I’ll be heading to Atlanta for the birding trade show called Bird Watch America tomorrow looking for the latest and greatest in new birding products. I’ll also dip my toe into the ginormous AmericasMart because I suspect quite a few birding vendors are hiding there. I’ll probably do quite a bit of preview photos through Twitter if you would like to follow or check that out between blog posts.
My buddy Kirk who is behind the blog Twin Cities Naturalist and I were talking bird feeders last night. I was out getting photos of some of the feeders in my OpenSky store. We started talking about the Yankee Whipper, a feeder I’ve had great success with that he said had a design flaw. Surprised, I asked what he meant and he sent me this video he aptly titled: Squirrel Abs of Steel.
I think if that’s how I had to eat, my abs would rival Shakira’s. Yikes.
I had a meeting yesterday morning and while I was out and about, I stopped at Elm Creek Park for a few minutes just to soak up some birds. I won’t have time to do much of any birding in Atlanta–it’s all about the bird product. The tree sparrows were the largest numbers I’ve seen all winter.
And boy were they feisty with each other. The nature center does a good job of putting food out, but with our sub zero temperatures freezing the snow solid, easily available food is rare and birds will fight for the best access to the food source.
Speaking of winter survival, Cornell’s Celebrate Urban Birds is hosting a contest. They are asking for people to send in photos, drawings, sculpture, video, story, poem–or anything creative to show how birds survive winter in urban environments.
What are you seeing in your neighborhoods?
Winter hardship seems to be making our birds a little more tolerant, if not sociable, towards one another. Usually great tits won’t share the feeder and chase one another off, but these days we can get four or five at a time. Also birds like thrushes, which don’t usually bother, are also coming for some seed.
I just happened here through Neil Gaiman’s post and I actually just posted on my blog about the birds that have been hanging out outside my window lately. I live in Midtown Atlanta and actually have no idea what kind of birds these are but they’re cute! They seemed to be eating berries from a nearby tree and having a good time aside from their slamming into my window intermittently for some reason?
Lauren
I was just at the Residence Inn in Midtown! Without some sort of description, I can’t tell you for certain but birds that I’ve seen around there that eat berries would include mockingbirds and cedar waxwings.
There’s a couple pictures here- http://themargaritaglassishalffull.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-was-name-of-peewee-hermans-couch.html
I hope you had a fun stay in super cold Atlanta! Were you here for the snow? Everyone in GA freaks out when it snows haha it was a big deal.