{"id":688,"date":"2013-06-22T20:58:56","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T20:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/?p=688"},"modified":"2013-06-22T20:58:56","modified_gmt":"2013-06-22T20:58:56","slug":"keeping-a-yard-bird-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/?p=688","title":{"rendered":"Keeping a Yard Bird List"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Edie Parnum<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Pileated<\/a>

Pileated Woodpecker. Photo courtesy of and \u00a9 Howard Eskin.\u00a0 Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

Looking out my kitchen window as I habitually do, I spotted a large dark bird showing bold white flashes on its wings flying to a snag at the back of my property. \u00a0\u00a0Luckily, I keep my binoculars within reach on the counter.\u00a0 It was a Pileated Woodpecker, a first for my yard.<\/p>\n

This Pileated Woodpecker was #105 on my Yard Bird List.\u00a0 Every new bird added to the list is special to me.\u00a0 My count makes me proud that I\u2019ve planted bird-friendly natives that host a variety of birds.\u00a0 However, because my young trees are too immature to attract this woodpecker, the pileated was a surprise. It visited my yard because I left the trunk and some major branches on a dead tree rather than cut it to the ground.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The snag in Edie’s yard that attracted the Pileated Woodpecker. Photo by Edie Parnum.\u00a0 Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

Keeping the yard list helps me hone my ID skills, visual and auditory.\u00a0 A Least Flycatcher, one of those challenging
\nEmpidonax flycatchers, once lingered in my yard for two days.\u00a0 Seated on my deck, I could leisurely, but closely observe its diagnostic bold eye-ring, big head, short wings, and narrow tail. It did not sing, but occasionally gave a call, a little \u201cpit\u201d sound. \u00a0If I had been elsewhere on a bird walk, I
\nwould have made a quick ID and quickly moved on to look for other birds.<\/p>\n

Closely watching the birds in my \u00be-acre yard improves my knowledge of their habits, food preferences, seasonality, and habitat requirements. I note the species of birds using each plant and the time of year.\u00a0 In the spring, warblers, vireos, orioles, and other migrants glean caterpillars from the foliage of my Black Cherry and the young oaks and birches. In the fall, waxwings, mockingbirds, woodpeckers, robins, and other thrushes devour the crabapples.\u00a0 A variety of sparrows eat seeds in my 1\/10-acre meadow in the autumn.\u00a0 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers bore holes in the Sweet Gum and crabapples in the spring and fall. A Magnolia Warbler foraged in the Northern Bayberry last September, but I\u2019m not sure whether it was eating the berries or bugs. I\u2019ll take a closer look if it returns to the same shrubs next fall.<\/p>\n

\"Magnolia<\/a>

Magnolia Warbler. Courtesy of and \u00a9 Howard Eskin.\u00a0 Cllick to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

Do I count birds that fly over my yard without landing, you might ask?\u00a0 Yes, although I can\u2019t claim my improved habitat offers any sustenance to the flyovers.\u00a0 Furthermore, I even added a distant, heard-only, Fish Crow to my list.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps I\u2019m inflating my yard count, but I\u2019m staying observant of all the birdlife around me. On the other hand, I didn\u2019t count a Red-shouldered Hawk perched three blocks away that never flew over my property.<\/p>\n

I keep a list of missing birds, too. I haven\u2019t seen a Willow Flycatcher, Veery, or a White-eyed Vireo \u2014how could that be?!\u00a0\u00a0 Lacking a stream or wetland on my property, I may never see a Louisiana and Northern Waterthrush.\u00a0 Mature native trees are still scarce here, so the warbler list is slim–just 20 species.\u00a0 Maybe during this fall migration or next spring I\u2019ll find the missing Orange-crowned, Tennessee, Cerulean, Bay-breasted, Connecticut, Mourning, Wilson\u2019s, or Hooded Warbler.\u00a0 I probably won\u2019t ever get an outlier like American Woodcock (wrong habitat), but I have hopes that a Northern Saw-Whet Owl will use my Eastern Red Cedar one day.<\/p>\n

Keeping a yard list can be as simple as noting the birds on a piece of paper.\u00a0 Or, even better, you can use eBird, a listing program that is one of the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology\u2019s citizen science projects.\u00a0 By entering your yard bird sightings into eBird, you\u2019ll have access to the records of other local as well as far-flung birders.\u00a0 Your data will be incorporated into Cornell\u2019s records and be used to track bird populations by educators, conservationists, and ornithologists around the world.\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/ebird.org\/content\/ebird\/ <\/a>or http:\/\/ebird.org\/content\/pa\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Watching for birds is a part of my everyday life.\u00a0 I can observe my feeder birds while working at my kitchen sink.\u00a0 As I move around the house, I always glance out the closest window.\u00a0 While relaxing on my deck, I\u2019ve spotted many new yard birds.\u00a0 I regularly take walks around the yard, too.\u00a0 On good migration days, I go out early to look for new arrivals.\u00a0 No travel is necessary, and there\u2019s still time for the rest of the day\u2019s activities.\u00a0 Every day I\u2019m connected to nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Edie Parnum Looking out my kitchen window as I habitually do, I spotted a large dark bird showing bold white flashes on its wings flying to a snag at the back of my property. \u00a0\u00a0Luckily, I keep my binoculars … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,27,26,29,22,5,28,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backyardsfornature.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}