Welcome to my blog!
This is a picture of me last summer when I was 8 and staying at my grandma's (AKA Grandma Barb's) house in Wisconsin. My grandma has a garage and a fence separating her backyard and her neighbor's. As you can see, on the fence there are two nesting boxes. These were apparently used by several house sparrows. One day, as I sat outside waiting for some house sparrows to come on in and feel comfortable going in their boxes with me right there, I started to become very interested in ornithology. In case you're wondering, ornithology is the study of birds.
I had a feeling the house sparrows wouldn't come because they were scared of me and hadn't seen me there before. One went to my grandma's safflower feeder, took a seed, swiveled his head, and looked up. I had no idea what he was looking at, so I looked up too. I could see nothing. I shrugged and said to myself, "Maybe I should move away, but I want to be close. How can I do both?" I knew it was physically impossible to do both. I was never able to get close to those sparrows, but I watched them fly in and out during my whole visit in Wisconsin.
That first day when I was observing the house sparrows, I was about to give up on watching them when I noticed a flash of yellow. As I slowly turned to my grandmother's green bean garden, I laid eyes on my first American goldfinch.
That was the day I noticed what it was like to be a fledgling. A fledgling is a baby bird, and fledgling can also be used to describe someone who is new at something. I am still a fledgling when it comes to birding, but I am now growing flight feathers. I go on bird walks and to bird talks (hey, that rhymes!), I have 7 bird feeders at my house now, and I read about birds all the time. Finally, I like to teach people about birds, and that is mostly the reason for this blog that you are reading.
Thank you to my former teacher, Mrs. Yollis, for helping me with this blog and for teaching me about blogging.
Are you interested in birds?
I wonder what my readers would like to ask me to blog about?
*Kids, don't post your full name or exactly where you (or I) live.*
Nice having you here reading this!
P.S. My other posts won't be as long as this one.
P.P.S. In my About Me section, I mention wood ducks. Here is a video of baby wood ducks jumping out of the nest. This is not at 30 feet. It's more like 6 feet, I think.
Dear Troy,
ReplyDeleteI am so proud of you for starting this blog! I know that you have many tales to tell about your adventures so far as a birder. I have learned a lot from you already, and I know that others will enjoy reading your posts! I hope that you do a post on the walk that we took with Sam. I am going to enjoy working on this blogging project with you.
Love,
Mom
Hi Birder Troy,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love everything about your new blog!
I especially like to read about what you are observing the different birds doing. You notice details that I might miss, like the way the sparrow picked up a seed and looked up. I'm wondering now if that is a pattern in how sparrows eat or did that sparrow just hear something we humans could not hear at that very moment?
When you write about your observations, I learn to pay closer attention to birding activity in my own yard and get more enjoyment out of our fine feathered friends.
So what I would like to have you blog about is your observations about birds. Also, any tidbits you might know about a particular species, like the way you described the behavior of the baby wood duck, would be very interesting.
By the way, I have gone from one to eight feeders in my yard so you should have lots more to observe this summer!
Finally, the nesting box you are sitting under in the photo has sparrows in residence right now. I have not seen the babies fly out yet but they must be getting ready to do so soon. Perhaps they will wait until you arrive.
Keep on birding and blogging!
Love,
Your Grandma from Wisconsin
This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete@Grandma,
DeleteGood observation about the sparrows. Thank you for commenting.
From,
Troy
Hi Troy,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Jan, and I'm a friend of your Wisconsin grandma. I love what you're doing with birds and with your blog. Excellent job!
I wanted to share some information about orioles. Every year during the first week of May, my husband and I put out food to attract orioles to our deck: oranges, orange nectar, and grape jelly. We have 2-3 gorgeous male/female pairs and their young. The other day my husband was watching a mama with her baby. She took the grape jelly in her mouth and put it into the young one's mouth to eat. We had never seen that before. We've seen mama robins feed their babies worms that we put out for them, but I think grape jelly is a little trickier. It was pretty cool!
Keep up the good work.
Jan Hawkins
@Jan,
DeleteWe have orioles in my backyard. We only see about two a week. We have seen males and females. In our area we get hooded orioles and also Bullock's orioles. Maybe I will see a Baltimore oriole when I am in Wisconsin. But what I really want to see is a chickadee. Thanks for commenting.
From,
Troy
Hi Troy:
ReplyDeleteI have two things I wanted to share with you.
First, did you know that Cowbirds will lay their eggs in other birds nests? One day at my old house, I saw a little sparrow feeding a bird that didn’t look at all like her. It wasn’t the same coloring or size. This bird was at least twice as big as the little sparrow. The sparrow was feeding the bigger bird like it was it’s own. I thought I was seeing things, but it was true.
Second, I just thought I would share something I saw the other day. I was driving down the road near my house, and right next to the road (so close I almost hit them) was a family of Sandhill Cranes. There were parents and two little ones. I had been seeing Sandhills around at other places, but never so near and never a whole family. I thought it was very cool.
I also wanted to comment on the video of the wood ducks on your blog. I had heard that the wood ducks would nest above the water, but it was very exciting to see how they all got down into the water and swam away. They must have been very brave to make that jump.
Thanks for the information.
Your friend,
Mara (Grandma Barb's friend from Wisconsin)
@ Mara,
ReplyDeleteI did know that about cowbirds. (Tip: When looking for cranes, look in or near soybean or other short crops.) I heard a real story about a sandhill and whooping crane mate and had a baby. Name, Whoopsie. I heard that story at Horicon Marsh there in Wisconsin.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Tr☻y