Ospreys

Today, we saw Ospreys
near the lake in our home county.

The state park we visited
has a ball field only a few feet from the lake.
The Ospreys are nesting on top of
the light poles surrounding the field.

We could not get an accurate count
but know that we saw at least four.

This particular park is large
and a boat dock is on the opposite side
from the ball field.

When not on these poles,
they were at the boat dock,
perched on near-by trees

It was difficutl to get a good picture
of them in flight;
however, they flew between the
ball field and the dock all morning.

It was a beautiful sight and enjoyable day!  We identified 43 species in all, and I will give the full report when I Tweet and See at the end of the month!

Happy Birding!
Dawn

Birds' Eye View

The Olive Plant boys,

a.ka. Orville and Wilbur,

completed a science fair project

about bird feeders.

If you are interested in reading about their project

and which color feeder attracted the most birds

in their experiment,

fly on over to Olive Plants!

Science Fair 2011
Birds' Eye View
by Orville and Wilbur

Watch Live Baby Eagles

In Iowa, there are 3 baby eagles about to be hatched.  You can watch it live here.  Every little while Mama bird gets up and readjusts her or the eggs.  They are supposed to be hatching within the next 24 hours. 

Disclaimer:  This is addictive. 

Heather

Tweet and See: March 2011

Visit Kingdom Arrows to participate!

Heather has a fabulous give-away running in conjunction with Tweet and See this month.  You can enter to win one copy of Your Backyard DVD!  I love this video, in large part because a homeschooling family produced it (Yea Homeschool!), but also because it is very well done.  We own a copy and enjoy watching it!

Now, for our list for the month of March...

It was a wacky month weather wise.  We had bitterly cold spells, days that felt like summer, rain, thunder storms, high winds and tornadoes.  Birding was a challenge, but the boys had to keep at it because their science fair project centered on bird watching.  It won the grand prize in their age division!! Hopefully, I will have a few minutes to post about it soon.  It was very interesting! :)

Anyhoo, here are the birds that we saw or heard this month:

• Dark-eyed Junco
• Northern Cardinal
• Blue Jay
• Tufted Titmouse
• Carolina Wren
• Carolina Chickadee
• Eastern Towhee
• Mourning Dove
• Red-bellied Woodpecker
• Downy Woodpecker
• Pileated Woodpecker
• American Robin
• Brown Thrasher
• Common Grackle
• Northern Mockingbird
• Brown-headed Nuthatch
• Yellow-rumped Warbler
• Gray Catbird
• Rock Pigeon
• American Crow
• Fish Crow
• Red-tailed Hawk
• Red-shouldered Hawk
• Eastern Bluebird
• House Sparrow

That's 25 species in all!  Most of these were identified by my two birdie boys, Orville and Wilbur.  Good job, guys!

Thanks for visiting and make sure you fly over to Heather's blog to enter the give-away!

Happy Birding!
Dawn