WARM WEATHER BIRDIES COME BACK TO VISIT - 4/22/20


 

WARM WEATHER BIRDIES COME BACK TO VISIT

BY: PEGGY WILLIAMS aka Birdie of Mississippi

 

After a long winter of many colorful and much loved birds leaving us to head south for the winter, they have returned to us.  Some of them are here for a short visit and some to stay with us for the WHOLE summer.  This past week many of you have had to quickly put up your hummingbird feeders because the little hummers came back with a big appetite after their long flights!  Bits of yellow and blue have shown up as American Goldfinch and Indigo Buntings decorated brightly our feeders.  And a very almost patriotic looking Rose Breasted Grosbeak and wife came to crack a sunflower seed or two! 

 

And I was blessed to photograph a beautiful Eastern Bluebird couple protecting their nest of eggs in my daughter’s (Amanda Vines) bluebird house.  And today I hear that four Baltimore Orioles came to her oranges and grape jelly feeder!  What a wonderful array of God’s beautiful creatures that He has given us to enjoy!  And what joy they can give us and cheer us during this time of quarantine! All my photos are colorful and my backyard feeders look like a stunning display of tropical birds!

 

And if you missed the Great American Backyard Bird Count, well in just a couple of weeks on Saturday, May 9th there will be an annual global bird count called Global BIG DAY.  The time frame is from midnight to midnight in our own time zone and people from all around the globe will be submitting their counts. It is a perfect thing to do to enjoy the birds that are right in your own backyard or on your social distancing walk around your block!  All that needs to be done is count the number and variety of birds that you see or if you recognize the call of birds you can count those that you hear during a 5 to 30 minute time period. If you have time you are allowed to submit counts from several different observation times during the allotted time period.

 

There are a couple of free apps that are available that you can download on your phone to help you to identify the birds that you see and hear.  There is the Audubon app from the Audubon Society and also the the Cornell Lab Merlin app.  I have found them both very useful to identify birds that I have never seen before or that look similar to birds that I know of.  These apps also can let you hear what the sound of individual birdcalls sound like so that you can learn to identify the birds singing in your neighborhood.

 

Your Global BIG DAY checklists are to be submitted on ebird.org and the counts will help scientists to learn more about the flight patterns and number of birds in existence in different species.  It can be very exciting to be part of science by doing your part by counting the birds that you see.  And as I have shared before it can be such a wonderful way to recognize the beauty of what God has given us.  So on Saturday, May 9th – “Look at the birds of the air.” Matthew 6:26 and COUNT THEM!

My photos may be viewed & “LIKED” on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest - “Birdie of Mississippi”. E-mail: birdieofmississippi@gmail.com - Read my Blog @ http://www.birdieofmississippi.blogspot.com

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