Some passionate birders share a glimpse of their backyards
The Eureka Reporter wrote a nice article about backyard birding, one of America’s most popular hobbies. I definitely relate with the opening lines:
After gardening, bird-watching is probably the most popular hobby in the country, said Louise Bacon-Ogden, a local bird lover. People go from putting a feeder in their yard and observing birds to taking bird walks to traveling across the county on birding trips.
It builds and builds, Bacon-Ogden said. “It’s a snowballing sort of effect.”
We put up a feeder in order to attract birds to our yard for Project FeederWatch. It was a homeschooling assignment to help my children learn more about what scientists do. I didn’t expect the hobby to take over our yard and bookshelves. I didn’t expect to be making field trips to different biomes to see different types of birds. I had never before noticed just how many different species of birds live in our area.
We have nine feeders which attract a variety of birds. Our favorites are: American goldfinches, house finches, blue jays, cardinals, rose-breasted grosbeaks, red-headed woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, northern flickers and downy woodpeckers. It is a rare and special treat when one of our native sparrows stops by. We get both white crested sparrows and song sparrows, but they are a little more shy than the house sparrows which think the ground feeder belongs to them and them alone.
We are yet to travel across the country to see birds, but we have traveled across the state. This spring, we went to see the Sandhill Cranes during their migration outside of Kearney. I had never seen anything like it. The constant karroo, karroo of their call echoed in my head long after we left. I could still hear them as I tried to go to sleep that night. And I cannot wait to make the trip again next spring.
birding, backyard birding, bird feeding, feeders
Leave a Reply