That should read, "If you freeze your butt off long enough looking for birds in the middle of winter, eventually they will get hungry and fly to the feeder." The Wicked Pickle participated in the Backyard Bird Count on Saturday afternoon. Yep, we are one of those red dots!
When we first went to the backyard we noticed several bird prints around the lilac bushes. They seemed to go around in endless circles when we tried to follow them. We also noticed what we think are rabbit prints. (wish the picture showed up better for you)
After searching the lilac bushes for signs of feathered life, we turned our brow upward to find 2 mourning doves perched in the tree that shades our patio. I don't know the exact name of the tree but it distributes those nasty little airplanes each fall. These birds did look like they were a couple but I don't know the mating habits of mourning birds.
We then looked at our neighbors bird feeder to see a couple of dark-eyed Juncos feeding. When I made the move for my camera they flew to the lilac bush. Then a whole flock of them flew out of the bush. OK, I say a whole flock, I mean like 8 or so. May as well have been a flock! (the little blobs inside the yellow circles are the birds) We only spent 15-20 minutes outside. I was freezing my butt off! Before we went in, we hung a suet ball with birdseed on a hook our front. Maybe we will be able to spot some without leaving the comfort our our 65º livingroom. While we tried to warm up, we spent some time looking for the "real" name of the dark-eyed junco. My dad grew up calling them snow birds. I dare you to do a search on google or ask with "snow bird" and your region in the search line. You woulnd't believe some of the stuff that comes up! It ended up that the bird watch website had great pictures of birds for our area. With that and the help my my mother-in-laws bird book we were in business! We received our confirmation in an email shortly after sumitting the results. The picklets are all excited that we are official!
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