Wildlife & Related

[henpecked]

[ChickNorris]

..

[henpecked]

Northeast of walden last weekend

[Hummer]

Okay Hummer, here is another bird identification for you. The pictures are terrible because this bird is inconsiderate and built a dumb nest and put the eggs at the bottom.

The bird is about 2/3 to 1/2 the size of a finch, looks similar, but with a beak about twice as long. It has a loud call that sounds more like an insect than a bird. Instead of a nice round nest full of padding, it just threw a ton of sticks into this bird house and chucked some eggs at the bottom. The eggs are about the size of my pinky and are a redish swirl color over a tan/white base. Seems to co-exist with the 100's of finches living at my and my neighbor's house. I'll attempt to get a photo later which hopefully isn't too difficult since I see this bird every day out my window. What do you think?

Irving, you've got a House Wren there. Cool little bird but aggressive and sometimes will puncture the eggs of other cavity nesting birds. Often they'll build several nests but use only one (to limit competition). Not related to finches but more closely to American Dippers.

[Mtneer]

Irving, FWIW the Merlin Bird ID app from Cornell Lab is free and amazingly great.

[Irving]

That's the one! That scold sound she makes is interesting.

[Irving]

Irving, FWIW the Merlin Bird ID app from Cornell Lab is free and amazingly great.

I think I stumbled into there just now looking for the songs.

[Hummer]

Henpecked and Chick Norris, love the photos. I like velvet.

[Hummer]

This is the peak of season for hummingbirds in the mountains of Colorado. Yesterday we fed 9 gallons of sugar water to thousands of birds of three species.

On Tuesday I caught a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird that I had banded as an adult on July 28, 2010, 5 days short of nine years ago. This would make her at least 10 years and 2 months old, our oldest Broad-tailed and our oldest hummingbird recapture to date. Pretty exciting! She was also interesting in that she had "leucistic" white feathers in the forecrown and no iridescent gorget feathers which we associate with older females.

At 10 yrs 2 months old, our Broad-tailed Hummingbird record is two years short of the record of 12 years, 1 month old, set in 1976 in Colorado.

Two weeks ago a bird bander in Idaho recaptured a female Black-chinned Hummingbird he banded as an adult in June 2008. She is at least 12 years and one month old and breaks the Black-chinned longevity record by almost a year. Our oldest female Black-chinned in Palisade was at least 9 years 2 months old.

https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/longev...evity_main.cfm

[buffalobo]

This is the peak of season for hummingbirds in the mountains of Colorado. Yesterday we fed 9 gallons of sugar water to thousands of birds of three species.

On Tuesday I caught a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird that I had banded as an adult on July 28, 2010, 5 days short of nine years ago. This would make her at least 10 years and 2 months old, our oldest Broad-tailed and our oldest hummingbird recapture to date. Pretty exciting! She was also interesting in that she had "leucistic" white feathers in the forecrown and no iridescent gorget feathers which we associate with older females.

At 10 yrs 2 months old, our Broad-tailed Hummingbird record is two years short of the record of 12 years, 1 month old, set in 1976 in Colorado.

Two weeks ago a bird bander in Idaho recaptured a female Black-chinned Hummingbird he banded as an adult in June 2008. She is at least 12 years and one month old and breaks the Black-chinned longevity record by almost a year. Our oldest female Black-chinned in Palisade was at least 9 years 2 months old.

https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/longev...evity_main.cfm

Very cool. How do you catch them?