Feeding Wild Birds

[OneMountainAcres]

I

I saw a wren this morning.

I haven't seen my little wren yet this year. Last year, I watched her work hard to put together a cute little nest in the rafters of the turkey coop but then she never used it.

 

[R2elk]

I haven't seen my little wren yet this year. Last year, I watched her work hard to put together a cute little nest in the rafters of the turkey coop but then she never used it.

This one builds a nest on the ground underneath some dropped things.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

This is a little off topic but with the prevalence of HPAI around here, I thought I would mention it. Earlier this week I was on my way home and saw what I thought was a red-tailed or other species of hawk dead on the side of the road just a quarter mile from my house.
Since I had never seen a dead hawk on the side of the road, I called the USDA, MO Department of Agriculture and Department of conservation. After most of the day on the phone, I finally got some interest. Eventually a wildlife specialist from the Dept. of Conservation came to pick up the bird the next morning. As you can imagine it had been hit several times. They wanted to get some tracheal and cloacal swabs to test for HPAI. The lady that picked up the carcass also thought it was a hawk but the head had been smashed into a tiny pancake. She sent it to the UM vet school for testing.
Afterward, they discovered it wasn't a hawk but a Barred Owl.
In the end, the testing proved it was negative for AI.

 

[CapricornFarm]

I saw a wren this morning.

We have wrens here all year. One lives in our barn. It is welcome to the bugs.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Wrens slip under our outside porch door for some reason and then fly around our porch and sometimes the house.

 

[sourland]

Not birds, but there is a large opossum that comes every evening to eat from the cat's dish. It's a distinctive silvery white color rather than gray. It was missing for a couple of nights, and appeared last night with what appears to be a significant wound/gash on it's right side. Is there anything other than a coyote or dog that would attack an opossum ?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Bobcat, bear, mountain lion, marten, weasel, mink, hawk.

 

[sourland]

No bobcats, bears, mountain lions or martens to the best of my knowledge. A weasel would be too small - possibly a mink, hawk or even more likely a Great Horned Owl. I have seen some kills of young possums that I have attributed to GHO.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I thought bears and bobcats were in NJ.
I've never seen a badger in MO but they are supposed to be here.
I haven't seen a bear or mountain lion in many years but the latter were photographed 20 minutes from here and bears were sighted 10 minutes from here.
I never saw mink in Missouri till they killed $3,000 worth of my chickens.

 

[sourland]

Bears to the North of here, but very infrequent in central NJ. Bobcats in the state - again to the North and in the Sourlands, but I have never seen any sign or prints in the snow around here, and I spend a lot of time in the outdoors.