Category: Birds

Posted on in Bird Profiles, Gardening, Landscaping, Plant Profiles, Surviving Winter, Veggies

Go for the Green

fraxinus-pennsylvanica-green-ash-cc-2003jul06-lah-003

In honor of today being St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d celebrate “green” in the garden. No, I don’t mean about being environmentally friendly, although that’s certainly important. I’m talking about just plain green… as in chlorophyll-laden leaves.

This time of year, I’m pretty frantic for anything green. There aren’t many broad-leaved evergreens that tolerate Colorado’s winters. Even the conifers are more a blackish-olive drab—not nearly as nice as the “pine” of the decorating industry. Cold weather does that to leaves: many junipers turn plum-purple in winter. Leaves should not be that color. (Mahonia wears the same hue, but manages to look more attractive in it.) Hardy ice plant glows red, and ornamental grasses shimmer in copper and gold. Mostly, however, things look dull grayish brown, or just plain dead.

(more…)

Posted on in Chickens

Coops

chicken-coop_lah_9119The biggest investment in keeping chickens is their housing. Chickens are remarkably hardy birds, but they need some sort of shelter to make it though a Colorado winter. They also need protection from raccoons, possums, foxes, owls, coyotes, hawks, weasels, and neighborhood dogs.

Of course, the chickens don’t care what their coop looks like, just as long as it keeps them sheltered and safe. From our human perspective, appearance matters. So does convenience.

What should you consider when designing a coop (or choosing a plan)? Today and next week I’ll share what I’ve learned about housing chickens.

(more…)

Posted on in Birding Tips, Birding Trips, Birds

Fieldtrip Re-run

looking-west_elpasoco-co_lah_6739

I’ve gone on this same field trip every year for the past five years. It’s always the first weekend in March. A dozen or so of us follow a series of barely-used back roads out onto the plains, searching for hawks, falcons, and other birds. Some years the snow falls, the wind howls, and the birds hunker on the ground. We see very little. Other years the weather is delightful, and the sky is full of soaring raptors.

The lead car gets the best view. Red-tails and Rough-legged Hawks perch on utility poles, kestrels balance on the wires, and Northern Harriers skim the short-grass prairie. The rest of us eat dust and catch glimpses of the back-ends of startled birds.

(more…)

Posted on in Chickens

Chicken Attraction

chicken_blkforestco_2200411_lah_2205r2-1

My therapist lives in a chicken coop. Yup. We have (currently) six hens. Whenever I need some reassurance, I head out to the shed where they live. I tell them all my problems. In fact, I can tell them anything; hens are experts at keeping secrets. When I’m finished complaining, they come around and bwaaaaak and braaap at me. Hens must make the most comforting noises in the animal kingdom! My hens always help me feel better, and they don’t charge $100 an hour.

(more…)

Posted on in Birds, Gardening, Landscaping

Berries for the Birds

american-robin-in-russian-hawthorn_xg_20091215_lah_5562xHow would you like to have a flock of robins outside your window? How about other thrushes, waxwings, sparrows, towhees, or vireos? Want to add Western Tanager to your yard list?

Along with finches, grosbeaks, thrushes, some warblers, Northern Mockingbird, Townsend’s Solitaire, chickadees, nuthatches, swallows, woodpeckers, pigeons/doves, jays, and even hummingbirds (who drink the juice), all these birds eat berries at some point.*

Planting shrubs and trees that produce berries is a great way to attract more species of birds. Even better, plant several kinds of berries, since each bird species has its favorites.

(more…)

Posted on in Bird Profiles, Birds

Flamingos

american-flamingo_denverzoo_lah_4364When I was growing up, our elementary school classrooms were always decorated in seasonal colors… black and orange for October, red and green in December, and pink and red for February. Therefore, in honor of that long-lasting tradition, today’s post is about one of our most popular pink birds.

When we think of pink, the first bird that probably comes to mind is the flamingo. While there are six species of flamingo worldwide, and four in the Americas, only one is found wild in the United States—the American Flamingo. Even then, it takes a lot of effort and even more luck to actually see them in the US. Their normal range encompasses the Caribbean and the Galapagos (these two populations are divided into two subspecies), and only rarely are they seen near the southern tip of Florida. (more…)

Posted on in Birds, Hotspots

Eagle Days 2011

gyrfalcon_lakepueblosp_lah_5104-1I’ve learned the lesson once again. If you stay home, you won’t get any photos. If you go out, you may still come up empty handed—or you just might be surprised.

The forecast was for snow and cold, but Lake Pueblo State Park was celebrating their 15th Annual Eagle Days. We couldn’t miss that! So I layered a jacket over a sweatshirt over a thin turtle-necked top over long underwear, piled about 30 pounds of camera gear into my pick-up, threw in a ham sandwich, hat, gloves, binos, field guide, and notepad, and headed south.

As I drove through the quiet early morning streets, I eyed the clouds boiling over the mountains to the west. I figured that the odds for getting photos worth keeping were pretty low but at least I’d enjoy the day with some birding friends.

(more…)

Posted on in Bird Profiles, Birds

Incredible Hummingbird Video

black-chinned-hummingbird_redrocksranch-hwy115-co_lah_3777

It seems that everyone loves hummingbirds. Their tiny size, incredible gymnastic feats, and bright colors are enough to win over even the most apathetic bird-ignorer. (Is that the opposite of a bird watcher?)

PBS, through the design and construction of a special camera, has made a documentary about these amazing birds that slows their life down to mere human speed. I was astonished at what I learned.

I missed this video when it first came out last year. Maybe you did too. So instead of writing my own article for today, here are two links, one to the full-length video and one that shows how the filming was accomplished:

Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air
Behind the Scenes of “Hummingbirds”

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Posted on in Birding Tips, Birds

Lumpers and Splitters

Scrub Jay_TurkeyCreek-FtCarson-CO_LAH_9808From the big questions (how many species of birds are there?) to specifics (should the Bullock’s Oriole and the Baltimore Oriole be merged into one species called the Northern Oriole?), birders have long endured a bit of confusion. It seems even the most eminent ornithologists disagree on these and similar conundrums.

In 1946, a paper published by Ernst Mayr asserted that there were  8,616 species of  bird worldwide. Today, the consensus is that there are closer to 10,000 although estimates vary widely. What happened?

In 1973, scientists decided that the two most common American orioles, the Bullock’s Oriole in the west and the Baltimore Oriole in the east, were really the same bird. Where their ranges overlapped, they mated and produced fertile young. Then, in 1995, the two species were separated again! Why?

(more…)

Posted on in Birding Tips, Birds, Nature

New Year, New Birds

downy-woodpecker_cherry-creek-sp-co_lah_2555If you are a serious birder, you probably keep a life list. As any collector understands, adding birds to that list brings a sense of elation, accomplishment and satisfaction. However, if you’ve been birding the same place for very many years, you probably have already seen most of the birds in your area.

How can experienced birders recapture that beginner’s sense of excitement? Along with their cumulative lifetime list, many birders keep year lists. What birds can we find this year? It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve already seen them, it’s fun to start over.

(more…)