THINK BIRDS! I’m reminded of that by the imminent start of the annual Project FeederWatch on Saturday (November 10), and also by a certain pair of sparrows nibbling at the fallen seeds in the cracks between my patio stones lately. I’m not so good with sparrows—like many of the gray and yellowish warblers, they often look alike to me, unless I really concentrate—but when I saw them again today I told myself: This will be the year I get the local sparrows straight. “The Sibley Guide to Birds” helped me ID my visitors, and got me thinking: maybe you’d like a copy of the book, too (or another Sibley guide if you have this one)? The latest giveaway.
My visitors are white throated sparrows, Zonotrichia albicollis, distinctive for their (surprise!) white throats and clean, crisp markings around the face. All I had to do was really look instead of saying to myself just “sparrow” and failing to take the time—in this case through a pair of binoculars–and then do a little reading in the Sibley book and online as well, because part of what had confused me was how some among them were differently marked than others, sort of same-but-different.
Apparently it’s just the normal variation in the species, which has two distinct “morphs.” Or so says the website of David Sibley, whose “The Sibley Guide to Birds” you can win by following the details in the box at the bottom of this story.
Among other sparrow-ID tips, this page on keeping the chipping sparrow and American tree sparrow straight might also help, or search All About Birds (from Cornell) for all the sparrow portraits.
learning about birds: some resources
BUT BEFORE YOU ENTER the giveaway, some other ways to connect and learn about all birds, and especially those most familiar ones, those who stay behind year-round (or arrive in time from somewhere less favorable) to settle in and spend the winter with us:
- All About Birds (the best online guide to bird species, from Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
- Telling tricky birds apart (some commonly confused species)
- About feeding birds (from Project FeederWatch)
- Join Project FeederWatch (a winter-long bird survey)
- Join ebird.org (to report your observations in realtime anytime)
- How to make a bird-friendly garden
- How to save birds by preventing window strikes
how to win the sibley guide
TO ENTER TO WIN a copy of “The Sibley Guide to Birds” by David Allen Sibley (or your choice of a Sibley guide if you already have this one), all you have to do is this:
Comment below by telling us whether you feed birds in winter, year round, or not at all, and what species is your favorite to watch (or any other highlight you wish to share about birds in your garden).
I feed year-round—more feeders in winter, and just one small one in spring through early fall (yes, risking a visit by bear, I know). I feed sunflower seed and in the cold months big blocks of beef suet from the butcher shop. I provide unfrozen water year-round (those are waxwings at my frog pond in snow in the above photo)—and most of all, the garden, which is loaded with bird-friendly plants year-round, and in which I use no chemicals of any kind. As far as favorites? I am crazy about woodpeckers.
What about you? (Feeling shy, and don’t want to say? You can simply say, “Count me in,” and I will—but if you have something to share, all the better.)
I’ll choose one winner at random after entries close at midnight Wednesday, November 14. Good luck to all!
I feed a mixed bird feed primarily in the fall. The fickers and downys like the nuts, the chickadees the sunflowers and the nuthatches…I’m not sure what they prefer. The nuthatches are my favorite though.
I am trying (so far unsuccessfully) to get blue birds to moving into a house/feeder I bought for them. The squirrels want the food and no birds in sight. We have planted many flowers and have a lush green lawn for our other local birds. They love to bathe in the fountain after nibbling on the various natural food sources we provide.
we feed the birds more in the winter, but we’re pretty sporadic. I never get over the excitement of a goldfinch on the feeder — so yellow! so bright! my family would love the Sibley guide.
We grow many seed bearing plants that the birds harvest from mid-summer through late fall. I expected the birds to go for sunflowers, tickseed, cone flower, etc. but was surprised the first time I saw a small flock of gold finches on lavender seed heads. When there is not much in the garden we supplement with thistle, suet and a good seed mix.
We find the birds during all the seasons. I love watching all the birds from my kitchen window, but my favorite is the woodpecker.
I feed all winter, niger for the smaller birds and sunflower for the bigger, make peanut butter seed treats, and suet cakes. Water is readily available via the livestock tanks and waterers, though this year I am providing a heated bowl where I can watch. We are in the country and out in the open so species that seek cover are drawn to my landscaping roses near the house…Great View!
I feedprimarily in the winter and early spring, although my garden does have much that birds can enjoy. I like the woodpeckers too, but really enjoy the whole mix, big and little.
I feed the birds year round. Does that mean I am spoiling them? I love to watch the finches and the woodpeckers. Hummingbirds are of course my favorite. I am not picky… I watch whatever bird comes to visit.
The birds in my yard feast on seeds and fruit on the plants I grow. We have a sargent crabapple in our front yard that is full of thousands of little red apples this time of year. Robins go crazy for them. In June we have a serviceberry that’s loaded with fruit that looks like blueberries. Lots of different birds, including robins & finches devour those. One year around this time we had a group of maybe 8 or 10 cedar waxwings that sat together in the serviceberry. I had never seen them before so I was pretty excited. I later read that they eat juniper berries which were growing right across from where they were resting. That was the only time I’ve ever seen them. I read that cedar waxwings eat so much fruit that they can become intoxicated if the fruit is fermented.
We feed sunflower seed, millet and suet to the birds from fall to spring and put out a hummingbird feeder in the summer. This fall my favorite species to watch has been the red-breasted nuthatch. Last winter I didn’t see a single red-breasted nuthatch anywhere. This year they are daily visitors to our feeders.
The birds in my yard are fed year around with black oil seed (except for a few times when the bear decides to visit). They also enjoy berries and seeds from the native plantings . Suet is included in the fall through spring. My favorites are carolina wrens and pileated woodpeckers along with many others.
We recently bought a 40acre farms with lots of birds hanging around.
My 11 year old daughter is constantly asking about the birds. I am also learning.
We have yet to feed the birds–so we would love to win a bird book; so we can begin to understand who they are. Thank you.
I feed during the winter months and early spring time. I’ll buy a big bag of thistle seed, sit back and enjoy the show out my kitchen window! Makes the drab winter months go by faster! Love the finches and cardinals the most.
I used to feed birds year round but it became a favorite hunting ground for the cat. For now, there’s no seed.
The juncos are my favorite birds to watch in the winter. When I fill the two cylindrical feeders and the suet feeder in the backyard, the titmice and the McDonalds sparrows,
( The name is a local euphemism because the sparrows wait in the McDonalds parking lots for patrons to dump their unfinished breakfasts or lunches on the ground, then the sparrows swoop in the for the kill. When the restaurant action is slow before dinner time, the sparrows work their way off the beaten path and intimidate the other species on their home turf. They are the winged insurgents of suburbia!),
duke it out, but the tiny juncos hang out on the ground and eat the sunflower seeds that are knocked out of the feeders by the bigger birds. They are the most resourceful winter bird around.
I feed them year round, both with feeders and garden plants, I also provide water all year round. It is almost time to pack up the summer bird baths and put out the heated one for winter. I love the wrens in the spring and almost always have a nest in one of my birdhouses, in the winter I love the Blue Jays, Cardinals and Nuthatches.
I want to!! ever since moving to MN from southern CA. There are so many different birds on our 3 acres!! I love the Cornell site because one can actually hear the calls of different birds. I love to try to talk to them!! I’d love to win this book so I can put out feeders and various plants that attract birds and butterflies. Thanks!
I used to feed birds year round till bears came to NJ a few years ago. Now I only feed after December 1 and the feeders come down in the spring. I do miss my feeders for a large part of the year. I enjoy seeing the migrating birds in spring, usually only a brief visit, but very exciting.
i feed year ’round. I just love seeing the birdies all year. My favorites (other than hummingbirds) are the bright stars of the summer scene…goldfinches! What a lovely combination, but sadly get drab in fall.
In the winter, I look most for cardinals since they stand out from the winter colors, but the chickadee-dee-dee’s are the cutest and steal the show!
I also love watching the woodpeckers at my year ’round suet feeder from my kitchen window.
Now if I can stop those pesky squirrels from hogging the sunflower seed??? I’ve tried several “squirrel-proof” feeders but they are still smarter!
I have so many favourite birds and am lucky to live in a rural area where there are many different species. I feel your pain about sparrows though, Margaret, as that and crows was all we seemed to have in the city. I grew Mammoth Russian Sunflowers this year and meant to feed the seeds to the birds but the heads went mouldy so I had to chuck them in my compost. Because of the country setting I no longer feed all and sundry but my husband (and me too) loves hummingbirds, so I feed them year round. We have green Annas year round, and red (of course) Rufous into the late summer. To foil squirrels I found the squirrel-proof feeder from Lee Valley Hardware worked like a charm.
We only feed the birds in the winter. Make them work the rest of he year which is in tune with nature. The last two years we’ve had bears so we take down the feeders earlier.
I feed birds all year long as I want to keep them happy and singing songs in my backyard all year long. My favorite bird is the male cardinal. There is one huge cardinal that comes near my window often and I know it’s because he wants thank me for feeding him, his family and all his friends during each season. Birds give me so much joy and nothing makes me happier than seeing them happy.
I use a couple of extra feeders in the winter but I can’t resist keeping a feeder that is located close to our hammock going throughout the summer. .
I feed birds all year round, but more attentively in the winter. I love to watch the Hummingbirds flitting back and forth in the summer. I feed black oil sunflower all year round and love to watch the Cardinal whenever he graces me with his presence. I have started buying suet from the butcher and mixing up some black oil sunflower and other goodies into it to use in my suet cages this winter.
I feed them just outside my kitchen window late fall thru early spring. Otherwise I have many things growing just for the sake of the birds and leave the seed heads long past the plants’ physical beauty just to keep them hanging around. My favorites…bluebirds and the white throated sparrows, especially their poignant sweet winter song.
My feeders are kept full year-round. The price of black oil sunflower seed has jumped so high this year, I’m planning to grow sunflowers next year! I also mix safflower seeds with sunflower & the cardinals love them. I also keep one hummingbird feeder with fresh homemade nectar thru the winter, for the stragglers or injured hummers who can’t make the trip south.
I feed birds year ’round, using black oil sunflower seeds and several kinds of suet. I provide 4 birdbaths in the warm months, including an old galvanized washtub that has a noisy bubbler in it with good, flat “landing” stones, and one large heated birdbath in winter, near the patio doors to maximize our own amusement. There is ample cover here for nesting sites and gobs of hanging birdhouses of all sorts and styles. I grew 31 gourds this past season and some of them will certainly become birdhouses once they are dried and drilled. (both Dipper and Birdhouse gourds.) The natives I grow provide seeds and berries many birds like to eat.
My most favorite bird to hear is the glorious Carolina Wren with her unmatched notes piercing the atmosphere, followed closely by Mockingbirds who are eating my Callicarpa berries this week and offering a huge, diverse repertoire of songs. My favorite to watch is the Hairy Woodpecker working the bark crevices on my Dogwood tree (Cornus florida), boing, boing, boing. But I also like to watch Sparrows taking dust baths in areas where mulch has been removed from vegetable beds. My husband weighs in with his vote for American Goldfinches which he regards as his own personal canaries in the garden.
I feed only when the snow is on the ground. Trying to stay in tune to nauture, but know they struggle when the snow gets so deep!!
i don’t put out extra food for the birds, but they always seem to find plenty to eat, even in my tiny little garden behind our equally tiny rental place. i have a few regular “visitors”, and i’d love to be able to identify them. (i think the hummingbird chases away others that might want to visit.)
I feed all year long; seed, sunflower, suet for the woodpeckers, unsalted peanuts in the shell for the crows, jays and squirrels. They are all so unique and beautiful that it’s hard to have a favorite, but I do love the crows…so smart they are!
I feed year round, seeds and hummingbird/oriole sugar water, as well as provide water. I leave my bushes pretty wild looking, more cover for the birds. I let the caterpillars eat my buddleia. Although the plants can look pretty sad, I am rewarded with bushtits, warblers, and wrens who come for the feast. My favorite bird is the elegant Black Phoebe.
I usually feed fall through winter..love to watch the cardinals in the snow and my favorite–the Tufted titmouse
pileated woodpecker by far the most exciting bird but not at the feeder, at the dead apple tree. red shouldered hawk appeared too, in the lilac tree, to pick off the goldfinches at the feeder. hulled black sunflower seeds attracted the most species and left the least mess. can’t feed in the summer anymore as the neighbors are big babies about bears eating their children,
We love our hummingbird feeder and we get large amounts of them all through the summer. My other feeder has gotten a bit beaten up and we have not replaced it yet. I love watching birds but we have a large deck on the back of the house and not much of a view to more traditional bird house spots… oh yes, we also bought a traditional ceramic bird bottle when we were in Williamsburg, VA. So adorable but we don’t think any feathered friends have made it home yet. Would love to win this book! Thanks for having a giveaway,
I saw a very large bird last week that I’ve never seen here before. The crows were harassing the bird as it sat on the top of the telephone pole eating something. From the hooked beak, I could tell that it was a hawk……but no red tail, so not a ‘Red-Tail Hawk’. It finally lifted off with a large fish in its mouth, and its wing-span was about 4-feet across. A bird-watcher neighbor offered that it was probably an Osprey…..or commonly called a ‘Fish Hawk’…. and that he had never seen one in our area before. I felt that I had been given a special treat that day…..
We feed birds and keep a birdbath all year long. The feeders and birdbath are easily seen from my favorite chair. Many varieties visit (and, Margaret, if you can learn all the sparrows you’re a better learner than I am.) The juncos fascinate us because how do they know when it’s going to snow? And where are they when it isn’t? The most unusual bird we’ve seen at the feeder was a pair of Red Breasted Grosbeaks that were apparently just passing through. I’ve never seen a scissortail at the feeders, but it’s probably my favorite bird for this area. I’d love to havethe bird guide because I keep giving mine away. ^__^
I can’t feed year round. Let me see, how many times have bears destroyed feeders at my house? Hmmmm. Sometimes I take them down too late (like in May so the pretty returning rose-breasted grosbeaks have food) or put them up too early (like two weeks ago when the chickadees happily chirped that the feeders were up already) — and the bear is happy and full.
We also plant a lot of bird-friendly stuff in the garden, and encourage native plants that provide food in the form of seeds or berries. Starting with the serviceberry in June, there’s a lot to eat in my yard. Right now there are a zillion aster seeds for everyone!
I do love suet feeders because I am a sucker for all woodpeckers, especially the red-bellied.
I feed birds year round. I get mostly birds but also red squirrels, chipmunks, and tonight three half grown opossums! For their splash of color I like the goldfinches – sometimes we have a dozen or more at one time. The most unusual was a Northern Grosbeak – we are our of his normal range.
My favorite birds are the woodpeckers. I find if I give them suet year round they do a lot less pecking on my cedar siding!
I feed the birds from March until we finally have snow at which time I can’t get to my feeders but am working on changing that this year. the finches are abundant as are the robins, the sparrows, the bluejays, the cardinals, the chickadees, the morning doves and even some hummingbirds. I have a garden with much plant material to attract birds and butterflies. I get sooooo excited when watching the birds and even got binoculars to enable me to look at them closely. The finches and the robins both have built nests under our deck. It is nice to see the offspring continue to carry on the same practice. I just love these little creatures and am trying hard to learn more. I truly need to get a book on birds and bird watching as we have seen some species which I have never seen in my life. Sometimes my 2 neighbors come over and we just sit to watch the birds.
I feed all year with plantings to enhance their diet,
i realized this year the red dogwood offers a feast. Have had Goshawks the last two years. That is hard to accept – was going to hang out meat for them, but thought better of that. They actually go up into the shrubs and pick out their meal. I’ve been told to accept the fact that I’ve moved up on the food chain. Thank you for the chance to enjoy other’s love of birds.
I live in an apartment so I do not have a bird feeder but I also live right near a park and sometimes in the winter I will bring some seeds into the park. I really love the chickadees, they are so cheerful and so bold.
Because of black bears, I have feeders out only in the cold period, except for the hummingbird feeder. I was surprised to see the downy woodpecker picking nuts from the suet.
On a really cold and snowy days, the entire rainbow of birds shows up: gold finches, red cardinals, blue jays, black and white juncos, and I love them all.
I usually feed the birds only in the winter, but last year I fed them all year because I had such a wonderful variety of birds and wanted to encourage them. I use a variety of foods but always keep shell free sunflower chips in a squirrel free feeder for the bluebirds. I too have some trouble with identifying sparrows and warblers. And aging eyesight doesn’t help.
count me in.
I have just moved to a new place in the woods and I have a whole new world of birds to learn about. My favorite birds are cardinals and chickadees. I have a lot to learn about my new environment. I feed the birds year round. My neighbors tell me that I will now also be feeding the deer and racoons and others…..hmmmmmm. Last year I grew sunflowers and had the cutest little gold finches come to dine.
Oh how I love your give-aways Margaret and the wonderful conversations you start! Thank you to everyone for joining in.
I feed the birds all year long although much more in the winter. I delight when woodpeckers and flickers bring their off spring to the suet late spring/early summer. The site of bright yellow gold finches on the black niger seed takes my breath away! In the cold of winter, I consider the birds delightful visitors who often make me smile. The sound of a chickadee warms my heart! The visual and sound appeal of them all is I need to complete the garden.
I love to watch the birds. Each one has their own personality. I feed the birds all year. I do the Cornell Feeder Watch which starts this weekend.Nov.10. I also took the home study of Orthinology from Cornell. Grades weren’t that great but learned so much. I sit at the table and try and eat with my binoculars on my eyes..not easy. Afraid I will miss a new visitor to the feeder. Margaret, Sparrows are a challenge for me ,too. Didn’t realize I was looking for the special birds and ignoring them. Will try harder this winter. My favorite bird is the Red Breasted Nuthatch. Comes close to me and I am trying to get it to eat from my hand. Happy Bird Watching to Everyone. Judith
I feed year round – suet, sunflower, and nyjer in all seasons, peanuts in fall and winter, jelly in spring and summer. I also love woodpeckers, but my favorites are the Baltimore orioles.
I feed the birds year round in my Piedmont NC garden. I have 2 large feeders and 5 birthbaths. The cardinals, being our state bird, are my favorite. Every day of the year about dusk we say, “Oh! It’s Cardinal Time,” because looking out the kitchen window there will be at least 8 to 10 Cardinal couples getting their last nibbles before nightfall. Gold finches come in second and Blue Jays third (they have such personalities). I do participate in the Feeder Watch especially in winter. I have learned that my Downy Woodpeckers make a sound almost like a dog barking. I always have at least one Downy on the suet. Various exciting birds come through during migration times. One very cold winter on a Sunday afternoon (we had snow, real snow) there was a Bluebird family sitting on the platform feeder. I did not know what to feed them so I boiled some eggs and chopped them into tiny bits and the family continued to visit for 3 weeks to eat these eggs as the winter warmed. They are most beautiful. One Saturday afternoon recently I did not hear any bird calling activity and looked out the window and there was a red wing hawk sitting on the highest post of the feeder – everyone else had vanished for good reason. My friend studied orthonology at Duke University and knows all the birds and their sounds so I always have a handy reference but I do think he gets tired of answering my questions! A new bird book would make us both happy. Thanks for doing this.