0comments Snow Birds

When there is a lot of snow or ice on the ground, all the birds head up to the tipping floor where the garbage is being dumped. Everything else right now is covered in ice, so their only hope is to pick morsels of trash or stray seeds from the mud. Today I saw Mourning Doves, Eastern Meadowlarks, Horned Larks, two American Pipits and a single Lapland Longspur all at the active dumping area. The Rough-legged Hawk is still around as well. These shots aren't the best because the low light forced me to bump up the ISO and the birds are constantly moving picking food up off the ground so some are a little fuzzy.

Eastern Meadowlark

The most numerous birds were the Horned Larks with around 50 present. Most of the birds looked even paler than this bird below. There was a lot of variation in their color and no two birds looked the same.

Horned Lark

This Mourning Dove found some hay that was laying in the mud. It was frantically picking of all the small seeds from the grass.

Mourning Dove

The most accommodating by far was the American Pipit. The bird ventured close several times, sometimes as close as six feet from the truck. I counted two who were expertly dodging dump trucks while foraging for food.

American Pipit

The only bird I wasn't able to photograph was the Lapland Longspur. I saw it several times but it never came close enough for me to get a photo. Guess I'll have to try again tomorrow. I'm hoping for sunny skies instead of clouds, that way I can drop the ISO and open the aperture and avoid these fuzzy photos.

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2comments Finding Birds

I have found the best way for me to find birds to photograph is to find the food they love to eat. Out at the landfill that means different things at different times of the year. It seems many times out there it is a boom or bust kind of situation. There have been many times when I have seen hundreds of American Goldfinches feeding on unknown weeds or Common Sunflowers. Other times warblers and others descend in droves on the dogwood berries during fall migration. During the summer there was a lot of construction at the landfill, and subsequently, a lot of recently planted wheat. Wheat is often planted and covered with straw to prevent soil erosion, it grows quickly and can withstand cold better than most other ground covers. All that wheat on the ground has attracted more Mourning Doves than usual and a nice group of Horned Larks as well.

Mourning Dove

Right now it seems the birds are devouring the Japanese Honeysuckle berries as fast as they can. The stuff grows profusely along the woodland edges at the landfill. Japanese Honeysuckle is one of the most invasive species there is, nonetheless, the birds seem to enjoy the berries it produces. I have heard before that Japanese Honeysuckle berries are an "ecological trap", meaning that the berries are attractive to the birds but offer little in the way of actual nutrition. Even if this is true the birds do not seem to notice because they guard their patch of honeysuckle fervently, especially the Northern Mockingbirds. Here is a short list of birds I have found in the honeysuckle patch yesterday: Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, White-throated Sparrow, White-breasted Nuthatch, American Golfinch, House Finch, Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, Rusty Blackbird, Yellow-rumped Warbler and of course American Robins. The berries are going quick so I may have to find a new spot to photograph birds soon.

White-breasted Nuthatch

Carolina Chickadee

American Goldfinch

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0comments Morning Menagerie

There were a lot of good birds out and about this morning. A group of Cedar Waxwings have been around lately, possibly eating Japanese Honeysuckle berries that grow rampant out here. These guys finally stayed put long enough for me to get a long distance shot of them.


This Song Sparrow was doing a balancing act before landing on the fence.

White-crowned Sparrow and Mourning Dove

Swamp Sparrow

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0comments Mourning Doves

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