Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Where are all the birds coming from?

my feeder is covered in birds. mostly little dark colored ones. not sure what they are. lots of cardinals and a few blue jays. the starlings hit the suet cakes. found out my sheridan doesn't hold pressure anymore so i'm bummed. i chase squirrels off regularly too. i had no less than 10 cardinals on there this afternoon. they are eating me out of house and home.

this is high desert. We normally go for 3 to 5 months in the summer with no rain at all. It's all irrigation. This last summer was no exception.
We have house finches and several species of sparrows year round. The junco's migrate in from somewhere and winter here.

Last year this time it was huge flocks of indigo bunting but this year the pine warblers are outnumbering even the sparrows and no buntings. We have the normal numbers of year round blue jays, cardinals, titmouse, chickadee, woodpeckers and house finch. Going to declare war on the bronze headed cowbirds when they show up this spring.

The usual: squirrels, doves, cardinals, SBBs, titmice, chicadees, nuthatches, misc. woodpeckers, bluejays.

My hawthorn, Bradford pear, and the oaks are cleaned out. Can’t tell about the wild grapes. The crabapple is still loaded. If and when we get deep snow, we set out frozen fruit from the freezer for the robins and other fruit eaters. You should see them scramble for it.

We probably won't see robins for another month. We have a 400' deep canyon near here and they duck down in there during the coldest months. This is a warm winter, though, and they might come out early.

We have lots of Nuthatch, Chickadee, Yellow and Purple Finch, various Sparrows, Red Head Woodpeckers and other varieties, Blue Jay and a small covey of Inca Dove plus many other varieties at different times.

Stimulus checks = more bird seed= dont fly south and get phatt staying here.

We haven't had a shootable population of mourning doves in the last 3 years, now.
First time I know of (other than an oncoming storm pushing them out) since 1960.

Global warming is leading to unpredictable weather patters. North Carolina will become Florida and Alaska will become Wisconsin. You are not supposed to feed wild animals. By doing so you are actually compounding wildlife problems. Thanks to animal rights loonies soon we will not be able to go into the woods for due to danger from wolves and bears.

We used to have mournings nest in our orchard every summer. I haven't heard a single one in 3 or 4 years. After the collareds moved in, they left. Mourning dove season here now is a non-item. They're pretty much gone.

Better than hamsters?

Haha, winner, winner,...

Is that you, Col Travis?

Thanks, Mark. Sorry to hear that.

I think people all over the south putting fire ant granule poison out may be a big part of the problem.

Had a flock of Tom turkeys this morning. One old brute had a beard that had to be over 10”.
We haven’t had many mourning doves the last several years but this year we have lots of them. At dusk, there can be 20 or more on the ground around the feeders. Collared doves and starlings are pretty scarce. They keep running into small, hard objects traveling at a high rate of speed. Tragic that!

We have some starlings but not as many as in past years.
If we didn't have the non-natives, starlings, collared doves, English sparrows, it would be pretty quiet at the feeders.

Mine seem to be coming out of the woods next door. Staying in the frozen north this year because of Covid and feeding the small sunflower meats to avoid all the mess with the shells. My birds are pretty well through their first 50# bag this year and the squirrels and deer get corn and what ever the birds drop. Mostly goldfinches, house finches, juncos, cardinals, blue jay, nut hatch, mourning dove, red bellied and downy woodpeckers. Sure not like what is down south in the winter. 35 different species were always sighted just from the backyard.

Right now I'm hearing collared doves whooping it up in the back yard. Normally they're quiet in the winter and only call when on the nest.

i have been hunting morning and whitewing for probabley over 5 0 years, could get a limit in15minutes.
sometimes int was ten for ten.
not so anymore i noticed fewer around when the ring neck/collard moved i.
not game season them an invasive species,can shoot on sight.
they are much more aggressive and larger than morning dove.
se feed quite a few in the back yardl goats get their feed, feral cats eat, then the ring neck move in.

ditto here in Oklahoma City