Feeders Busy

Feeders were very busy today.  Tonight is supposed to be the coldest night of the season so far, into the 20s, so they must have sensed what is coming and were filling up.  Just today we had:

--Carolina chickadee
--tufted titmouse
--house finch
--goldfinch
--northern junco
--red-breasted nuthatch
--red-bellied woodpecker (I never saw the downy but feel certain it came at some point during the day)
--pine warbler
--cardinal
--ruby-crowned kinglet (female)

I may have seen a siskin but it is hard to tell the difference between that and a female house finch.  It all depends on the lighting, and I won't be certain until I see that flash of yellow.

Irruption?

Just read on eBird that this is expected to be a great irruption year for finches and many other birds due to a "complete failure" of the cone crop up north.  The article said we could even possibly get evening grosbeaks.  I will be watching for new birds!

I may need to get another niger feeder.  Last year it was somewhat of a failure, but if we get any pine siskins at the sunflower feeder - I will be at the hardware store very quickly, to get a niger bag and seed.

Nuthatch

I thought I heard a nuthatch squeaking the other day - then saw a red-breasted nuthatch at the feeder!  A first!

Lied Lodge Was a Great Place To Stay

If you are ever in Nebraska City, Nebraska (south of Omaha, east of Lincoln), you should check out Lied Lodge.  We spent two nights there and it is a beautiful place.  It's run by the Arbor Day Foundation and so there was a great emphasis on trees and nature.  The lobby roof is held up by huge lodgepole pines from the northwest.  It reminded us a lot of the hotel lobbies in Glacier National Park where we were fifteen years ago.

It almost looks like a castle!

On the trails behind the lodge.  We didn't get to explore as far as we would have liked to as there was a wedding and reception going on in the barns at the end of the trail, but this was still a pretty walk.

From the back deck of the lodge.  We ate a couple of meals on this deck.

Mike on the trail.  Some of the trees were really unusual.  We also heard a lot of different birds but it was just too close to dusk and there wasn't a place to sit to wait for them.

If we ever go back to that area (which was a first for both of us) we will definitely go back to Lied Lodge!

Trip to Omaha

We have never seen so many red-winged blackbirds as on this trip.

We were hoping for a rose breasted grosbeak or a yellow headed blackbird, because according to the range maps they should have been around.  Or a summer- or scarlet tanager would have been nice also.  But it was not to be.

However, we did get a fleeting glimpse of a Baltimore Oriole off the deck of the Lied Lodge.

And on the way home, we got treated to a show by a scissor-tailed flycatcher, on a wire in front of a stoplight!

Too Warm For Birdfeeding

The weather is just not cold enough to really get a good assortment of birds. Yesterday I bought 25more pounds of seed--that should do us for the year. Very different from last year!

Loggerhead Shrike

Saw a loggerhead shrike today on the way home from eating at the Meeting Place and looking at cars after church. It was on a guidewire off of a telephone pole, right where we turn from the bypass onto a sideroad. At first I thought it was a mockingbird since they are so similar, but realized pretty quickly that it wasn't one of those. We were able to watch it for about five minutes thanks to not much traffic.

Haven't seen one of those in probably 20 years. It was a real treat.