Stella's Social Club

[NotAFarm]

Why don't we have cardinals? Why?

Cuz you have barefeet and shorts weather in March......that's why!!

 

[NotAFarm]

Female that flew into the lilac bush....same day...



A a blue jay from a couple years ago...

 

[NotAFarm]

A female cardinal nesting in the clematis vine.....May '08...

 

[Hangtown Farms]

As with many things, Times they are a changin!

Range
The northern cardinal is found throughout the eastern United States and on south into Mexico and Central America. Historically, cardinals were most numerous in the southern portions of their geographic range, but they have been steadily increasing in numbers in the north and are even expanding their distribution northward into northern New England and southern Canada. The western boundary of their range is roughly along a line from the Dakotas to western Texas although there are cardinal populations in New Mexico, southern Arizona, and California. The expanding distribution of the northern cardinal has been described by some as another ecological consequence of global warming. Some researchers, though, feel that the increasing popular habit of providing birds with seed in feeders may have allowed this species to survive and thrive in regions previously too marginal or harsh for their existence. Further, the ongoing fragmentation of natural forest habitats by human activity and the proliferation of suburban shrub and conifer plantings have created increasingly abundant �edge� ecosystems which are greatly favored by this species.

wow I wonder where they are in California. if they are in norcal I would love to see them. I love Cardinals

I thought Cardinals were so numerous in Arizona they named their football team after them.

lol well they used to play in Saint Louis like the baseball team.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

love the bird pictures.
we have some real pretty ones up here now.starting to find there way back to areas they live in the summer.
I have seen Mountain bluebirds ( very bright blue) stellars jays ( they are here year round) tangiers and I think a oriole. we have a few kinds that migrate and something else that looks like them.
seen all these in the last week. Last weekend there was hundreds of birds singing Saturday am. was really cool and was louder than Rocky crowing in his open coop.

 

[debs_flock]

Quote:
Yup, I was surprised the first time I saw them. I didn't realize we had them here either. We were in the pasture, docking tails on lambs and a bird kept flying at me and scolding me. When I looked closer it was a bluebird. I even looked them up on the internet afterwards, because I didn't realize they lived here. Anyway, then I saw the second one and realized they must have a nearby nest. When we were finished and walked away, I saw the birds dash into a hole in the fence post I had been standing right by. They were nesting in the post! That was a few years ago, I see them nesting there every year.

We get lots of interesting birds here. We put out lots of feeders, bird houses and year round water available for them, along with lots of plant cover. Add to that the floor to ceiling windows in our house, makes for great bird watching from the sofa, LOL

Quote:
We have Stellar Jays and scrub jays here too. The Stellar Jays are bold and love to grab bits of bread or anything you throw out there - they are very bossy like East Coast Blue Jays. They make lots of noise and what is so funny is that they look furtive as they swipe seeds (I say swipe because they truly have a gangsta guilty expression on their little faces) from the feeder. I always tell DH that they must get a lot of flack from people for them to be so worried they'll get run off as they eat seed from the birdfeeder.

I enjoy seeing them. Another one we have here is the Flicker. They also eat birdseed and scare all the sparrows away. I thought they only ate bugs (like a woodpecker) and was astonished to find one hanging belly-up clinging to the underside of the birdfeeder, eating seeds.

When I used to live on the East Coast I fed the cardinals in a pie pan. They are gorgeous.
Steller's jays are gorgeous (and noisy), I don't get them where I am now. In my house a couple of years ago, the elevation was 3400 ft and they are there instead of the scrub jays. I was home once recovering from a surgery and I would sit out on my deck and feed peanuts to the jays. They got so friendly, they would come to feed as soon as I put them out and come very close. It was great fun until I recovered enough to leave my house. They had been grabbing the peanuts, then flying off to eat them, then return for another. Apparently their eating branch was directly above the windshield of my truck. It looked more like a condor had been perching there. The droppings were about 3 inches thick and were cemented over half the windshield, LOL

They stopped getting peanuts from me!

I wish we had cardinals here though, they are beautiful.

 

[ronott1]

Quote:
They are likely on the other side of the Sierras and a bit south. Be patient though. They will make it up here eventually.

I do hope the killer bees stay down in Southern CA though....

 

[Hangtown Farms]

They are likely on the other side of the Sierras and a bit south. Be patient though. They will make it up here eventually.

I do hope the killer bees stay down in Southern CA though....

I agree.
Ron I am selling my 2 partridge penedesenca. I may have a local buyer. I can not tell there eggs from the empordanesa eggs and those 2 hens are with the emp's and I do not want to incubate them. My layer coop is a few months off so they need to go I think.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Why don't we have cardinals? Why?

Probably cuz we're not cold enough. They are so pretty!

We have Stellar Jays and scrub jays here too. The Stellar Jays are bold and love to grab bits of bread or anything you throw out there - they are very bossy like East Coast Blue Jays. They make lots of noise and what is so funny is that they look furtive as they swipe seeds (I say swipe because they truly have a gangsta guilty expression on their little faces) from the feeder. I always tell DH that they must get a lot of flack from people for them to be so worried they'll get run off as they eat seed from the birdfeeder.

I enjoy seeing them. Another one we have here is the Flicker. They also eat birdseed and scare all the sparrows away. I thought they only ate bugs (like a woodpecker) and was astonished to find one hanging belly-up clinging to the underside of the birdfeeder, eating seeds.

When I used to live on the East Coast I fed the cardinals in a pie pan. They are gorgeous.

We have Flickers too - Neat to see them probing the ground for bugs. Both Scrub and Stellar Jays. Unfortunately, we have Robins. (they like to peck my fruit on my trees and they are very hard to deter) We also have a lot of woodpeckers - we had one once that was "pecking" our satellite dish. Lots of itty bitty birds too, like finches.

Quote: Ahhhh, a broody! Those itty bitty eggs are pretty!

 

[ronott1]

Quote:
The empordanesas are very nice looking!

I might want that persons contact information if I hatch Partridge Penes then. I hope they send me the Black hatching eggs.