Stormy visitors

Scram at the suet basket

Despite the frigid weather yesterday, there were LOTS of visitors to the Bird Cam yesterday.

Chickadees, goldfinches, the male & female hairy woodpeckers, Scram (and a friend!), juncos and more. At one point yesterday morning, I noticed a large yellowish bird in the trees with a group of bluejays. Another Evening Grosbeak! I think it was a male. It was alone, but like I said, traveling with the bluejays. He stayed for a while and took a few swoops at the feeder, but was pretty skittish.

A male Evening Grosbeak visits

I was pretty surprised at just how busy the feeders were. Even when hubby was out snowblowing, they were still eating away.

Today, there are still lots of birds visiting. Guess they just can't stay away! Enjoy :)

Hope you all have a Happy New Year's Eve!

Blizzard Warning!

Just a heads-up! We're in the middle of a blizzard right now!
The cam may very well be down or only up periodicly as I do expect the power will go out sometime today due to the storm. We're already having some flickers of an outage.

Stay tuned! If we do go down, we'll be back ASAP!

Scram is home for the holidays!

The snow has melted off, and it seems to have brought back a familiar tail!

After yet another hiatus, Scram has returned yet again, just in time for Christmas! It was a very nice surprise to see him show up to have a snack on a Bird Pie in the suet block. I hope he sticks around a while!

Pesky or not, he's a nice visitor to the cam!

Holy Snow!!

Yesterday we got one whopper of a snow storm! Because the BirdCam is located in a higher elevation, we tend to get even more snow than most of the region. At one point the snow knocked out power and the cam was off air.

When the cam cam back online, it was amazing to see just how much snow had fallen! There were a few birds around, but most of them had definitely taken cover somewhere safe until the storm was over.

There should be a lot of activity today. I have already seen bluejays, chickadees, dark-eyed juncos and both the male and female downy woodpeckers! It's very busy!

Curious Woodpeckers

A female Hairy Woodpecker inspects the seed feeder.

I happened to take a look at the Birdcam this morning and was surprised to see a silly Hairy Woodpecker feeding at the window feeder, rather than the suet cage. I haven't seen woodpeckers show too much interest in seed before!

I don't think she was necessarily eating anything, but she stayed and checked out the feeder for some time before flying over to the suet cage.

As mentioned above, the woodpecker is female. This means that I have more than one coming to the feeders now, which is even more exciting. Up until this point, I had only seen a male visiting the suet cage. The new woodpecker however, did not have a red patch on the back of her head, which told me that she is indeed a she!

The next goal is to attract a Piliated or Red-bellied woodpecker! Wouldn't that be something?!

First Snowfall 2012!

Goldfinches grab an easy snack the morning after
our first snowfall.

Anyone who was visiting the Birdcam this morning (hopefully) noticed a difference in the landscape!

Not only did I do a little Christmas decorating, but over night we received our first dumping of snow! Typically we'll have a few days of light flurries when snow first arrives for the winter...but this year we got a heavy coating over night! What a sight to wake up to!

Chickadee (front) and
Hairy Woodpecker (right, suet cage)

The birds were very active today. I figure that food is harder to find under the snow, so the feeders were even more appealing!

Even the hairy woodpecker came by again for a snack, and I snapped a decent photo of him on the cam (if you look closely, you can see the red patch on the back of his head)!

I've seen the woodpecker a few times since then. I think he's going to be a frequent visitor like I had hoped!

Hairy woodpecker.

Make sure you keep checking in frequently! With the snow, there may be even more birds stopping by in search of food and shelter!

...maybe even Scram will stop by again! It's been some time since I've seen that little monster around!

Woodpeckers have arrived on NovaBirds!

About a week or so ago, I undertook a small project for the NovaBirds cam! I always love seeing a variety of birds at the other feeders around my yard, and woodpeckers are no exception.

I had a bit of a dilemma however. I couldn't figure out how to add a suet basket to my current set-up that would be wood-pecker friendly and also not take away from the natural view of the cam.

After a little research, I had a plan: find an old log around the property, dig a hole, put log in hole, add rocks, soil, and voila! A post for woodpeckers! I zip-tied the suet basket mid-way down the log.

The best thing about the new feeder addition is that it not only is another food source, but it provides a perch for the birds to hang out on as well!

A Hairy woodpecker samples the new suet basket

As with any feeder, it took a while for the woodpeckers to find it. The bluejays and chickadees had been snacking on it all to themselves until today, when a large, plump hairy woodpecker finally discovered it and helped himself to a snack! I snapped a quick photo...not the best, but you can see him there off to the side of the suet basket. I'm sure this is just the beginning of the woodpeckers who will continue to visit our new feeder!

Keep checking back to the cam, you may be lucky enough to see him yourself!