• Tuesday-What'sUP March 9 - 09:28 am

Year round feeding of the birds is a great hobby. The rewards are many for both you and the feathered friends that will visit your feeders. Greta Jones has discovered this bonus of getting a chance to snap some pleasing photos. The birds get the treat of some tasty winter feed and give a big thank you by coming back again and again, as long as you keep filling your feeders. If you haven't fed the birds and watched them flit back and forth, you are missing one of the most stress relieving, inexpensive hobbies around. Watching birds such as this Downy Woodpecker eating suet can be soothing after a harrowing day at work or struggling through the traffic jam to get home. Fill your feeders and they will come!

During our travels through the southern states, we've seen a number of exotic looking birds that we don't spot back home in the Keweenaw. It's quite common to be walking down the sidewalk and see a Sandhill Crane standing in someone's yard! That makes me wonder if it could be one that had been visiting back home a few months ago. Which of course then gets me thinking about home, so I get the laptop fired up and connect with Pasty.net Nationwide Dial-In,where I can get my taste of home!

The birds are fun - and winter brings so many different "styles" at the feeder when eating. The nuthatches are my favorite! Have a great day being a friend to the birds!!

I love watching the many different kinds of birds that frequent my feeders & it's certainly worth filling the feeders daily. Have a great day everyone!

Hyvää huomenta kaikille!

Tämä lintu tunnetaan Suomessa nimeltä PALOKÄRKI!

Good morning for all!

This bird know in Finland by name is burningpeak!

jAPEi: We do not have this bird in Texas--gotta be a "northern thing".

We haven't been able to figureout how to keep the flock of mourning doves from waisting the black oil sunflower seed we fill our feeder with? for every seed they pick up they swish their beak through the trougth amd send a shower down to the squirrels amd later in the Spring the chipmunks. Of course they are fun to watch too. Our grey squirrels come in all colors ffrrom pitch black to almost blond.

.... inexpensive hobbies?

Mary Drew, would you please talk to my Mrs., as we stock four different seeds, each in 50 pound bags.

Nice picture Greta. Thanks!

Don in Mqt: We had the same problem with bluejays "swishing" their beaks in the feeder looking for freebies. My husband stapled a piece of chicken coop wire across the trough, tucking it up under where the glass starts. No more swishing! We thought maybe the chickadees would have a problem with their shorter beaks but they are able to get the sunflower seeds just fine. Really has made a difference with much less waste on the ground. Course, the rabbit cleans those up. Maybe this would work for you.

Waiting for my ride to work today, I heard my first Robin of the Spring.....so did the cat! Marquette made the Today Show this morning re: snowstorm.

You got birds, you got squirrels. In the last 27 years I think I've transported a billion out to the Stanton township park. 10 miles a squirrel (there and back) makes a lot of cent$. I swear they get back here.

jAPE - 'Burningpeak'. That's great! Here it is a Downy Woodpecker. Your name is much more descriptive (and you can see why it would be named that from the red on his head (females don't have the red)).

jAPEi, do you have the bird we call a chickadee? I hope the attached link is OK.
http://birds.cornell.edu/bow/bcch/

Ahh the Picoides Pubescens, an ubiquitous habitué to the ambrosial suet in the backyard feeder indeed.

Wheatman

I'm loving Florida, the weather, the wildlife, Myakka State Park is just beautiful. I sure hope I love it as much in the summer. This winter has been a bit cool for the normal residents, but beautiful to me. I'm eager to be able to enjoy the unheated pools in the summer. As long as the hurricanes behave, I think it's a great place to live.

Mary - You mention exotic looking birds in very common places. We've been living in Florida now for almost 2 years and the wildlife still amazes me. Just the other day I was driving around campus (the University of Central Florida in Orlando) and about 20 of those cranes were in the road! It looked like they were picking at some of the stones in the road. They didn't want to move for me, so I ended up honking my horn and they finally looked up at me and moved to the edge of the road. That experience was almost as odd as the time a while back when an alligator was under a woman's car on campus. It started tearing at the wires on the underside of her car. The animal control people had to come out and remove it!

Nice pic Greta!
Does anyone have any Male Northern Cardinals at their feeders here in the UP? I have had a Female coming in but have never seen a Male, ever.

I used to be able to use the daily pics as wallpaper on my computer, but I now see that past pics I've saved that used to look fine now have a strange resolution. Does anyone know what could have happened? If I save WOW it's OK, but any non-WOW pics aren't (even though they were OK in the past). I've not updated any programs on my computer. Is there a way to correct the resolution on previously saved pics? Thanks in advance.....

SorrY! I should have probably posted that comment on the What's Up page.....

That's OK, Tammy. This is probably of interest to all of the daily picture viewers.

Your connection to the Internet may use an "accelerator", which compresses the images to gain speed. Along with this compression comes an incremental loss of quality. Most accelerators allow you to adjust the normal compression, or even override compression to get the original, unmodified picture.

If you would like to email me a sample of a Pasty Cam picture which appears to have changed in quality, I will compare it with the original and see how they differ.

Pasty.NET, the Internet service which brings you Pasty Central, provides its members with "Slipstream Accelerator", which uses this compression technique. Tammy, if you use dial-in and would like to try Pasty.NET with Slipstream, please email me and we will set you up with a free membership for the balance of March, in appreciation for your feedback regarding the quality.

To Fred Three Lakes
Strange that you haven't seen a male cardinal when you have seen the female.
We have had pairs of cardinals at our feeder, but the interesting thing I noticed is that the male always ate first while the female perched in a branch above (maybe to server as a lookout). Then when the male finishes, he takes the lookout spot while the female eats. I never saw them eat at the same time. I don't know if that is common among cardinals, but it seems to be the pattern in our yard near Lansing.

WHO is Colin R. Jex???

Colin R. Jex send to me such messages.. .


japei@japei.com
Lähetetty 8.3.2005 16:47:24
Lähettäjä Colin Jex
Aihe keep sending to pasty
Vaihtoehdot TEXT/HTML
Viesti: We love the finnish!


Colin R. Jex

Associate Vice President

AdminPro, Inc.

Fred, three lakes
I have a male and a female cardinal feeding on cracked corn on my deck rail. I read they will not come into a feedeer, so you have to spread crack corn and seed on the ground; or in this case my rail. It works, they were both back today.

FRED 3 Lakes... In the 10+ years I've been here,I have yet to see a Red Bird of either sex... Considder your self VERY lucky....I do miss the Cardnal and it's song.

Aren't those woodpecker blocks the best lil invention? I've gone through LOTS of them this winter. And I fill several feeders everyday with black oiled sunflower seed, AND throw feed on the ground for the Jays/Doves, etc...The chipmunks and squirrels all come for their share too...they gotta eat as well! Yes, it's expensive, but it's well worth the money to watch them all....

A week ago I got home an hour before sunset, filled the feeders and threw a little sunflower seed on the front porch for the 30 or 40 mourning doves who were waiting. A few minutes later I glanced out and there were two does on my porch, scarfing the seed. I guess they couldnt wait to move in under cover of darkness. Feeding the birds also means feeding the deer. It can't be helped.

Nice Pic. I just came in from feeding my birds. When I looked back out must have had about 50 birds out there. One of the previous letters said about buying 20lb bags of birdfeed well I buy mine 50lbs at a time plus the cob corn which a lot of birds also like not only the squirrels. My Cardinals feed both on the ground and in the feeders they seem to like the Black Oil Sunflower seeds the best as do most of the birds. Have a male and female Cardinal that for the last 3 or 4 yrs always come in last just before dark to feed and they stay until dark. The Birds sometimes eat better then I do. [Just a Joke.]

We've been having a Red tailed hawk and a Cooper's hawk stalking our backyard for months now....and we're right in the city. The only good thing is they've picked off a few pigeons (affectionately known as flying rats) and some mice that live in the garage. We have a cardinal couple that is out at the feeders every morning, rain or shine or snow.

jAPEi: No offense. I just wanted to let you know we love the Finnish spelling/words on Pasty net!

Colin J.
Milford/Hancock

I sorely dislike the squirels robbing my bird feeders AND teasing my dog so I switched to 2 squirell proof feeders and put the black oilers in one with safflower seeds in the other. Still have birds and an occasional squirel looking for a missed seed or 2 but never at the feeders themselves. I love it. Let the "other guy" feed the squirels while I enjoy cardinals, chickadess, mourning doves etc.

Regarding those sandhill cranes.. If you have horses be careful as they actually go after them. When my kids were younger they worked at a riding stable in Brighton and a few cranes had taken over a pasture. It was scary to see how aggressive they were. Eventually we had to have the DNR come and relocate the cranes for the safety of the both riders & horses.

Thanks all for the cardinal info.

Here in Bradenton, in a sub, there were three (a family) of sandhill cranes who called this area their home, moving from various back yards throughout the weeks. One day, a motorist saw another motorist hit one of the cranes. The other cranes stood over the one hit as if morning, greiving. Very sad as I think they stay together for life, fly north and come back south. Their migration is such an amazing feat.

Every April a pair of sandhill cranes on their flight north spend a few days in a flooded hayfield near me. I think they hunt the frogs that are shouting all day and night from those spring ponds. I know it is spring, no turning back, when I see them standing on their reflections in the field.

Fred, there was a Cardinal singing in a tree in my back yard here in Green Bay last weekend...I assume it was a male....does the female sing anyone?