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Over the winter, we got our usual backyard birds – but not quite as many as we have before. Fewer yellow-rumped warblers, fewer goldfinches. More pine warblers, more palms too. It’s funny how it seems to vary year to year.

In late January I started my new bird journal where I just list every bird I saw that day. On one hand, it’s nice because it’s simpler than feeling like I need to write coherent sentences about what I saw. It also helps me to notice how many birds I see each day. For example, I had been feeling like “I barely see any birds anymore” – but once I listed them out I found that I had actually seen 10 or more different species. And it made me pause to really appreciate seeing different types of birds.

On walks, we saw a lot more woodpeckers. At one point in early winter, I told Aaron that I wanted to get to a point where I could identify woodpeckers by their pecking sound. A few months later, I could – to a point. I can tell the difference between a pileated vs a red-bellied, which are the two that are most common in our woods.

For my birthday, Aaron took me up to Beidler forest. It was fun, I enjoy this tradition we’ve started of taking the day off mid-week to go birding and just have a relaxing day. Beidler is… fine. It’s pretty far away, and it’s just very swampy. We didn’t see as many songbirds as I had expected to, but I did see a brown creeper for the first time. That was fun. My primary goal of the day was to see a barred owl. I had never seen an owl in the wild before, and I had heard that they had some there. On the drive up, Aaron told me I needed to work on my manifesting skills like I had in Australia with the kookaburra. So I did. At Beidler, Aaron spent the entire time actively searching for an owl. I had mostly been blasé about it, just walking through, enjoying the moment. We reached the end of the boardwalk. I saw an alligator. We turned around, and there right in front of me was a barred owl. Just like with the kookaburra. We just stood for a while and watched her. It was very exciting. After that, I set my intention for the second-most-desired sighting: a pileated woodpecker. At that point, I wasn’t sure if I had seen one before and I had read in the birding groups that they were pretty elusive. It seemed like a big deal when people saw them. Anyway. I wanted to see a woodpecker of any type, really. But it was a no-go during our walk. We bought some cute bird cheese knives from the gift shop for my birthday dinner party and started talking about where we wanted to go to lunch. As Aaron was navigating the bumpy dirt road and I was on my phone I saw something out of the corner of my eye and screeched STOP! WOODPECKER! And sure enough, it was a pileated. He flew right by our car and landed in a tree right next to us, just long enough for me to say hi and be excited, but not long enough for me to get out and take a picture. Again, very exciting.

Since then, I’ve realized how many pileated we have in our woods by our house. I’ve seen them relatively frequently all winter and spring. I saw 3 today, actually.

We had our various ducks in our pond throughout the winter as well. It’s funny, too. How there are different types, how one will come to scope it out and then a few more will join and then dozens. I’m pretty sure we’ve had over 60 just in our little pond – ring-necked ducks. We got a lot of hooded mergansers too – those are my favorites. One day we had a northern shoveler couple.

We had a few eastern phoebes but they didn’t stick around for long. I saw one come to our shepherd’s hook once but never to the feeders. We saw them – or at least heard them – pretty frequently on walks though.

Tree swallows in February. Lots of cormorants, egrets, herons. Wood storks on walks. Ibis too, closer to spring.

By March the ring-necked ducks moved on. The mergansers a little bit later. That’s around when the mallards arrived. The warblers started moving on. But the bluebirds and cardinals and mourning doves and house finches were my constants.

March 19th I heard my first chuck-will’s-widow of the season, in the morning. They’re my favorite summer bird.

I put out my hummingbird feeders in late March, finally saw my first one April 3rd. Just a passer-through, they came for a few days and then nothing for a while. I don’t think it was until mid to late April when we really started seeing them daily, regularly.

In early April, on a very windy day, I saw a little baby bluebird in our yard. He looked injured – with an eye crusted shut and his wing sort of misshapen, he was getting blown over in the wind. I couldn’t tell for sure, but my best guess was that he fell out of the birdhouse too early or that a crow had attacked him as he was peeking his head out and then had dropped him in our yard. Who knows. I tried calling a help center. I kept putting him in a box but he’d fly out and his mom kept feeding him, so I left him alone while I worked. By the evening, I was going to put him in a box in the garage to keep him warm overnight, but one minute he was there in the yard, the next he was gone. He might have flown into our bushes or into the neighbors’ – who knows. I never saw him again.

A few days later, I did see another baby bluebird. It’s unlikely it was the same guy – no signs of injury or eye issues at all. He’s been sticking around with the parents since then.

We also have a baby brown thrasher. The thrashers have been hanging out for a while – I had thought I was hearing a mockingbird but saw the thrasher singing one day. They kept coming to our bird bath and bathing. Watched two of them continue to hang out in our yard near our left bushes and decided they were likely building a nest. I could never find it, though. But the other day I was spraying our leaves with a horticultural spray and the thrasher started clicking at me. I backed off, went to the other side of the bushes, and there was a baby on the ground. They look surprisingly similar to bluebirds, actually. Darker, spots on their chest, their yellow frowny beak. He’s fine. I’ve seen him hopping around in the yard with his parents since then, and it’s very cute. I read that only about 35% of thrasher eggs actually reach it to fledgling stage. I wonder if that’s thrasher-specific or just all birds.

Ever since March sometime we’ve had a mallard couple come to our feeders and hang out in our yard. I’ve named them Delilah and Tom. For a while, they were coming up 5 or 6 times a day. Now it’s maybe once, if at all. I’m sure there’s more food available in the wild that they don’t need the fallen birdseed as much. But I still get excited when they come. There’s a third mallard, another male, that tends to come and disrupt them. They chase him off and it’s all very dramatic. I keep hoping that they’ll have baby ducks, but I haven’t seen any so far. I read that the male leaves as soon as the female starts incubating eggs, and he’s still sticking around so I’m just not sure if she’s doing a brood this year. The same thing happened last year.

We have an eastern towhee couple too, who I love. A couple of cardinal couples. One bluebird couple with the baby. Unfortunately a goose family with 3 goslings that I have been trying to keep out of my yard. I’d really love for a hawk to come and snag one of the babies.

We saw a cooper’s hawk attack a Carl the other day when my parents were here. We were all outside and watched it. Carl panicked and flew into a window. He flew off later, I’m assuming he wouldn’t have survived but maybe.

Ohhhh here come the ducks waddling up now. Right past the geese, like they own the place. Mama is on a mission.

The other day Aaron and I sat outside and some of the birds would get pretty close to us – the hummingbirds obviously, but also the male towhee and one male cardinal kept trying to be brave. The next day I went out by myself and several of the birds came right up to the feeders while I was there – both towhees, hummingbirds, house finches, male and female cardinals, mourning doves even. It makes me happy to feel like they feel safe in our yard, and especially with me around.

I never wrote about my Australia birds, and now I’m regretting it. I hope I can remember. Referencing my Merlin Life List to jog my memory.

The first bird I saw was a trash bird ha. Australian Ibis. They were everywhere in the city center in Sydney, walking the sidewalks and eating trash. Like pigeons. Aaron went to get his haircut, I sat at a bench and watched them. One came right up to me. They almost reminded me of wood storks, with their bald black heads.

On our walking tour downtown, Aaron was the one to spot our first Rainbow Lorikeet. It was one of the birds high on my list to see because they’re so colorful and look like an exotic pet. But just.. in the wild. We were standing by an old building, right across the street from the cruise ship port. I can’t remember the significance of the building, but it was the oldest something. I could try to look it up. But there was a Rainbow Lorikeet flitting around in the trees across the opening. Little did I know we’d see dozens upon dozens of them later on in the trip.

On our day trip wine tasting, at the second winery sitting outside we watched a few different birds flying across the fields. A White-bellied Sea-Eagle was one. I recorded it and identified it later. Also Australian Pelicans. I’m pretty sure we saw some flying, while at that same winery. But then we also saw some at a little lake or pond, some small body of water on the right hand side of the road, and Jack knew me well enough at that point to slow down and point them out. A lot of common birds too. Common Mynas, Australian Magpies (I was proud to be able to identify these without Merlin).

Funny moment with Jack on the tour… at the last winery, as we were leaving, one of the workers with THE strongest Aussie accent I’ve ever heard was for some reason telling us about a bird that had been in the bushes in front. A Willie Wagtail. Even Jack said he could barely understand the guy, and Aaron and I were quite buzzed at that point, so everything was funny. I don’t even know if the guy knew I was into birds or if he just thought that was important to share with us. The name Willie Wagtail, coupled with his thick accent, made for plenty of giggles on the drive back.

Little Pied Cormorant (at Manly beach on the walk to … the smaller beach). Australian Brushturkeys… SO MANY at the smaller beach, obviously a pest there, jumping up on the tables at the restaurant and eating the leftovers – one even knocked off and broke glasses.

Back in Sydney, in the park by the Opera House, so many Sulfur-crested Cockatoos. We sat and watched them in the trees for a long while. Merlin says that I first logged them in Manly, along with Noisy Miners, but I don’t remember that. But those were such common birds we saw them frequently later and throughout the trip.

On the Blue Mountains tour, a Gray Butcherbird. I don’t totally remember it, but I believe it was in a tree next to a sidewalk at one of the stops. I think it was the same stop where I saw the Laughing Kookaburra.

Ah, the kookaburra. It was THE ONE bird I wanted to see in Australia. If I saw nothing else, I wanted to see this. First of all, they are A-DOR-A-BLE. Their beaks way too big for their bodies, semi-fluffy. And they’re a type of kingfisher, which I just love kingfishers and thing they’re super cool looking. Before we left, I had watched a few youtube videos of a woman feeding kookaburras in her backyard and I was obsessed.

We’d been on the tour all day, I had barely seen anything in the wild (a lot of birds in captivity at the farm that we had stopped at first, I believe injured birds that wouldn’t survive in the wild, but I don’t count them). We were at a stop, I had seen the things, taken some pictures. And I was just walking around by myself. I wandered over to the side and looked up and there right in front of me, sitting on a branch, was a kookaburra. Just chillin. Not even making any noise (which, their laughing noises are so fun). He seemed to be there just for me. And no one else saw him. I could just have a moment, just the two of us. Then Aaron came over, and we all hung out together. It felt significant, that this was the one bird I wanted to see, and he just happened to be right there in front of me, like I had manifested him. Later on in the trip, we heard kookaburras but didn’t see any others, so this initial moment felt extra special.

Same tour, the last top, the Botanic Garden. Wandering around with A, we saw a White-browed Scrubwren flitting around in a bush (again, I said “it looks like a wren” and felt very proud to be pretty right). Gray Fantail (I think this was in the more forest-y part towards the end). Eurasian Blackbirds.

Then – I think these were all at the … wait. Merlin was saying the White-browed Scrubwren and Gray Fantail and Eurasian Blackbirds were at the Botanic Garden. Was that on the tour? I think so. I don’t think I meant the gardens in Sydney. Okay, yeah. Checked the calendar (which is a day off because of the time difference). Confusing.

The day after the Blue Mountains tour, we wandered through the Botanic Gardens IN Sydney, by the Opera House. Saw tons of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos. I’m pretty sure Noisy Miners, Common Mynas, other common birds. Maned Duck. Australasian Swamphen. White-faced Heron. Little Black Cormorant. Australian Ravens. Some others we had already seen. That was a fun day.

Flew up to Cairns. Walking to the car, Aaron pointed out a bird nesting in the rafters of a .. I don’t know what you’d call it. The things that are in a parking lot along the sidewalk. It was adorable. I watched it for a while, it didn’t seem to mind me being pretty close. White-breasted Woodswallow. I could have stayed and watched her for a while, but our driver seemed … unimpressed with my awe of birds.

Port Douglas. Walked down to the park by the water’s edge. Green Oriole. Torresian Imperial-Pigeons (such a fancy name for a pigeon). A Willie-wagtail! And a lot of swallows – Welcome Swallows – swooping around. It felt special, our first day in Port Douglas, being welcomed by Welcome Swallows.

The next night, we saw something by the brush by the beach while we were eating dinner at our hotel. Bush Thick-knee. They’re so strange and weird looking, I love them. They’d skittle along fast and made really eerie noises.

I can’t remember where but we saw a Magpie Goose (I think just driving through Port Douglas) and a Scaly-breasted Munia. Walking back from our Great Barrier Reef tour there were so many Rainbow Lorikeets in the trees, making a crazy ton of noise, we think basically a mating frenzy. And then, along this one street, a cacophony. Metallic Starlings. Like, hundreds. During the day you could see an insane amount of bird poop lining the sidewalks, so you know it’s their spot. More Rainbow Lorikeets going at it in the trees outside our hotel restaurant.

Daintree Forest tour. Black Butcherbird. Apparently that was it. I don’t remember. We were this close to seeing a Cassowary. She was in the area, our guide took us over to the path on the right as everyone else ran down the street to the left because he thought she’d come that way. But he was wrong, apparently she disappeared in the other direction. By the time we turned around and went to the other side, she had left. No more sightings.

Thala Beach. Lots of wildlife. Sahul Sunbird. Helmeted Friarbird (so funny looking, I love them). Lots of Metallic Starlings bathing in the bird baths outside the restaurant. Rainbow Lorikeets too. I can’t remember what else. At the pond on the nature path, a Great Egret, a Nankeen Night Heron. And then, at the end, on the drive back to the airport, Eastern Cattle-Egrets by the side of the road.

Part of me wishes we had gone on a birdwatching tour, specifically. It would have been lovely to see a fairywren and more kookaburras. But I also loved that everything I saw, I saw on my own and identified by myself (with Merlin). There were more – I only life listed it if I was sure of what it was. There were some at Thala Beach especially that I wasn’t sure what they were so I didn’t log them. And a lot of sound recordings that I took that didn’t have an identification.

I was bummed about missing the Cassowary, but we did see one in captivity. And all in all, I’m most happy that I saw a kookaburra. That also opened the door to manifesting my barred owl on my birthday at Biedler (a story for another day).

Since my last post, I’ve seen palm warblers coming to the feeders daily. I enjoyed watching one scare off a pine warbler at the mealworms. The pine warblers sometimes fight each other off a little bit. It’s fun to watch them flitter around.

I’ve been seeing the phoebe a few times, but not daily. Only on the fences, never in our yard or at the feeders. I’m hoping that he’ll come once it’s cooler and later in the fall/winter. Yesterday I did see two together though! I was taking a photo of one on the neighbors’ fence when another came in and perched sort of nearby. They didn’t stick around long, but it was so fun to see them together.

For the most part, it still feels quiet around here though. Still mostly just the mourning doves (still, so many– I saw like 12 at the feeders the other day). No yellow rumpers. Some pine and palm warblers, but that’s about it. It even feels like the bluebirds aren’t coming around quite as frequently, although maybe it’s more that I haven’t been watching as much.

We’re leaving for Australia today so I’ll be taking down the feeders for about 3 weeks. Luckily I’ll have time to clean them all before we head out, so I can just pop them right back up as soon as we’re home. I am already looking forward to who might come around and find our feeders once we get back. I’m hoping we’ll see some fun winter residents.

I can’t quite remember if last October was this way, but it seems like a quiet season right now.

We of course still have all of our mourning doves coming to the feeders. At least a dozen. It’s so funny to me how they all seem to come at the same time and then fight over the food. Fascinating that there’s something in their internal clocks that says, Now is the time to eat, even if that means competing with the other birds rather than waiting 5 minutes for them to move on. Our grass under the feeders seems to always have a layer of mourning dove feathers from them pecking each other away.

Our bluebirds are still here, coming to the feeders each day. I think these are different than the ones who were born here this spring. There’s about 4 or 5 of them. It’s usually too chilly now for them to bathe, but I was lucky enough to see a female in the birdbath for a minute yesterday. It’s always my favorite.

Our one fall migrant who’s been here consistently is the pine warblers. We have at least 6, probably more although I never see more than 4 or 5 at a time. I really do love them. I know they’re common, I don’t think most birders get excited to see them since they’re not rare or elusive. But some of the males are so bright and so beautiful. In general I love warblers, with their tiny little bodies darting around so quickly. For some reason I also love that they eat the suet. I can’t explain that one.

I’ve seen a few palm warblers. Also common but also very fun to watch. I love any bird who twitches their tail. A few weeks ago there were several in our far yard hunting bugs. I hadn’t seen any since then, but just a few moments ago I saw one at one of the blue feeders grabbing a few mealworms before flying into our shrubs.

But none of that is as exciting to me as my Eastern phoebe. My favorite.

First, he’s so fluffy. He does the tail twitch. I know he’s just grayish and white but I don’t find him drab at all; he’s so. cute. His cute little call feee beeee that isn’t actually a pretty birdsong at all but is somehow a-dorable.

I love that he’s a loner. I’ve never seen any together. I’m sure I’m not always seeing the same bird, but I always just say “it’s my phoebe,” like he’s the only one who has ever existed. And who knows, maybe it’s a female. Can’t tell ’em apart. I just read that they are solitary birds in the winter – they don’t even join other groups of birds to hang out, which I’ve noticed too. Ugh. I just love them.

I think it was about 2 weeks ago now, maybe a little less, when Aaron and I were on a walk. I thought I heard the fee-bee call and paused to try to record it. Of course as soon as I did, it stopped. A few days later I was at Lauren’s hanging out outside and one came and perched on her fence a little ways down from some bluebirds and a mockingbird. I was stoked. First, I was feeling pretty good about myself for recognizing its call a few days before (validated). Second, it’s my fave winter bird, of course I’m pumped.

Phoebe was kind enough to perch at the end of our neighbors’ fence the other morning so that I could snap a few photos of him. Haven’t seen him at our feeders yet, but if I recall correctly, they hang in the area and at the fences for a while and don’t come to the feeders until further into the winter.

Fingers crossed that he’ll stick around even while we’re on vacation and come to our feeders once we return.

A few others worth noting:

We have at least 3 house finches coming every few days. I saw a male cardinal in the shrubs recently, chirping away like he wanted to come eat but was too timid. Every once in a while I’ll see a mockingbird come to the feeders – not to eat, just to scare off the other birds. Haven’t seen any chickadees or titmice in a while, but I hear them in the forest sometimes.

No yellow rumpers yet. No goldfinches. Those are the only other winter regulars that I can think of that we get.

Our mallard couples are still in the pond most days, but I haven’t seen them come to the feeders for a few weeks. Looks like we have a solo grebe who’s been hanging out daily.

Great egrets most days, I think snowy egrets too. Great blue herons come and go, same with the little blue herons. Oh, we saw some ibis in the trees on our walk a few weeks ago. It was pretty cool, they were all perched in different branches at the edge of the path coming back from the other side of the sub right at the edge of the gravel path. They let us walk right under them without flying away.

I’ve been seeing an adult bald eagle at least once a week. Haven’t seen any hawks recently but hear a red shouldered frequently, especially in the mornings.

Not a bird, but we also have a fox 🙂 I’ve seen him about 3 or 4 times now, on the other side of the pond. And some deer every once in a while too.