House Finch
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The House Finch is a recent introduction from western into eastern North America, but it has received a warmer welcome than other arrivals like the European Starling and House Sparrow. Male has brown back and red breast. some red underparts and partial red head. some males may appear more yellow or orange due to diet. female is similar, lacks all of the red the male has. every House Finch plumage is streaked. female, male and juvenile. Food: Wild foods include wild mustard seeds, knotweed, thistle, mulberry, poison oak, cactus, and many other species. In orchards, House Finches eat cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, plums, strawberries, blackberries, and figs. At feeders they eat black oil sunflower over the larger, striped sunflower seeds, millet, and milo. Habitat: House Finches are familiar birds of human-created habitats including buildings, lawns, small conifers, and urban centers. In rurual areas, you can also find House Finches around barns and stables. House Finches are common visitors to bird feeders throughout North America.
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Northern Cardinal
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The male Northern Cardinal is perhaps responsible for getting more people to open up a field guide than any other bird. Northern Cardinals do not migrate and do not molt into a dull winter plumage. Food: Northern Cardinals eat mainly seeds and fruit. sometimes they will eat insects if that is an option. Cardinals eat lots of types of birdseed. though their favorite is Black Oil Sunflower Seed. Northern Cardinals eat a wide variety of insects including crickets, leafhoppers and moths. Habitat: Look for Northern Cardinals in dense shrubby areas such as forest edges, overgrown fields, hedgerows, backyards, marshy thickets, regrowing forest, and ornamental landscaping. Cardinals nest in dense trees and look for fairly high perches for singing.
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American Goldfinch
American Tree Sparrow |
American Goldfinches are the only finch that molts its body feathers twice a year, once in late winter and again in late summer. The brightening yellow of male goldfinches each spring is one welcome mark of approaching warm months. American Goldfinches breed later than most North American birds. They wait to nest until June or July when milkweed, thistle, and other plants have produced their fibrous seeds, which goldfinches use in their nests and also feed their young. Food: Goldfinches eat seeds almost exclusively. Main types include seeds from composite plants (in the family Asteraceae: sunflowers, thistle, asters, etc.), grasses, and trees such as alder, birch, western red cedar, and elm. At feeders prefers nyjer and sunflower. Habitat: Weedy fields, open floodplains, and other overgrown areas, particularly with sunflower, aster, and thistle plants for food and some shrubs and trees for nesting. Goldfinches are also common in parks and backyards.
Plump and long-tailed, American Tree Sparrows are busy visitors in winter backyards and weedy, snow-covered fields across southern Canada and the northern United States. when the snow begins to melt and spring arrives, these small rusty-capped and smooth-breasted sparrows begin their long migrations to breeding grounds in the tundra of the far North. American Tree Sparrows are ground birds. They forage on the ground, nest on the ground, and breed primarily in scrubby areas at or above the treeline. In winter, American Tree Sparrows often forage industriously in small flocks. They scratch the ground for dried seeds, and hop up at bent-over weeds or along low branches gathering catkins or berries. Habitat: In summer, American Tree Sparrows breed near the northern treeline, where straggling thickets of alder, willow, birch, and spruce give way to open tundra. Though some American Tree Sparrows nest in open tundra, most territories include at least a few small trees that the males can sing from, along with a source of water. Food: American Tree Sparrows eat seeds, berries, and insects, but the relative proportions of those foods change radically from winter to summer months. From fall through spring, they're almost exclusively vegetarian, eating grass, sedge, ragweed, knotweed, goldenrod, and other seeds, as well as occasional berries, catkins, insects, insect eggs, and larvae. In settled areas, they happily eat small seeds from feeders—including millet scattered on the ground. In summer, after their migration north, they begin eating a wider and wider variety of insects until, during June and July they eat almost exclusively insects such as beetles, flies, leafhoppers, wasps, moths, and caterpillars, as well as spiders and snails.
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House Sparrow
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You can find House Sparrows most places where there are houses (or other buildings), and few places where there aren't. Along with two other introduced species, the European Starling and the Rock Pigeon, these are some of our most common birds. House Sparrows aren’t related to other North American sparrows, and they’re differently shaped. House Sparrows are chunkier, fuller in the chest, with a larger, rounded head, shorter tail, and stouter bill than most American sparrows. Food: House Sparrows eat mostly grains and seeds, as well as livestock feed and, in cities, discarded food. Among the crops they eat are corn, oats, wheat, and sorghum. Wild foods include ragweed, crabgrass and other grasses, and buckwheat. House Sparrows readily eat birdseed including millet, milo, and sunflower seeds. Habitat: House Sparrows are closely associated with people and their buildings. Look for them in cities, towns, suburbs, and farms (particularly around livestock). You won’t find them in extensive woodlands, forests, or grasslands. In extreme environments such as deserts or the far north, House Sparrows survive only with people and around areas with people.
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Cooper's Hawk |
Cooper’s Hawks are common woodland hawks that tear through cluttered tree canopies in high speed pursuit of other birds. their plumage is very similar to the Sharp Shinned Hawk. best told apart by size. Cooper's Hawks are usually unwanted visitors at bird feeders. they come to eat birds, not seed! the Cooper's Hawk is a medium-sized hawk with the classic accipiter shape: broad, rounded wings and a very long tail. In Cooper’s Hawks, the head often appears large, the shoulders broad, and the tail rounded. Food: Cooper’s Hawks mainly eat birds. Small birds are safer around Cooper’s Hawks than medium-sized birds: studies list European Starlings, Mourning Doves, and Rock Pigeons as common targets along with American Robins, several kinds of jays, Northern Flicker, and quail, pheasants, grouse, and chickens. Cooper’s Hawks sometimes rob nests and also eat chipmunks, hares, mice, squirrels, and bats. Mammals are more common in diets of Cooper’s Hawks in the West. Habitat: Cooper’s Hawks are forest and woodland birds, but our leafy suburbs seem nearly as good. These lanky hawks are a regular sight in parks, quiet neighborhoods, over fields, at backyard feeders, and even along busy streets if there are trees around.
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Brown Headed Cowbird
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The Brown-headed Cowbird is a stocky blackbird with a fascinating approach to raising its young. Females skip building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. the eggs they lay in the nests of other birds, abandoning their young to foster parents. sometimes if there is space, the female will lay her eggs in a nest. other times she will push out a few eggs in the nest and lay hers there. Food: Brown-headed Cowbirds feed mostly on seeds from grasses and weeds, with some crop grains. Insects such as grasshoppers and beetles, often caught as cows and horses stir them into movement, make up about a quarter of a cowbird’s diet. As you might imagine, female cowbirds have a large calcium requirement from laying so many eggs. To satisfy it, they eat snail shells and sometimes eggs taken from nests they've visited. Habitat: Brown-headed Cowbirds occur in grasslands with low and scattered trees as well as woodland edges, brushy thickets, prairies, fields, pastures, orchards, and residential areas. Brown-headed Cowbirds generally avoid forests. Development of forests in the eastern United States have allowed Brown-headed Cowbirds to greatly expand their range eastward. In winter, Brown-headed Cowbirds roost along with several species of blackbirds in flocks numbering more than 100,000 birds.
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