I’ve always enjoyed watching birds. When I was ten or eleven, I was a Lutheran Girl Pioneer–similar to a Girl Scout–and we built birdfeeders. My father mounted the feeder near the edge of the forest in our backyard and bought food. How I loved getting out the binoculars to see what birds were stopping by! I even bought a pocket book about the birds of North America, and I wore that book out.
Fast forward to about five years ago…
My husband bought me a bird feeder for Christmas. I was so excited! It took about three weeks for the birds to arrive. I watched for them every day, and when they finally did? Oh boy! I couldn’t get enough.
My backyard has robins, house finches, goldfinches, purple finches, several types of sparrows, cardinals, mourning doves, blue jays, grackles and juncos. Now and then Cedar waxwings will stop by. Beautiful birds.
Below is a cardinal sitting on a fence in our backyard. Grackles are on the ground at at both feeders, and a mourning dove sits at the pole base.
Where I live in Northwest Ohio, I’m able to experience some of the best spring bird migration in the United States. The Biggest Week in American Birding attracts thousands of bird enthusiasts to our area. Lake Erie, especially, has fantastic parks and marshes for bird viewing. Not far from where I live, there’s a park where I see a variety of warblers every spring.
We have amazing diversity with waterfowl here, too. Bald eagles, snowy egrets, great blue herons, Canadian geese, mallards, mersangers, different swans, and occasionally buffleheads can be seen near rivers, marshes and nearby Lake Erie.
All of this “birding” got me wondering about the backyard birds in other parts of the country. I was happy to learn that the characters in my Wyoming books would see the same birds as I do. “Common Birds in Wyoming” features birds I see either in my backyard or on walks nearby.
I’d love to hear the types of birds you see in your area. Please let me know in the comments!
Enjoy your day!
