My favorite visitor is a Downy Woodpecker. But I had a Northern Flicker there today and it was stunning.

Nice! I put up a hanging flowering plant and I get the occasional hummingbird. Great pic.

Rick, may I assume that photo is NOT a recent one? I would think that if it was taken sometime in the last week, the little devil would have an icing problem.

Every year there are Hummingbirds that turn up in the dead of winter at feeding stations. The most common are Rufous Sided Hummingbirds - which this one appears to be. Several years ago a Callopie Hummingbird was documented here in Winston-Salem. There is an organization which, when contacted, will come out, trap and band the bird verifying which species it is.

Just in case anyone was interestd.

How do you trap a humming bird?

You teach the hummingbird the words........ to this.... and the bird will coop itself.

When I lived in Virginia, we got a lot of woodpeckers on our wooded lot: Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied, and even the big daddy Pileated Woodpeckers.

We got a lot of Goldfinches, Bluebirds, Cardinals, house finches, chickadees, nuthatches, ruby-throated hummingbirds and tufted titmouses. Or is that titmice?

That pic was some time during the summer. The wife had a hummingbird ans butterfly garden. The first pic is a nest full of starlings.

HA. Favorite episode ever! I love when it comes back from commercial break but you don't know it because the screen is just black, then you here Peter quietly whispering the song to Lois in bed.

We remove our hummingbird feeders in late fall so they will get the message and fly south. Which reminds me, I completely forgot to start filling the regular bird feeders again for the winter birds. Explains why there has been a lack of color around lately.

We've fed and watched birds for many years. The most interesting visitor I've ever seen near a feeder was at my father's house a few years ago. He lived on the edge of town and would often get interesting birds due to his proximity to fields & woods; turkeys, quail, etc. One winter, a Kestrel showed up for a few days.

(Not my pic; copied from Wikipedia)


As you can probably guess, it wasn't for the seed. But it was for the food. {S}He had learned that there were lots of fat & happy little finches and sparrows cheerfully feeding. I'll spare the fellow bird-lovers the details, but let me just say that it was pretty amazing to watch that Kestrel hunt right in my father's back yard.

Here are some action shots I took of blue jays feeding on my parents deck last Christmas. Blue jays are quite entertaining to say the least; they are very dominant and dive bomb each other. They were literally 3-4 feet from me.

Blue Jays are mean!

Medic,
last summer I had 20 Goldfinches at my feeders at one time, it was awesome.

Wow, those are great shots. What camera are you using?

Thanks, Ken. It's a Canon G3 with the zoom lens on. Although it's an older camera (was highly regarded at the time), it takes great pictures. Going to upgrade to a DSLR in a year or two.

They place a trap around the feeder with a trap door and a string attached as a trigger. The hummers are not very cautious and they will fly in to get to the feeder. All you have to do is pull the string and, Voila!

http://www.carolinabirdclub.org/hummingbirds/winterhummingbirds.html Check out this site if you are interested.

One other point - The hummers will fly south whether you leave your feeders up all year or not. There is no need to take them down to insure that the birds will leave. It is the feeders that are left up past October that attract the vagrants that have lost their way for whatever reason.

I have a Canon 20D that I have had for some time. Excellent camera - zero lag time when you press the shutter button. I think that the series is up to 50D now?

Cooper's and Sharp Shinned hawks also latch on to an area where homeowners are feeding birds. You see a lot of complaints from the "bird lovers" that the hawks are preying on "their" birds. I, for one, enjoy watching a bird of prey take down a meal every now and then.

My parents have an "island" of bushes in their back yard that has about 10 feeders and 3-4 suet stations, as well as 3-4 sugar feeders for the hummers. They get pretty much all the birds mentioned here plus several types of hummers, grackles, stellar jays, several types of chickadees(mountain, brown/black cap) and many others I can't remember. I'm sure every bird in Whiterock knows their house because they get adult birds like Pileated Woodpeckers and Nuthatches bringing their babies to the suet feeders to eat.

Every once in a while, they do get a Coopers or Sharp Shinned swoop down and pick off an unsuspecting bird though, or even a ground squirrel near the feeder.

"So what are your Axiom buddies talking about on the boards today?"

"Hummers, and taking pictures of hummers."

" "

"Trapping Hummers", Peter. Can't forget the trapping.

Imagine the fluffers on those hummers

Whoooops! I forgot to say "don't get me started!"

You guys have got dirty minds, LOL!


Sometimes there is a pair of tits in the bushes too.

Well.....on a cruise you can see the Blue Footed Boobies - if you are so inclined.

They make Crocs in blue?

That reminds me of a scene in Something, Something, Something Dark Side, the latest Family Guy Star Wars remake. (which was actually pretty funny)