left me with a huge pile of seedhead stalks. I poked a few of the shorter ones into the ground under my birdfeeder. I gathered handfuls of the taller ones and pushed them into the ground around and partially supported by a teepee style metal trellis in my back garden that is not too far from my birdfeeder. I liked the way the seedheads looked all bunched around the base and my trimmed coneflowers in the front garden did have a small rebloom after the pruning. Now, would I actually see any birds visit my seed art?

It took a while for the right birds to show up. In December, American goldfinch began filtering back into the area. They have really been enjoying the coneflower spread I set out. The first picture in this post is one of the first birds I saw eating from the seedheads. There are a bunch of goldfinches in the second photo. How many do you see? Tell me in the comments. You can click on the image to see a larger view.

What have you done or can you do that is outside the box to support wildlife in your yard? I definitely plan to recreate my coneflower feeding station next year.

New Digs - Birds and Dragonfly

Last year I went to a friend's house to help her open an Etsy shop for her amazing polymer clay creations. What a nice surprise when we sat down at her computer to see three of my avian photographic art pieces hanging on her art wall behind the computer. Two of them, the female cardinal and the goldfinch were purchased as matted prints, which she later framed and hung. The kestrel was acquired as a ready to hang piece. (It is a variation of the same photo I created "Iridescent Dreams" from, which I shared in its new home a while back.)

I was focused on helping set up her Ellengant Creations Etsy Shop and did not think to take a picture of my artwork to share. Ellen was nice enough to send me a picture along with a couple of others from where she had my work hanging. My "Blue on Blue" dragonfly gallery wrapped canvas hangs with a fanciful school of polymer clay fish Ellen created for the Inspired by Nature exhibit we were both in last year. She also displays one of my "Psychedelic Gazelle" prints on a wall in her house.

Goldfinches are Great

I enjoy watching birds at home and on my travels. It is fun to spot new birds. I spotted a new one for me while in Livermore, CA this summer that was a slight variation on a perky little bird I enjoy seeing at home. In Texas the goldfinches I have spotted have been American goldfinches. The ones in Livermore were lesser goldfinches. The lesser goldfinches have similar yellow, black and white coloration but the green backed males' coloration is a bit more subdued than the American goldfinches' summer color. I snapped a few images of some lesser goldfinches eating dandelion seeds on an unused ball field one morning.

Back home I usually start seeing American goldfinches in the winter in North Texas. I left some small sunflowers standing in my garden one year long after they finished blooming and the goldfinches feasted on the seed heads when they came through. During the winter the males are much more drab but they are still a very streamlined bird with wonderful black and white patterning on their wings. They are a welcome break from all of the little brown birds (so many sparrow varieties) that hang out. The goldfinches will often hang around into the spring after the males have put on their striking yellow and black breeding color and are a festive sight to see before they vanish until next winter.

I also enjoy learning new facts about the critters that I see. I stumbled across a great article about goldfinches last week in which I learned that they are the only finch that is a strict vegetarian. In fact their diet is restricted to only seeds. While other finches rely on insects to supplement their diet, especially when raising their young, goldfinches have hungry mouths to feed when abundant seed heads can be found in their environment to provide enough food for everyone. It was quite an interesting and educational article and instead of listing all of the great info I found there, I encourage you to give it a read too.

Have you seen a new bird recently that you would like to share?