It's for the birds! Backyard feeding and viewing

Well, I’ve gone and added more to the feeders, with great results. The dome feeder below is adjustable just to let the little guys in. Those things in the middle are nut butter/suet/seed cakes that slide onto the central post of this feeder. You can also scatter some seed in the bottom tray.

This is one of about four or five Downey Woodpeckers that are in the backyard on a daily basis. They’re learning to come in when the Starlings are gone. They love the suet baskets.

On the left, there is a Dark Eyed Junco that is part of a regular group now, and he’s sharing with the usual Doves. Junco’s are really neat looking and are ground feeders.

The bird action provides ‘Kat Cinema’ for Ladybird

Make use of yourbirdhouses, by attaching more suet cages to them. The Northern Flickers, Downey Woodpeckers and even Wrens and Finches are all over these - when the Starlings aren’t.

 -maven

The Western Tanagers are migrating through Reno now

Whoa! Just saw this guy - a Western Tanager -  outside the kitchen window today - and my step-daughter told me that she saw one over in the Marin County area just over this weekend.

They’re on their way north to the British Columbia area, so far as I know. We used to see large flocks of them migrate through back in Salt Lake City.

My backyard birds: Reno, Nevada

We’re having a great time bird watching here at Rancho Maven again, this winter. I’ve been putting out a lot of seed, but also more of the suet/seed bricks this year, since I adore the Flickers and Downey Woodpeckers.

Here’s a rundown of some of the more interesting birds this month:

There is currently a lovely pair of Downey Woodpeckers

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Dinosaur's: Why more colorful that previously thought?

Forget those drab grays and greens, dinosaurs might have been more colorful, according to a new study in Science. Yale graduate student Jakob Vinther and colleagues looked at the fossilized feathers of 150-million-year-old Anchiornis huxleyi and found melanosomes—the organelles that hold melanin. Vinther’s analysis suggests the dinosaur had surprisingly flashy plumage. En Español.

How to band migrating birds

video is courtesy of Science Friday, who cares more about you learning about science and our world than making money from this … unlike HBO. Sigh. It’s a long story.

Baby owls: cute bundles of fluff at London Zoo

These are three rescued baby burrowing owls. I absolutely adore owls; they’re my favorite bird, in fact.

We’ve always had a couple of big ‘barn’ owls in the big cottonwood trees around the house here in Reno, but I also like the burrowing owls when I was growing up in south Florida.

Click here to ‘hear’ the typical call of a Burrowing Owl.

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