Bird Watching Club

SoCal, what size lens are you using. I can never get that close. Beautiful work.

Almost in my backyard:-) really though,

I live about ten minutes from the coast, and five minutes from the little lake I go by on my way to the grocery store..San Diego gets many birds migrating as well as our own..

SoCal-I live up the coast from you & I see many of the same birds. But where did you find the "little blue heron"? I'd love to see one. I love your green heron shot also!

Thanks Lisa. I haven't heard of Imperial Beach. Wish I knew about it when my sister lived in Carlsbad. I'd love to see a little blue heron. That is what the 5th pic down on this page is? The one after the widgeon.

Here's a very common bird around my part of the world.

EDTA-this is a juvenile black pheobe.

Long-time birder here, loving this thread . . . and the wonderful pictures.

Curveball, yes!! on cedar waxwings.  I think they're the most elegant bird ever . . . not gaudy, just sleek and lovely.  I wish I saw them more often, too.  They seem to be episodic.  I might go a year or more without seeing them, and then a whole bunch will show up.

I moved from a house in Michigan to an apartment in Brooklyn recently, so my ability to attract birds with a feeder is limited.  But Prospect Park is close by -- I routinely see hawks there as well as your standard winter songbirds. NY harbor isn't too far away, either, for waterfowl.  (Brants -- not something I was familiar with in the midwest, they're like a smaller, darker Canada goose -- seem to be very common.) 

That's one of the things I've always loved about birdwatching: you can see interesting birds just about anywhere.

Did you guys know that we have parrots in Brooklyn?  Green monk parakeets -- lore has it that a bunch escaped from a crate at JFK airport many years ago.  I don't know if that's true, or if not, where they came from, but there are several well-established colonies in the borough.  The closest to me is in the gothic entrance arch at Green-Wood cemetery (and in the Con Ed substation across the street).  They frequently do flyovers of my block -- so, so cool. 

I've also seen them in New Jersey (Edgewater), and I think there's a colony on the upper east side of Manhattan, too. 

Linda

There's also a flock of Parrots in San Francisco. Another "escape" situation Interesting how some times we embrace certain birds that naturalize & sometimes we don't(like those European Starlings). But I have seen some beautiful photos of them. We also have the Ring Turtle Dove, another "escape". Nobody seems to mind.

there are or at least have been in the past escaped parrots living in Seattle WA too. I've seen them a few times but not recently. They are very hard to spot, because they are so close to the same color as the leaves. I had no idea that any parrots, except maybe the budgerigar, were tough enough to survive East Coast winters. Don't they mostly come from the tropics?

Curveball, I think the Brooklyn parrots are native to Argentina, so that would be more temperate than tropical.  But yeah, it's amazing how they've adapted to northeastern winters.  I worry about them in the cold weather, too, but they seem to pull through just fine.  Not sure what they eat, but they obviously find something.  And their huge nests -- which can be really elaborate -- give them protection. 

I've seen the San Francisco parrots, too.  I have to admit they're more colorful than our Brooklyn parrots, but I'm still partial to our guys. 

L

I also love ducks...

this is a male ruddy duck from a pond nearby