Birders Excited About Woodpecker Sightings (Ivory Bill - Florida)

Press Register ^ | 9-26-2006 | Bill Finch

[blam]

"My earlier efforts at trying to attract blue birds with bird houses turned into squirrel houses, because they were wooden."

My Blue Bird houses are wooden non-treated wood. (I use Cypress wood). They need to be mounted on a metal poll with a rat/snake shield around it (the pole) and placed in an area with at least 14 feet of clearance, no limbs, shrubs and etc around it. The hole (door) size is critical and if I remember correctly should be 1 1/2 inch in diameter, it looks too small but isn't.

[billhilly]

Now that I am ready to leave my home of the past thirty two years, I have discovered a perfectly safe way to mount bird feeders or bird houses.

Using the standard 1/4 inch diameter steel Shepherds Crook, I bore an 1/4" vertical hole about six inches deep in the top of my fence's 4x4 posts. Since the Shepherds crook is around six feet tall already, it becomes elevated that additional height above the top of the fence. The feeder or house can then be suspended from the crook. To refill a feeder, or clean a house, all you have to do is lift the Shepherd's crook from its snug hole, then replace it the same way. No screws, brackets or other devices are required.

[blam]

Good idea and plan. It's hard to move from an 'old home place', huh?

[united1000]

Problem here with Bluebirds in NY (our state bird) is those damn European Starlings taking over their nests and driving them out.

Shoot a starling today, our native songbirds will thank you.

 

I had a Flicker digging out a nest in a dead tree on my property.  What a worker she was.   The Starlings drove her away :-(

[daylate-dollarshort]

Hmmmmm.....thoght this woodpecker was found "hidin' out in Arkansas in 2002 or 3. These guys seem to think so.....

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/columns/story?columnist=sutton_keith&page=g_col_sutton_ivory-bill_before-after

[blam]

I've read that some of the 'bird experts' are less enthusiastic that they've found one.

[fso301]

I won't believe it until I see it. Those scientists need to go back to that swamp, shoot one and bring it's body back for all to see.

[Dixie Yooper]

It was Annandale Virginia, just inside the evil beltway of Washington, D.C.
When my wife spotted the male and female in our yard, we had no idea what they were. Before they left, we had identified them in our guide book.

[billhilly]

"It was Annandale Virginia, just inside the evil beltway of Washington, D.C.
When my wife spotted the male and female in our yard, we had no idea what they were. Before they left, we had identified them in our guide book."

I'm laughing out loud now as I think of what that guide book is today, and what a couple spotted in our back yards might be today. It probably hasn't been written, but If it had It might sound like this.

Was the van windowless, all white and littered with papers all over the dash? Did they have young with them? Were their matresses on the ground, or were they elevated? Was it clear whether they were a breeding pair or just migrating?

Did they seem industrious, or were they robbing the nests of other species who had built before them?