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Had a rose breasted grosbeak visit our feeder a couple times this year. First time I've seen one in Nebraska in decades. Loggah has a few dozen that live at his house.

I think I've only seen 4. Two males came to my old logging truck feeder, and two males came to the suet feeder, and they only stayed 1 day each time. I've been sharing bird pics with an arborist site in the UK. Somehow I've lost 50 or 60 cool bird pics. One pic I really wanted to share, I had a Pileated, Downy, and Red Headed all in the same pic. I have giant suet feeders with a special mix for Pileated's, and regular suet feeders for every thing else. The Pileated was trying to hang off the little suet feeder, and the other two were on the big feeder.

No Canada Jays?

Yep, but I forgot about them. Technically all we really see now are Chickadees. Mainly because after the last bear incident where they tore all the window boxes off the house, we only put feeders out in the winter. Chickadees seem to be very cold hearty birds

You ever hear anybody call them "Whiskey Jacks"? That's what the old timers called them where I am from.

I grew up a little south and west of Damnesia. They were sure called Whiskey Jacks by the folks around there.

Now, out here in SoCal, we keep 4 hummingbird feeders going year around. Most of the birds never leave here. We do get the spring and fall migration birds too.

One good thing that came from the pandemic, my wife worked from home and started feeding the birds for entertainment. We have a huge verity of birds here. Evening grossbeaks are beautiful, rose breasted grossbeaks, cardinals, blue jays , morning doves, nuthatches, purple finches, gold finches, chickadees, we have some grackles but generally they thankfully stay away from the feeder. Large assortment of woodpeckers. Junco's. Tried to get the oriels to come in for her but no luck I see them occasionally and hear their song

Thankfully no birds of prey focusing here yet. We have em but must be enough other food to hunt?

Birds of prey might explain why I don't see many birds around here. Red tailed hawks practically live in the backyard because of the 193 squirrels that congregate there for the walnuts. That, and the fact I don't have a bird feeder. Oh, and I guess the sparrow BBQ thing.

My wife feeds the little ones. Don't know what they are. They crap all over everything.
I don't want to encourage raptors because we have a couple of stray cats that eat the chislers in the Summer. We feed them enough to keep them around. Wife gets mad at them when they catch one of the tweetie birds. One of the stray cats has gotten so big I doubt if a bald eagle could haul him off.

Cardinals, blue jays , morning doves, sparrows, purple finches, gold finches, chickadees, woodpeckers, Junco's, flickers, 5 crows. I feed sunflower seeds in the feeders and cracked corn on the ground.

I saw one of Joe's Woody The Woodpecker a couple of years ago. I had noticed something had been pecking some big holes in a couple of my trees. One afternoon out in the yard this huge red headed bird flew across the yard and landed in a tree. First and last time in 73 years that I seen one.

Tree rats, two fox and two grays... and a young Redtail hawk that keep an eye on the feeder area.

Those big Pileated Pecker Birds make a very distinctive sound flying. A lot of people think they only peck on dead trees. Wrong, they've riddled several of my healthy Oaks. They peck the holes, the tree bleeds, ants and other bugs come to the dripping sap. The #1 food of the Pileated is big black ants.

Mike, I had a Sharp Shinned hanging out ten feet above one of my feeders. It was a pretty bird. Was one of my favorite pics and I can't find that one.

Had a Cooper's hawk family nesting on our street for a few years. One of the young ones managed to fly into a tree, so the neighbors found a raptor rescue to take him until he healed up and then they released him back here. Got to watch them do a high speed flyby of my feeders a couple of times while snagging a sparrow or chickadee. Very impressive flying..

What a great picture!! What's the red prey? has the hawk already started to tear it up?

Jeff, that's rabbit inards. When I clean rabbits in the field I hang the parts that are not wanted in a tree so the beagles don't get it. They are usually gone in a couple of days so I put these in front of one of my trail cameras to see what was eating it.


Lee

Well, haven't seen this guy in the neighborhood ever before. But he likes the suet.. fortunately I got a couple good pictures. Red belly woodpecker, I believe.

You sure that isn't a red-headed white bellied woodpecker?

Yeah, sometimes you have to wonder at the IQ level of some of the folks who name bird species.

We've had a few double-breasted bed-thrashers through these parts, but it's been quite a spell since I've seen one up close and in person, although I hear they still reside in the area. Used to admire their photographs in magazines and wonder how some people seem to have no problem not only locating the beasts but getting such cooperation for stunning photography. I hear baiting with large houses and fat wallets works magically on this breed.

My one run in with one was indeed quite memorable, although short lived and ultimately unsatisfying. The courtship of this bird is a sight to behold, with plenty of flashing of breasts and dancing about followed by a swift departure of assets. These days, I may cast a glance their way if I were to see one, but I've found other more mundane avifauna to be somewhat less fowl.

One of our most common back yard birds are called Bush Tits....I call 'em free insecticide. They bomb into our native trees in an uncountable little gang and move around so fast that both of my cats, even the smart/deadly little princess, just stare at them in amazement, their evil little cat brains frozen with sensory overload! Coopers Hawks leave 'em alone, too.

Apparently in Europe there is an unrelated bird called a Great Tit, which is interesting because "tit" in whatever extinct language it comes from apparently means "small!" What's in a name? A lotta history and/or hooey, if it's a bird name....