LONG-EARED OWL

Photo courtesy of ANDREW NYHUS PHOTOGRAPHY.

Four of us were birding Houston cty in S.E. Minnesota when sharp eyed Andy spotted the owl. This is not a common owl and for 3 out of the 4 of us birding that day it was a first that we could add to our life list of birds seen.

You never know what your going to find, even on a very cold January day.

BIRDS AT OUR WINTER FEEDERS THIS WEEK

We have about 8-10 Chickadees that come to our feeders every day and provide us with winter entertainment.

The Blue Jays are the bullies of the feeder-when they come in as a gang of 10, all the other birds give way.

The Cardinals like to feed early and late in the day. They prefer sunflower seeds and there were not many at our feeders until the snow returned to stay. We have about 20-30 each evening now.

The Junco is by far the most common bird at our feeders. They will be with us until early april and then head north to breed.

We have one Fox Sparrow still here-it should have headed south months ago. This is a summer picture of a Fox sparrow.

The Male Purple Finches are an almost wine red color, while the females have no red. We have had them almost all winter this year. Some years we have none that come from the north.

We have, of course, the House or English sparrow that also find our feeders.

The Tree Sparrow comes down from the north in the winter. We have many in the brushy areas, but only a few will come to the feeder area.

We are down to just a few Goldfinches this time of year.

The poorly named Red-bellied Woodpecker loves sunflowers and is quite agressive at the feeder.

The Downeys like both the suet and the sunflower seeds at our feeder.

The small red on the back of the head marks this as a male.

Hairys look very similar to Downy woodpeckers but the Hairy is larger and far less common.