Brrrr – It’s cold outside! It’s been too cold for so many of our regular outdoor activities. But we have enjoyed the birds in our backyard.
We have feeders with birdseed and with sunflower seeds. Suet feeders attract woodpeckers. All those pumpkins and squash we bought in October have been stored in our garage. Now we bring them out, one at a time, and cut a hole in the side to allow access to seeds and flesh.
What kinds of birds hang around Alliance in the winter?
Our ground is covered with dark-eyed juncos. They are beautiful sparrow-sized birds with black heads and gray and white bodies that fly from the north to our area to overwinter.
We see other small birds too. Chickadees, pine siskin, sparrows and finches. House finches are the ones with red heads and chests. Goldfinches hang out in our yard too, but they don’t turn yellow until the spring. Now they are olive green, but the black stripes are the same.
Blue jays, pigeons, and doves are here all year. The mourning doves seem to be losing out to the larger Eurasian collared doves, a relative newcomer to North America.
Occasional visitors might include crossbills or pine grosbeaks, whose orange colors are delightful.
So many woodpeckers, large and small. We are always excited to watch nuthatches climbing up and down the ash tree. Flickers are eating from the suet feeders. Downy woodpeckers are frequent visitors. Their larger lookalikes, the hairy woodpeckers, are not as common in our yard but show up occasionally. (They are apparently not closely related.) A rare visitor is a red-bellied woodpecker, also a beauty.
Our feeders and trees are also full of those furry brown birds with the big fluffy tails. They love the pumpkins and sunflower seeds too.
We don’t have any pine trees in our yard. If we did, we could enjoy cedar waxwings with their black masks and the yellow stripe on the end of their tails.
Pines are also the preferred home of that most gorgeous of winter birds, the northern cardinal. If you live near a park, watch for that splash of bright red. The female doesn’t share the bright red coloration, but is every bit as beautiful as the male cardinal with her shades of brown and her bright orange beak.
Sometimes we’ve been feeding birds for a while, but they suddenly disappear. Then it’s time to look up for a hawk. Or maybe an owl or falcon. There are lots of birds of prey in our area year-round, and they occasionally visit our yard.
We still hear geese honking as they fly overhead to warmer areas south of us. We can also enjoy watching them at Laing Lake.
Most winters we make a day trip to Lake Ogallala, just east of Lake McConaughy. The trees to the south of the dam are filled with glorious bald eagles. Last year we saw about sixty of our majestic national bird! Not only did they sit in the trees, they would dive for fish. We could get fairly close to ones sitting on the ice. Last week Earl saw two bald eagles perched at the pool when he went to the dog park.
Lake Ogallala also treated us to a few ospreys, the greatest fishing birds of all! Avocets, birds with the upturned bills that we see in Sandhill lakes, change color in the winter. The orange heads and necks become silver. Bodies are still white, and wings have black stripes.
In February we begin to see birds migrating again. All along the Platte, from Ogallala to Grand Island, Sandhill cranes will be stopping for their annual visit. They will be feeding in fields, fattening up to prepare for their journey north.
Birding can be a fun hobby for all ages. I’d like to say it is inexpensive, and it can be. But then you’ll begin buying binoculars, cameras, bird books, and so much seed…