The first one appeared last week. Then three other males and a female arrived days later. In 50 years of feeding birds, this is the first time I’ve ever seen one. I call them our Christmas birds and so far they’ve become morning regulars. More
Recent video from Canada on what we’re enjoying here in Wisconsin this Christmas. Watch
What kind of birds were those? They looked like Cardinals, but I’ve never seen one with black wings and white stripes.
Being from the south I have never seen this bird before. The beak is definitely one for cracking open pine cones.
Never mind, I just saw the title of the video – Grosbeaks.
There are evening grosbeaks, which are fairly common and red breasted gross beaks which are the state bird for some, but the pine grosbeak is a Canadian bird that will winter south of the border. First time they’ve shown up here, but we’re trying our best to keep them.
Cardinals are a bright fire engine red, the pineies are a more subtle cranberry red, very Christmasy.
I’ve also noticed many more woodpecker varieties this year. I have regular visits now from a pair of pileated woodpeckers. That’s also a treat.
I see they have a specific pecking order. Literally.
My daughter and I as part of a Christmas tradition drive over to Higgins Point just East of Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho on CDA Lake to watch the bald eagles. Eagles congregate there in large numbers to feast on the Kokanee and Chinook salmon from November thru January. Today there were not many eagles but a lot of people out with their kids and their dogs out to enjoy the beautiful Winter day and hopefully to see a few eagles. 3 years ago there was a record number of eagles on CDA lake, about 3 to 400 eagles because of a record salmon run, today not so much but still eagle watching every Christmas has become part of our Christmas tradition.
Geoff — We saw a bald eagle last Thursday over Piper’s creek, just north of Ballard (Seattle). We often see bald eagles flying over our neighborhood — just a few minutes from downtown. The crows like to mess with them, but they don’t seem to mind.
The most unusual bird sighting we enjoyed immensely was a robin migration a few years ago. I didn’t even know that robins migrated! Hundreds of birds; gleaning everything in the trees and bushes around our house.
We also have the evening and rose breasted grosbeaks, but not these … yet. Hope we get them.
That was fun to see. I remember feeding the cardinals many times during Ohio winters growing up.
@ Tony,
Just like naggers, plenty of stuff to go around but……
Great thread. I love birds.
We now have Blue birds here in
south Texas.Dam things were eating
the red seed berries off of my magnolia tree.
I love that you decorated the bird feeder for Christmas.
Had a bush full of Cardinals eating berries last week.