I was in the Chicago burbs almost 2 months. As my son has a bird feeder in the backyard and that too quite close to the house, I got to see a number of native birds. I did a little googling to identify the birds I might see.
I was so happy to be able to spot and identify many birds. The most common birds to visit the the bird feeder, were the sparrows. Of course there were many robins around. But one site I looked at said that robins don't come to the feeders. Then there were a pair of house finches. I loved the splash of red on them. Mourning doves came fairly often. A cardinal pair visited almost every day. I saw a couple of gold finches. I noticed a black-capped chickadee and I was lucky enough to spot a woodpecker on my last day. The only thing was it was a bit too far for me to identify the specifc one it was, though it might have been a downy woodpecker as it was quite small. I did spy in their backyard a really tiny bird, a sort of humming bird I think. There were the occasional grackles and a european starling. In the park and at the lake near where they live, I saw a band of American crows and the red-winged blackbirds. They are such beautiful birds. The mandatory geese and ducks were there. But those I have seen and noticed over the 7 times we have visited.
There were gulls near the lake and they all seemed to be grey and white. So I was surprised to see, at the beach near Lake Michigan, in downtown Chicago, the grey and white gulls and some who were spotted. When I googled it, it said that the spotted ones were the younger gulls, which seemed amazing as some of the spotted gulls were as big, as the grey and white ones. I must say the gulls there were really raucous and so used to people feeding them, they were almost aggressively begging for scraps.
I just loved the show the birds put on for me every day.
But also fun were the antics of the squirrels at the bird feeder. One particular squirrel was very bold and so very hungry. Then one day I noticed her teats and decided she must be pregnant or feeding and stopped chasing her off the feeder. I used to occasionally feed her the kids' leftover cereal. She got quite used to me and usually stayed in the vicinity, even if I was sitting outside.
I really wish I had had a really good camera to take blog worthy pictures of the birds I saw. What I did get was not too good. I'll post the pictures of the birds and the squirrel in my next post.
