Backyard birdwatching...

So a couple days ago I finally put up a couple bird feeders in my backyard. For some reason, this has taken me quite a while, with all of the joys of home owning. It seems like every time I would go to buy one, I would get sidetracked and buy something that the house really "needed." Well, as a bird geek, this was a necessity.

After a trip to Lowes, I came home with my new feeders, and a huge bag of Black Oil sunflower seeds, and searched around for the perfect location. I ended up settling on hanging these up on the back corner of my garage, which is conveniently right outside our dining room window. This location also gave me a few other vantage points in different rooms in the house. It is always good to have options and different angles when trying to identify birds. So with the feeders in place, now all I could do was wait and see if anything would show up.

The next day, to my surprise, quite a few birds were hanging out at the new feeders. I definitely did not expect any birds to show up on the first day of being there. The first bird to show up was a single Tufted Titmouse, which was there and gone so quickly that my daughter did not even see it. I thought that would be it for the day. I was completely wrong. As the day progressed, 11 different species decided to show up. They were:

-European Starling
-House Finch
-House Sparrow
-Carolina Chickadee
-Tufted Titmouse
-Red Bellied Woodpecker
-Downy Woodpecker
-Blue Jay
-Carolina Wren
-Northern Cardinal
-Pileated Woodpecker

The Pileated Woodpecker was quite the shocker. It flew in at one point in the evening, while my daughter and I were watching, and I yelled in excitement, which startled the bird away. One of my favorite birds, and I did not expect it to show up in my back yard!

I'm not sure why it took me so long to hang up a couple bird feeders, but I am very glad that I did. This is a very easy way for me to get back into birdwatching, with very little difficulty. It is also a great way to share the joy of birdwatching with my daughter, which hopefully she will be out in the woods with me once the weather gets warmer. I would suggest anyone somewhat interested in birds to hang up a bird feeder just to see what shows up in your own backyard!

Random encounter...

For a recent bird story, at work just yesterday, got to observe a Cooper's Hawk fly off holding what looked to be a sparrow in its talons. Very cool sight. It flew out from under a bush, and then perched in a nearby Oak tree. Random encounter, but made me want to get out and bird watch some more!

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

We will start with beer:
The Good:
Troegenator. Fantastic beer. I had the pleasure of being in the D.C. area a few weeks ago, more on that later, and had the chance to try this wonderful brew from the tap. Such a malty nectar. This is definitely on my top 5 list of favorite beers.
Yuengling. Since I was in the D.C. area already, some of this beer made the journey back to Ohio with me since its not available here. It only makes sense, the oldest brewery in the states has it figured out.
The Bad:
Sam Adams Noble Pilsner. Not good at all. I did give it a couple tries though. Once on tap, and once from the bottle. To me, it tastes like a watered down version of their Imperial Pilsner. This was a little bit of a disappointment.
The Ugly:
Two different mountain bike rides in muddy conditions. One here in Ohio and one in the D.C. area. Both were a blast! At one point in D.C., the mud and muck was so think that the tires stopped rotating! Now before anyone starts to complain or start quoting IMBA trail rules, this was not pristine wilderness. This trail was located underneath a power line. I do think also, that here on the East coast we are a little too whiny when it comes to muddy conditions. I will step down from my soapbox. It was ugly, but it was awesome.