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Nesting Birds


fishface5

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I think The nesters are maybe a bit ahead. Maybe not... I've seen a few baby birds makin' first flights. Even as early as two weeks ago. Propably grackles. Also lots of Baby ducks, and geese. What different Birds you guys see nesting in your area. I have Morning Doves, Oriols, Robins, Grackles, R.W.B.Birds, Mallards, and C. Honkers. That's all I can think of. Post what you have nesting around you.

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Great topic! Lessee, for nesters we've got: house sparrows, tree swallows, barn swallows, grackles, robins, brown thrashers, downy woodpecker, mourning doves, RW blackbirds, house wrens, pheasants, blue-winged teal, chipping sparrows, orioles, horned larks & meadowlarks. There may be some Huns but am not sure exactly where they put their nest. Probably more nesting birds but this is what I can think of off the top of my head. Afraid the coons, etc., took out the mallard and Canada goose nests. Can you say "predator management", boys and girls? I knew you could... smirk.gif

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We need an undercover fasion spy. Their mission; to make coon and house cat coats all the rage. (skunk, oposem[sp?]and whatever other nest wrecking creature included). Man, you're right, there are a ton of nesters I didn't think of. It would be fun if somebody could put a web cam on some kind of nest. I'd rather watch that than TV. Kind of like an avian aquarium.

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Found some more nesting birds: killdeers and a pair of bluebirds started building a nest in one of the nesting boxes behind the granary over the weekend.

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Speaking of nesting birds, the other day my brother in law was mowing the lawn and came across a little Blue Jay that had jumped out of the nest and did'nt quite master the art of flight yet.

He gave the little guy a wide berth so as not to disturb him and the parent Blue Jay thanked my brother in law by diving on him and pecking a bloody hole in his mostly bald head! grin.gif

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Memorial Day night my wife and I were in the back yard BBQ'ing and we see something fall out of a tree. I take a closer look and it's a baby bird. We watched it a little bit and then it dawned on me....get the camera. I was too slow though. It was a white breasted nuthatch chick, mom was up in a tree calling to it and sure enough it climed straight up a poured concrete 4' wall, sat on top for a bit, and shakily flew over to the tree mom was in. Pretty dang cool!!!

Brian

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Memorial Day I was out tilling and planting a grain sorghum food plot, had seen some killdeers moving around, as I started getting closer to the center of the 4 acre plot, they became more and more agitated, eventually Ma killdeer wouldn't budge and fluffed out her wings to make her look bigger. I stopped the tractor about 10 feet away and approached her, she took off, I located and marked the nest (4 eggs) - I had missed it with the drag on the previous round by less than a foot!! I drove around it for the rest of the planting. It was remarkable how she fluffed herself up, trying to make herself bigger and stood her ground in the face of a big tractor.

Its also amazing how big of an egg a small bird like killdeers will lay!!

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I was working last night and had to stop the squad for a covey of baby killdeer. I couldn't help but laugh at them, running all over the place like chickens with their heads cut off. They look just like the parents, kind of reminded me of "Mini-me" from Autsin Powers movies. I think there was 5 of them. They finally got out of they way and I cautiously drove past. My buddy saw a family of bluewing teal today with 11 ducklings! How can a hen teal hold that many eggs? LOL

Brian

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Stumbled across a woodcock nest while exploring a recent burn area. Looks like it survived the burn well but it was really exposed. Mom sat really tight and almost had to step on her before she flushed. My guess is the burn was at least 2 weeks old so these guys were due to hatch pretty soon.

eggs.jpg

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Guys, if you're seeing nesting birds and you want to assist with efforts to document where species nest in the state, you can get nest and brood cards to fill out at http://moumn.org/docs/brood-card.pdf and http://moumn.org/docs/nest-card.pdf

If you go to this link http://moumn.org/county-checklists.html and click on your county, you can see which birds have been found there. If there is an 'N' next to the bird, it means it has been verified as nesting there. Obviously if you found a bird nesting in your county that did not have an N, that would be of great interest to the MOU.

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hobbydog,

i hate to second guess you, but the number of eggs might be a little high for woodcock, could it have been a ruffed grouse?i know you said that you flushed the bird, and should have had a good id,but i thought that woocock usually had smaller clutches. just a thought. cool.gif

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Quote:

hobbydog,

i hate to second guess you, but the number of eggs might be a little high for woodcock, could it have been a ruffed grouse?i know you said that you flushed the bird, and should have had a good id,but i thought that woocock usually had smaller clutches. just a thought.
cool.gif


I thought the same thing but am sure it was not a grouse. Also the eggs seemed a bit large for a woodcock. The bird did look larger than a woodcock but I was busy trying to get my camera to focus on the bird I never did get a great ID. (clicked off a couple shot but totally missed focus) It definitely had a long bill so maybe some type of curlew or godwit. The feathers lining the nest did look like woodcock.....so who knows. I will have to do an internet search.

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If it was bigger than a woodcock but looked like one, it likely was a snipe. They look a lot alike, with similar plumage and long bills, though if you do a search or check a birding guide you'll see the snipe, though longer, tends to be a bit leaner. You'll sometimes find them in the same areas. Woodcock hunters often flush snipe while on the hunt. Godwits and curlews tend to be prairie nesters, not woodland nesters, so you likely can rule them out.

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