Project Feeder Watch

We received our package from Project Feeder Watch yesterday. It contains more instructions, a calendar and a lovely poster of common backyard birds. I love how organized this event is. Again, I encourage you to spend even 1 hour twice a week watching a feeder and participating. If you live in an area where further development is a possibility, then this information could be valuable to help protect undeveloped land.

Here's another link to the information: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/learnmore.html

and another interesting link is: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/DataRetrieval/trendgraphs/index.html
which allows you to enter a species of bird and see where they are showing up and in what numbers throughout N. Am.

This is the link to rare birds showing up at feeders (2008/09):
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/DataRetrieval/RareBird/2009/rare-birds2009-1.html


and finally the most common birds at feeders in the Great Lakes Region (08/09):
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/DataRetrieval/Top25/2008-2009/Region/GreatLakesTop25.htm

Common Name	Percentage of feeders visited	Mean group size (when seen)	FeederWatch Abundance Index
Black-capped Chickadee	96.18	3.42	2.59
American Goldfinch	91.45	7.07	3.85
Mourning Dove	89.72	4.59	2.38
Blue Jay	89.16	3.05	1.45
Dark-eyed Junco	88.53	4.99	2.37
Downy Woodpecker	88.05	1.67	0.95
Northern Cardinal	78.32	2.73	1.20
White-breasted Nuthatch	72.34	1.50	0.61
Pine Siskin	67.06	7.44	1.08
Hairy Woodpecker	66.99	1.50	0.51
House Finch	64.28	3.94	0.89
Common Redpoll	63.24	9.59	0.86
House Sparrow	59.42	7.29	1.49
European Starling	59.42	4.20	0.52
American Robin	59.14	2.02	0.14
American Crow	51.84	2.35	0.27
American Tree Sparrow	49.69	3.34	0.45
Common Grackle	48.51	4.03	0.15
Red-breasted Nuthatch	48.37	1.42	0.27
Red-winged Blackbird	44.89	3.42	0.14
Red-bellied Woodpecker	41.49	1.21	0.24
Purple Finch	40.72	2.69	0.17
Song Sparrow	31.55	1.48	0.07
Cooper's Hawk	30.30	1.02	0.05
Brown-headed Cowbird	25.50	3.47	0.08

The only one that stands out to me as something we don't see often is the Purple Finch. I saw them once a few weeks ago, but Dave didn't see them at all. We only see them once or twice a year at our feeders. I'm not sure why that is. They are quite pretty, so we're happy to see them and would love to have them come out more often.

The other one of note is the cardinal. We see them quite often in the winter, but come spring until late fall, we don't see much of them at all. In fact, we saw our first pair in months and months just the other day. I think the feeders are so busy in the summer with other birds, that the year-round birds tend to go elsewhere. With the valley and the creek nearby, I think other food sources come available and the cardinals, woodpeckers etc are off on their own.