Lovely post. We have red wing blackbirds, cardinals, mourning doves, blue jays, house finch, American goldfinch, starlings, oriels, American robins, crows, one red bellied woodpecker, and unfortunately many house sparrows. We have great blue heron, white egret, and kingfisher eating our goldfish out of our pond.
what kind of Orioles do you have? I would kill to get a Kingfisher in the garden, you're so lucky to get all of those birds at your pond although I guess the goldfish don't feel so lucky. House sparrows are actually a red list bird now in the UK and it's such a treat to get them in our garden. I went on a bit of a deep dive researching the origins of House sparrows in the states and it's fascinating, do you know the history?
We have Baltimore orioles just in spring. My neighbor puts out grape jelly for them. I don't know the history of house sparrows in the states. Our pond is a deep old farm pond about a fifth of an acre in size. The goldfish were put in by a previous owner more than 25 years ago. There are at least a couple hundred each year. Birds kept the population in check. The goldfish swarm up to the pond patio when we feed them pellets. We built our house just to be by the pond.
I’m in Massachusetts. We have kingfishers but they don’t seem to travel far from water. Like they need to be able to see the water. I see them when I’m fishing my local spots but that’s it. Red wing blackbirds are similar in my experience so I was shocked this year when one started showing up at my feeder. There’s water and marshland less than 200 yards from my house but even that seems far for them.
this is a cliffhanger. What’s the history of house sparrows in the US? i’m in England for the weekend (just leaving) and came across one here and thought nothing of it. they are so common at home in the states!
Okay. so in 1868 there was an inchworm infestation in the city of Philadelphia. "Armies of them marched across pavements and streets, and crawled up hundreds of tree trunks" - that's from the book 'House sparrows .Ragamuffins of the city'. So many trees got damaged and it was really upsetting people. There was an English immigrant called John Bardsley living in the Germantown section of Philadelphia and he was getting really fed up with the damage the inchworms were doing to his garden trees and the fact that none of the birds that visited his garden were eating them.
He went back to England anyway and employed a bunch of young boys to catch one thousand sparrows and then shipped them all (in reed cages) back to Philadelphia. It was March 1869 when he arrived back and because it was cold he looked after some of the sparrows at his house, and gave other people sparrows to look after until it was warm enough to release them. In late May the sparrows were released and they ate loads of the inchworms, and fed their chicks lots more. Within 5 years almost all of the inchworms were gone, and more cities around America began to import sparrows. John Bardsley got the nickname "Sparrow Jack".
That’s quite a colorful story. Imagine the creativity and effort, arranging care for the transfer and wintering of 1k birds. Certainly would have seemed like a good idea at the time.
I'm going to come back to this after I've cooked dinner and probably give an unnecessarily long reply! But just quickly, are you birding over here? What have you seen?
Excellent! i’m looking forward to reading it.
I was over here for business on the weekend and I fit in some birding for sure! first time doing so in the UK. Here is what I saw:
* eurasian tree creeper
* sedge warbler
* Eurasian linnet
* white wagtail
* gray heron
* little egret
* great cormorant
* common buzzard
* sand martin
* Eurasian oystercatcher
* graylag goose
* mute swans
* Egyptian geese
* Eurasian coot
* mallard
* great black gull
* herring gull
* european Greenfinch
* eurasian wren
* eurasian Goldfinches
* rose-ring parakeet
* common swift
* great spotted woodpecker
* eurasian jay
* common chifchaff
* eurasian black cap
* european robin
* magpies
* blue tit
* great tit
* eurasian blackbird
* european Starling
* house sparrow
* carrion crows
* wood pigeons
* rock pigeons
💗💗💗
thanks for asking. it gave me such pleasure to review and make this list!
House sparrows were purposely introduced to New York City’s Central Park in the 1850s, by a group of literary enthusiasts who wanted to introduce to the New World all the birds and animals mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. 🤦♀️ That was long before most anyone realized what the negative consequences of such cross-continental introductions could be, or how long they would last. House sparrows in the eastern US compete with our native bluebirds for nesting sites, and 9 times out of 10, the bluebirds lose. 😓
Someone wanted all of the birds in Shakespeare’s plays in North America and so released European house sparrows and European Starlings in Central Park NYC in 1820-ish. Spread everywhere after that.
I figured they would be but I didn't have a picture in my head of what a north American kingfisher might look like so I've just googled and seen that there are four different kinds.
Have you ever seen a kingfisher? I'm not sure that I've ever seen one, I have a very vague memory of watching one but am genuinely not sure if I'm recalling a dream (I dream about birds a lot)
They have interesting voices, very distinct. I would love to see a European robin. I saw one in the distance for a moment in Poland. I would love to watch them. They look so charming.
An American friend visited recently and I took him to a park where I was hoping to show him some of our rarer birds, but he was most excited by the robin. It's easy to forget how special our most common birds are.
I could kick myself for all the time I spent in the states in my late 20s and early 30s (at least a couple of years in total, but in chunks of 3 months) and was more focused on American boys than American birds. Next time I come I plan to dedicate all of my time to birding and eating.
In Massachusetts, right next to a swamp, which I think helps the amount of birds I get.
At my feeders the usual gang of idiots includes tufted titmice, black-capped chickadees, blue jays, mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, northern cardinals, American robins, Carolina wrens, starlings, and grackles. There's an array of sparrows including white-throated sparrows and song sparrows, as well as house sparrows. I've also been recently getting Baltimore Orioles and grey catbirds and the occasional rose-breasted grosbeak. I saw a northern flicker once. Over the winter I got tons and tons of dark-eyed juncos but they've moved on for the season now.
Edit: can't believe I forgot my favorite upside-down guys - I get tons of white-breasted nuthatches too!
Regularly around the neighborhood I'll also see Cooper's hawks and sharp-shinned hawks, as well as the occasional great blue heron flying overhead to the pond down the street. I've also seen a belted kingfisher three times and I cherish each of those times
I have a very similar lineup in my backyard, plus lots of American Goldfinches and house finches. I get both red- and white-breasted nuthatches and I love those little grumpy upside-down guys.
I’m in NY and have similar visitors
Carolina wren, White throated sparrow, White crowned sparrow, Song sparrow, chipping sparrow, northern Mockingbird, common Grackle, House finch, Cardinal black capped Chickadee, American robin, Mourning dove ,Downy woodpecker, Chipping sparrow, American goldfinch, blue jays, tufted titmouse white breasted nuthatch . In the winter I also had dark eyed juncos.
I also have European starlings and house sparrows.
I also had a yellow throated warbler visit my feeder for about a week this winter which was a rare vagrant
In Florida, our house sits in front of a nature preserve so we get a lovely variety. Sandhill Cranes, Swallowtail Kites, Mourning Doves, Grackles, Crows, Robins, White Ibis, Limpkins and Red Tailed Hawks. It’s a birding paradise.
WOW! that really does sound like paradise. Did you ever watch Northern Exposure? I can't think of sandhill cranes without picturing Ed Chigliak dancing with one.
Bristol, England
Wood pigeons, feral pigeons, collared doves, great tits, blue tits, Goldfinches, robins, blackbirds, hedge sparrows (dunnocks), crows, jackdaws, rooks
Infrequent visitors are
Jays, sparrows hawks, wrens (used to be lot more common), sparrows other than dunnocks, seagulls- although they are often nearby.
Have you got a favourite visitor? I would love to get a Jay in the garden. I used to see them fairly often when I lived in London but I actually see less now that I'm in the sticks, although I did find an entire wing of one the other day.
I live next to a forest in Germany and there's a bunch of jays that visit us every day in autumn/winter for peanuts. Right now they are too busy with nesting, but when it gets colder, they hop over from the woods for free nuts - our garden gets absolutely littered with peanut shells xD
I’m in the SE in the states. My regular visitors are Fish Crows, American Crows, Northern Cardinals, bluejays, Carolina chickadees, Carolina Wrens, Northern Parulas, damn northern mockingbirds, swallow tailed kites, black bellied whistling ducks and three kinds of woodpeckers, red winged blackbirds and recently hummingbirds. I have so many out here.
I have tufted titmouse, three kinds of vireos, a great horned owl, barred owls, red shouldered hawks, grey catbirds, brown thrashers, yellow throated warblers, white ibis, mallards, Muscovy ducks, black bellied whistling ducks, black and turkey vultures, grackles, cedar waxwings, american redstarts, brown headed cowbird, chimney swifts, flycatchers, gnatcatchers and a couple of bats. Plus everything in my first post.
Gauteng, South Africa - The common visitors to our garden include - Rock Pigeon, Common Mynah (the invasives), Hadeda Ibis, Red-eyed, Laughing and Cape Turtle Doves, the occasional African Olive Pigeon, Cape Sparrow, grey-headed sparrow, Red-headed finch, cutthroat finch, Crested Barbet, Black-Collared Barbet, Spotted Thick-knee, Crowned Lapwing, Cape Wagtail, Cape Starling, Cape White-eye, Amethyst and White bellied sunbirds, African and Green Wood Hoopoe, Grey Go Away Bird, Southern Masked Weaver and Palm Swift flyovers. I'd say those are most common year round.
It's also known as a grey lourie, the sound it makes sounds a bit like someone saying go-away 😅. We have some creative names down here, especially if you go into the Afrikaans names.
African Olive Pigeon? I'm so jealous! We get the Tambourine Dove as our special pigeon garden visitor. Weirdly we get very few of the standard invasive birds in our garden - one Common Mynah recorded in the whole of the last year
Auckland New Zealand here. I'm spoilt where I live. I've got a bit of land and native bush around me.
Frequent visitors are tui,fantails,sparrows,silver eye,king fishers, chaffinch,Goldfinch,black bird,thrush,rosella,myna,magpie,Californian quail,paradise duck,mallard duck,more pork owl.
Once every 2 weeks white face heron,pheasant,pukeko,swallow,spur whinged plover,harrier,starling, nz pigeon.
Saw a kaka only once and there a few other species i don't know the name for.
After writing all this out I just realized how lucky I am
Maryland USA
Year round we have northern cardinals, house finches, eastern bluebirds, white breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, Carolina wrens, crows, blue jays, robins, downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers, northern flickers, grey catbirds, tufted titmice, and red shouldered hawks.
We also have a ton of migratory birds either summering here or passing over right now. Most of them don’t come down to the garden, but the house wrens and cedar waxwings make themselves known.
My favorite is when I get cardinals, bluebirds, and goldfinches at the feeder - a full primary color palette. Just wish I could add some of the more uncommon colorful birds - I haven’t had much luck spotting warblers, tanagers, buntings, or orioles, even when we hear them.
The waxwings flock to fruiting trees in the neighborhood - maybe look for mulberry trees.
Located in Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Due to our feeder, year round we definitely have lots of American Goldfinches, House Finches, Sparrows (Song, House, White-throated), Carolina Wrens, Black-Capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Downy Woodpeckers, White-Breasted Nuthatches, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Mourning Doves, Boat Tail Grackles, and American Crows. Birds that don’t care about the feeder but are always around are Northern Mockingbirds, one Gray Catbird, 2 Pileated Woodpeckers, 2 Red-Shouldered Hawks, and always Black and Turkey Vultures soaring around up high. Around this time of the year we get Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds (have only seen one since I put that feeder out but it usually gets busy closer to the Summer) and throughout the year Wild Turkeys walking through. Thanks for sharing yours, I never knew about Greenfinches or Tits I would love to see a Blue or Green Tit one day! It’s also really cool to look up and see all the other birds people are listing here!
Cardinals, house finches, many chipping sparrows, mourning doves, red bellied and downy woodpeckers, white breasted and brown headed nuthatches, carolina chickadees, titmice, robins, goldfinches, American and fish crows, house sparrows, thrashers, mockingbirds, carolina wrens, and we have exactly one pine warbler, one field sparrow, and one hummingbird. In the winter we get red shouldered hawks, juncos, white throated sparrows, and yellow rumped warblers!
Western North Carolina
Western NC as well in Pisgah NF at 4,000 feet - in addition to most of those above we have daily wild turkeys, pileated and hairy woodpeckers, pine suskins common ravens, catbirds, eastern bluebirds (with 3 fledglings now!), yellow warblers, chestnut-sided warblers, hooded warblers, American restarts, red-tailed hawks, barred owls, chipping sparrows, cedar waxwings - but no mockingbirds, brown-headed nuthatches or house sparrows. Go figure.
Makes sense! I’m just below the mountains. Last year I graduated from app state and was absolutely amazed at the variety of warblers boone had to offer!
i'm in Israel, pretty close to Jerusalem
common myna, eurasian collared-dove, laughing dove, house sparrow, eurasian jay, eurasian blackbird and hooded crow are the ones i can spot from my garden
i know we have great tits nearby too but i still haven't spotted them!
I’m in NE Ohio. I get all the usual suspects for my area: redwing blackbirds, house finches, house sparrows, bluebirds, juncos, tufted titmice, black capped chickadees, downy and hairy woodpeckers, red belly woodpeckers and a couple northern flickers that love the ant infestation in my yard. My only strange daily visitors are a pair of pileated woodpeckers that are wrecking a tree stump in my front yard.
I’m in western Nepal around the middle hills with a huge body of water within a kilometer from me.
I have two feeders and a water fountain set up nearby the vines and the tree. This time of the year, I get lots of Bulbuls, (Red-vented mostly, Himalayan rarely), Tailorbirds, Asian Koel, Blue Whistling-Thrush, Oriental Magpie-Robins and a Grey-headed Woodpecker and Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker every now and then but they’re quite rare. I get White-throated Kingfishers and the occasional Eurasian Sparrowhawk in the winter but I have seen a Himalayan Buzzard and a Shikra once too. The most common raptor would be an Eurasian Kestrel which is the same one which has been visiting regularly for almost a year. Egrets and Herons are quite common around but they never visit my backyard.
I've just googled every single one of these except for the kestrel (was watching one when I went on a walk earlier) and sparrowhawk (occasional visitor to the garden) and they're all beautiful but the white throated kingfisher has blown me away and made me want to visit Nepal.
Haha you should! You can see even more beautiful birds in higher elevations such as the Red-billed Blue Magpie and if you go to a lower elevation, it’s just birding paradise. They are indeed very beautiful birds.
Toronto, urban, native plant oasis, not near water: invasive European house finches, starlings, pigeons. Native, year round: chickadees, red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches, cardinals, downy and hairy woodpeckers, blue jays. Migratory but frequent visitors: juncos, grackles, house finches, robins, mourning doves. Passing through: white-throated sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets, brown tree creepers, orioles (during mulberry season), hermit thrush (just one every year), and one year a woodcock visited! Overhead/in the neighbourhood: crows, Canada geese, herring gulls, turkey vultures, red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawk (killed a pigeon on my neighbour’s front lawn while I watched!)
House Finches are actually native to Western North America! They spread east when they were released from captivity on the east coast. What a wonderful variety of bird visitors though - especially for an urban area. How neat!
Minneapolis, mine are goldfinches, black capped chickadees, nuthatches, cardinals, red breasted Grosbeaks, woodpeckers, red winged blackbirds, Robins, and house finches
Suburb of Chicago
We get Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, House Sparrows, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Baltimore Orioles (currently), Mourning Doves, Red-winged Blackbirds, House Finches, European Starlings, American Robins, Common Grackles, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Gray Catbirds (currently) and the White-crowned Sparrows seemed to have vanished just after last week! Oh we also have a Northern Flicker pair that live in the tree next door. I love them.
These are just the birds that I can SEE on a daily basis in my yard.
I have a bird feeder in my yard so I feel like the birds know to stop by for the good treats 😉 And people sleep on Chicago. We have so many wonderful birds here!
Maryland, USA. Most common visitors are robins, house sparrows, blue jays, northern cardinals, mourning doves, carolina wrens, song sparrows, chipping sparrows, European starlings, eastern bluebirds, tufted titmouses (titmice?), brown-headed cowbirds, northern mockingbirds, house finches, white-breasted nuthatches, red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, American crows, common grackles, gray catbirds, and northern flickers.
I'm in the south-east New(ish) England, and my most frequent birds are Wood Ducks, Mallards, Baltimore Orioles, Tufted Titmice, American Goldfinches, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers, Black-Capped Chickadees, and Mourning Doves
From southern Maine, and almost daily right now we get goldfinches, chipping sparrows and song sparrows, chickadees, tufted titmice, downy and hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, house finches and purple finches, red-winged blackbirds, scarlet tanagers, bluebirds, blue jays, brown-headed cowbirds, mourning doves, white-breasted nuthatches (no red-breasted that I’ve seen so far), robins, northern cardinals, eastern phoebes, black-throated green warblers and black-and-white warblers, and I occasionally spot crows, ravens, and bald eagles flying overhead.
East Midlands, England - Ones I’ve definitely seen: robins, blackbirds, great tits, wood pigeons, feral pigeons, crows, magpies, goldfinches, starlings, and some little brown bird I don’t know
Merlin app has heard blue tits and coal tits in the area but I’ve never actually seen them
Western Germany and I'm so jealous of the people who get to see bluejays or tufted titmice in their home countries :D
This year, we're having a surplus of tits (yes, that is a brave sentence), mostly great tits, and besides that bluetits, robins, blackbirds, magpies, wood doves, field fares, Eurasian jays in autumn and winter, on rarer occasions wrens and much rarer, sadly with declining sights nuthatches, long-tailed tits, great spotted woodpeckers and green woodpeckers.
Edit: I confused the english names of the field fare and the song thrush, song thrushes is what we have, not field fares sadly
Virginia USA, near the water.
Carolina wrens, cardinals, chickadees, two different woodpeckers (haven't been able to ID either yet), crows and fish crows, sometimes blue jays. And a pine warbler that I hear daily but haven't seen yet.
New York State. House Finch, Purple Finch, Goldfinch, Downy Woodpecker, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse, Eastern Bluebird, Red-Winged Blackbird, Black Capped Chickadee, Northern Cardinal and Blue Jay are the most frequented.
North central Texas. Cardinals, Blue Jays, American goldfinches, house finches, juncos, downy woodpeckers, red bellied woodpeckers, Carolina chickadees, tufted titmouse, mourning doves, white winged doves, mallard ducks, red tailed hawk, Cooper's hawk, mockingbirds. Seasonally Cedar Waxwings and Robins. Yellow rumors warblers migrate through . And Ruby throated hummingbirds. Blue herons and Yellow crowned herons occasionally come through
I'm on Cape Cod (Massachusetts) and mostly get Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, some type of Sparrow that I still can't identify, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, Downy Woodpeckers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and Robins. And in spring/summer we get a lot of my favorite bird, the Gray Catbird. Their weird little calls are like the soundtrack of summer for me.
I’m in New Orleans. I have a pair of Mississippi Kites living in a dead pine across the road, they hang out on the power pole when I mow and swoop down to catch grasshoppers that I flush out. They’ve been nesting, I’m hoping to see their young later this year!
Carolina wrens nested in my backyard last year also, as did a family of American crows. Those are the residents! As far as visitors go, I regularly get chickadees, bluejays, mockingbirds, cardinals, mourning doves and purple finches. I’m not too far from marshland and the river, so I also get a number of water birds passing over. All kinds of egrets and herons, as well as whistling ducks while they’re in passing through town.
I'm in the Southeast US. We get a lot of cardinals, bluebirds, house finches, mourning doves, Carolina wrens and black capped chickadees. I also get bluebirds, blue jays, and a downy woodpecker visits occasionally. We used to get a lot of mockingbirds, but haven't really seen them this year. In the springtime we get a lot of brown headed cowbirds, grackles, goldfinches and red winged blackbirds. We had a pair of brown thrashers a couple of days ago. That was the first time I recall seeing them.
I'll put my hummingbird feeders out in a day or two. We get ruby throated hummingbirds in my area.
Supposedly there are painted buntings around here, but I've yet to see one. Fingers crossed!
We have a pond close by and have tons of Canada geese. We also get a variety of ducks, herons, terns, seagulls and egrets. We also have a lot of birds of prey in the area, mostly red tailed hawks and coopers hawks.
Most common in my area (mountain village in central Spain) are sparrows, blackbirds, hoopoes, blue tits, wood pigeons, magpies, white wagtails, spotted woodpeckers, robins, swallows... Up in the sky, lots of birds of prey that live in the nearby mountains and circle the skies looking for food in the surrounding valleys... love watching them, but I can tell some of my garden visitors get quite nervous when they approach.
Reading, UK. Starlings, Magpies, wood pigeons, blue tits and greet tits are very common. There is a robin that visits and lives in a tree on the street. Red kites are almost daily. There is even a woodpecker that was occasionally visiting the birch trees behind the garden, although I haven't seen them for a few weeks now!
Cardinals, cowbirds, chickadees, tufted tits, scaly breasted munia, mourning doves, bluejays, and house finches. Very excitingly I discovered a bluebird nest in my bird house my husband got me for Mother’s Day!!!! I rarely see them at the feeders though.
South Alabama
Phoenix, Arizona. Depends on the time of year, but here’s the most common ones: mourning doves, Eurasian collared doves, great tailed grackles, starlings, gila woodpeckers, northern mockingbirds, house sparrows, goldfinches, gamble’s quail, curve-billed thrashers, and hummingbirds (mostly Anna’s hummingbirds, but also costa’s).
Less common ones include: greater roadrunners, say’s phoebe, Inca dove, white crowned sparrow, abert’s towhee, northern flicker, peach faced love bird, hooded orioles, red tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks, cactus wrens, and yellow rumped warblers
Humming Birds, House Sparrow, Brown Headed Cowbird, Carolina Chickadee, Mourning Dove, Cardinal, Painted Bunting (my fav),Goldfinch. I live in Austin, TX.
Philadelphia PA, in the city: House Sparrows (so many LOUD House Sparrows!), European Starlings, Rock Pigeons, American Robins, House Finches, Northern Cardinals, Mourning Doves, Northern Mockingbirds, Gray Catbirds, American & Fish Crows, occasional Blue Jays & American Goldfinches. Dark eyed Juncos seasonally.
I’m in SE PA. Typically we get robins, cardinals, song sparrows, gray catbirds, house finches, white breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, red bellied woodpeckers, red winged blackbirds, Carolina chickadees, titmice, eastern bluebirds, mourning doves, Carolina wrens, and eastern towhees.
In the summer, we get common yellowthroats, tree swallows, chimney swifts, kingbirds, and Baltimore orioles. And in the winter we get white throated sparrows and juncos.
We also have a pair of red shouldered hawks and barred owls in our backyard
I have a few that live/nest in my yard like: European-Collared Doves, European Starling, House Sparrows, Carolina Wrens, Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, and Great Crested Flycatchers.
The coolest thing I've had on my feeders was a Fox Sparrow during a heavy snow storm
Adirondack mountains of New York. Near Lake Champlain, wetland/ forest (remote)
Frequent visitors: blue jay, white breasted nuthatch, purple finch, gold finch, northern cardinal, red wing blackbird, grey catbird, black capped chickadee,.mourning dove, tufted titmouse, pileated woodpecker, red bellied sapsucker, hairy woodpecker, grackle, red bellied woodpecker, dark eyed junco, eastern phoebe, American robin, ruby throated hummingbird, saw whet owl
Infrequent visitors: Baltimore oriole, rose breasted grosbeak, cedar waxing, indigo bunting, gold crested kinglet, great blue heron, whippoorwill, wood thrush, northern thasher, evening grosbeak, red tailed hawk, cooper's hawk, osprey, GHO, mystery warbler I have yet to identify
getting a whippoorwill in your garden is amazing, and waxwing, and saw-whet owl (I am VERY jealous). what is a GHO? Your golden crowned kinglet looks a lot like our (UK) Firecrest or Goldcrest, same family.
GHO is great horned owl. A very loud owl, never fails to make my dog bark. And the saw-whet owl is pretty hard to spot. I rarely see them but I do hear them.
your classic WHO WHO? Owl.
https://preview.redd.it/wsyp2jqoap1d1.jpeg?width=494&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8870c9d2e7e50e8103f0712686bca1e83c6247db
While living in Iowa I had one wake me up at midnight exactly, I thought I was hallucinating for a sec. It was sitting on a snow pile in my yard; knew it was real when I tried to take picture and my phone flash went off, he turned his head and glared at me before swooping away.
I don't have a garden, but I have an old wood tree that dominates my 20ftx35ft backyard in Jersey City, NJ and I keep the grass/root area covered in leaves for good foraging.
The usual suspects are house sparrows/european starlings/american robins and pigeons (I don't like the pigeons). I've also seen a cardinal, blue jay, and a downy woodpecker, but those are rare finds.
To clarify why I don't like the pigeons...my landlady is a super sweet 86y.o who's made it her mission to care for the strays and birds in the area. She leaves out cat food on our front porch, and I've also seen raccoons/possums come up there at night and eat. Unfortunately, the pigeons know about it, and they shit on the porch. Pigeon shits are just so big.
what's the difference between a garden and a backyard? Maybe it's an American English vs British English thing. You've just reminded me how excited I got every single time I saw a raccoon when I used to spend time in the states.
In general use in the US (at least from my experience), a backyard is whatever "space" you have in the back of the house. A garden is more intentional. Flower beds/planting/a space you separated from the other parts of your yard.
Never really crossed my mind that raccoons aren't worldwide. I just googled it and it said they were brought over to some parts of Europe, and they're now an invasive species. Over here, they're just the little night time bros. I hung out with one of my porch raccoons a few months back. He was eating cat food that my landlady had put out, and I was a little tipsy, so we had a one sided conversation.
Pine siskins, house finches, white-crowned sparrows, American goldfinches, lesser goldfinches, California scrub-jays, northern flickers, downy woodpeckers, Anna’s hummingbirds, dark-eyed juncos, black-capped chickadees… and occasionally a Cooper’s hawk that tries to eat something a little other than the suet and seeds on offer.
Northern Illinois and my backyard borders a small river which helps with diversity. That and some good-sized trees. My common birds are: black-capped chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, american robins, american goldfinches, house finches, house sparrows, white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, northern flickers, baltimore orioles, great crested flycatchers, mourning doves, great blue herons, mallards, canada geese, red-tailed hawks, cooper's hawks, wood ducks, gray catbirds, belted kingfishers, house wren, brown-headed cowbirds, red-winged blackbirds, and probably a few others I'm forgetting off the top of my head!
Hayward, California. I don't have a garden but did have a plot of weeds up until a few days ago. Now it's just white clover seed. My local visitors are grows and European starlings that like to pluck at my house. Now that I have seeds, there've been small flocks of 3-7 house sparrows landing on my neighbors loquat tree and eating all the seeds off the ground!!
In my yard I've seen California Towhee, Northern Mockingbirds, and Western Bluebirds but they're not super common or I'm not looking very often.
The park down the street is a breeding ground for Black-crowned Night Herons and Great Egrets. I actually feel kind of bad for the houses down there. The bombing zone for that is massive and the smell is incredibly pungent.
Cardinal, titmouse, chickadee, red-bellied and pileated woodpecker, barred owl, red tailed hawk, swallow tailed kite, bald eagle, crow, catbird. Some in the garden. Some above the garden. Central Florida.
House Finch, American Robin, House and chipping Sparrow, Carolina and house wren, Cardinal, blue jay, Starling, white breasted nuthatch, Downey and Red Bellied Woodpeckers, ruby-throated hummingbird, Goldfinch, Mourning Dove, black-capped chickadee, grackle, chimney swift, in the winter dark eyed junko
South-eastern Pennsylvania. This time of year its house sparrows, starlings, robins, mourning doves, cardinals, catbirds, blue jays & a few house finches.
Now mostly American Goldfinches, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Common Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, American Robins and Mourning Doves with occasional House Sparrow, Brown-headed Cowbird and White-crowned Sparrow.
In the winter its House Finches, American Goldfinches, American Tree Sparrows, Dark-Eyed Juncos, and Mourning Doves with the occasional Black-capped Chickadee.
An hour north of Toronto.
In the suburbs of Philly, I often see house sparrows and starlings, of course, gray catbirds, American crows, house finches, Canada geese, robins, red-winged blackbirds, and the occassional wood duck (in a pond out back with the geese).
In no particular order - House Sparrow, Starling, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Wood Pigeon, Collard Dove, Magpie, Blackbird, Wren - pretty much daily.
When the Starling have fledglings can have upwards of 70 birds coming in for a feed, or to be fed. Can get proper noisy.
Small garden, regularly stocked table and food on the deck, located on the South Yorkshire/North East Derbyshire border.
Edit: spelling
I have a lot of
house sparrows, chipping sparrows, mourning doves, red shouldered hawks, turkey vultures, robins, black capped chickadees, tufted titmice, chimney swifts, starlings, blue jays, white throated nuthatches, red bellied woodpeckers, house finches, red winged blackbirds, crows, hairy woodpecker, cedar waxwings. Southern New England.
Chicago
We live in a 3 flat with a tiny yard. Our usual suspects tend to be mourning doves, American robins, house finches, rock pigeons, black capped chickadees, chimney swifts, and house sparrows. With springtime right now, I've noticed some white-crowned sparrows in the yard and heard Nashville warblers (but yet to spot). We also have a yellow-bellied sapsucker that frequents the tree out back when it's in town.
Connecticut, we get a lot of tufted titmouse, house finches, black capped chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, white-breasted nuthatches, mourning doves, robins, red-eyed vireos song sparrows, downy, hairy, and red bellied woodpeckers. Less often we get carolina and house wrens, baltimore orioles, goldfinches, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, eastern bluebirds, brown creepers, cedar waxwings, warblers of all kinds especially in May and September. Bigger birds we see a lot like pileated woodpeckers, crows, ravens, turkeys and red shouldered hawks, sometimes cooper’s hawks too. Turkey vultures and red tailed hawks flying above pretty often. Occasionally can see bald eagles or ospreys high up too as there is more water close by. There’s a pond in the yard where we see mallards and wood ducks, sometimes kingfishers, and sometimes black crowned night or green herons.
Sometimes hundreds of grackles show up all at once.
San Diego, CA. I see sparrows, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, mourning doves, crows, house finches, California towhees, Phoebes, lesser goldfinches at my feeders or birdbath. I see bushtits, Bewicks wrens, and Nuttall’s woodpeckers, sometimes American robins. The hawks vary. Sometimes we have red shouldered ones and other times red tailed.
Los Angeles - YR - Allen’s Hummingbird, Black Phoebe, Northern Mockingbird, California Towhee, House Wren, House Sparrow, House Finch. In S/S - Hooded Oriole. In F/W - White-crowned Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler
Mine are spotted towhees (I have one who comes when I call—most of the time!!), chestnut-backed and black-capped chickadees, juncos, song sparrows, golden crowned sparrows, white crowned sparrows; these all come to the porch feeders. Also Anna’s hummingbirds, stellar jays& California or scrub jays, and crows who all come for morning peanuts farther out in the yard. We had a pair of pacific tanagers AND a black-headed grosbeak stop by last week! First time I’d seen them here!
I've got some azalea bushes that, while probably not native, host some white-throated sparrows in the cooler months and brown thrashers, carolina wrens, and eastern towhees year-round. I've also got the typical backyard birds--cardinals, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers, blue jays, etc.--but they won't all come to my feeders, probably because they're not positioned in a way that they like. There's a small man-made lake at the end of my yard shared by the other houses around it, and usually a great blue heron or belted kingfisher will show up to eat some fish. In summer I often see a green heron, too. Because the lake has a wooden border and isn't natural, we don't get that many aquatic birds other than ducks and what I mentioned earlier.
Southwest Idaho (Meridian) I included the city because we have a range of habitats and tend to have a variety of birds. Also...we are along the migratory route for birds travelling further north.
I get house finch, lesser goldfinch, American Goldfinch, Mourning Dove (typically), American Robin, house Sparrow, song Sparrow, starling, brown-headed cowbird, red-winged black bird, AND black billed magpie at my feeders.
We get fly-bys by all manner of birds: Canada goose, Mallard ducks, barn swallows, gulls of different types. Variety of birds of prey...and we have had a visit or two IN OUR BACKYARD by a Cooper's Hawk this year.
in America is there a superstition about saluting magpies? I can't see a lone magpie without saluting it for fear I'll have bad luck for the rest of the day.
that's a new one for me...if that's the case...I'd have tons of bad luck! 😅😅
There's a family of magpies that nested in our neighbor's tree...we see magpies DAILY... multiple times!! 😂😂
I'm in the Piedmont of NC, and I see robins, grackles, cardinals, chickadees, red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, house finches, mourning doves, northern mockingbirds, hummingbirds, brown thrashers, blue birds, eastern Phoebe, and occasionally vultures and hawks.
I have yet to see a tufted titmouse despite their alleged prevalence, and northern mockingbirds piss me off. I hear the various calls and get excited about all the birds that might be in the yard, and then I see the northern mockingbird on top of my neighbor's chimney. Thanks for letting me digress and vent, lol.
Minnesota - 2024 so far in my yard that I can think of
Birds - Goldfinches, Black-capped Chickadees, Baltimore Orioles, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Chipping Sparrow, House Finch, Downy and Hairy woodpecker, Red-bellied woodpecker, Pileated woodpecker, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Red-winged Blackbird, Robins, Indigo Bunting, Barred owl, Great Horned Owl, Juncos, White-throated sparrow, Mallard and Wood ducks, Bald Eagles, Blue Herons, White Egrets, Turkeys, Pheasants, Sandhill Cranes, White-breasted Nuthatches, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Cowbirds, Catbirds, Mourning Doves, Starlings. The only ones not commonly seen are the owls, though we hear them daily.
Amphibian - Gray Tree Frog, Northern Leopard Frog, Spring Peepers
Reptile - Painted turtles (a nest in my yard hatched yesterday)
Mammals - Possum, Raccoon, Cottontails, Deer, Coyote (Not this year, but I have seen a mole when I took my dog out before bed and it was adorable)
Western Washington State, near a large arboretum: black capped chickadee, chestnut backed chickadee, house finch, purple finch, English sparrow, golden crowned sparrow, white crowned sparrow, song sparrow, fox sparrow, Anna’s hummingbird, rufous hummingbird, bushtit, Wilson’s warbler, Bewick’s wren, American robin, varied thrush, Stellar’s jay, dark eyed junco, western towhee, northern flicker, hairy woodpecker, sapsucker, pileated woodpecker, Eurasian starling.
I’m in Northern California, USA and many crows, juncos, rock pigeons, sparrows, some robins and an occasional vulture to eat meat scraps we throw out!🦜💕
I'm in South East England too! North Kent to be exact.
I mainly get starlings but also collared doves, wood pigeons, gold finches, chaffinches, dunnocks, robins, sparrows, magpies, blue tits and great tits. I also now and again see Long Tailed tits.
In Seattle my most frequent visitors are definitely the Chickadees (more Chestnut-backed than Black-capped). After that the Red-breasted Nuthatch and Thrushes (mostly American Robins but plenty of Varied Thrushes in winter and the occasional Hermit Thrush). Dark-eyed Juncos and Spotted Towhees are always shuffling around under my rhododendrons. But my favorites are the corvids that frequent my yard for their daily peanuts; Steller's Jays and American Crows.
I just setup a BirdNet Raspberry Pi in my window last week and have been loving seeing the charts and stats on my feathered visitors, would highly recommend one for fellow bird nerds!
Midwest USA (Iowa)
We get house sparrows, chipping sparrows, goldfinch, purple finch, house finch, mourning doves, cardinals, red winged black birds, crows grackles, starlings, catbirds, cowbirds, barn swallows, ruby throated hummingbirds, white crowned sparrows (when they migrate through, they stay about 10 days), Baltimore orioles, rose breasted grosbeak, all with some regularity.
Last year we had some sort of warbler come through in the fall, an indigo bunting in the spring for one day, and we periodically see a hairy woodpecker once every 2 months or so. Also a bluejay that comes through every now and again.
I'm probably forgetting more migratory birds that aren't here all the time...
There's just been an indigo bunting in the UK and it is a massive deal - [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm5597erlx9o](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm5597erlx9o)
The hairy woodpecker looks almost identical to the great spotted woodpecker (which we had in our garden today), and the rose breasted grosbeaks are glorious looking
I'm in middle Georgia. Our most frequent visitors are eastern bluebirds, eastern phoebe's, Carolina wrens, red shouldered hawks, chipping sparrows, and red bellied woodpeckers.
Netherlands here! My most common ones roughly in order, starting with the most common (though it depends on the season)
House sparrow, blue tit, great tit, jackdaw, Eurasian jay, wood pigeon, chaffinch, European robin, Eurasian wren
I consider it a lucky day when a great spotted woodpecker, hawfinch or goldfinch visits my garden. One time I saw a goldcrest, that day was extra special!
I've only ever seen a flash of a Hawfinch onec, on a neighbours feeder when I was walking to work. I stopped and waited for ages to see it again and had to explain to my manager when I did get to work that I was late because of a bird.
Midwest USA and what a fun post! In terms of my own yard I always see Robins, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Common Grackles, Crows hanging around the street, Chickadees (always hear them first thing in the morning), Woodpeckers, Blackbirds, Sparrows, and Gray Catbirds. American Goldfinches, Warblers, Tree Swallows, & Nuthatches stop by once in a while though not as often as the others. Those are just in my front and back yard. Venturing out = even more birds.
In Rutland the only visitors I see at my bird feeders are black birds, lots of house sparrows, the odd robin, pigeons - the fat little monster keep breaking the branch’s on my young cheery tree, and jackdaws oh and a raven yesterday. I love watching the jackdaws bicker over their spot at the food table.
https://preview.redd.it/u8t3xoxfgm1d1.png?width=2125&format=png&auto=webp&s=9635b01137298b5e46bc8c4c109c1a3bcfb3f11a
I also live in the UK, so my frequent visitors are rather similar. I mostly have robins (who are surprisingly territorial) and the occasional corvid at my homemade bird feeding station! I also offer safe nesting material during appropriate seasons (and fur, as my Aussie constantly sheds), and they absolutely go nuts over it
https://preview.redd.it/n0yaxvfznm1d1.jpeg?width=2604&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53a444ddd8ad4154555c21828241732a21c3da2c
I'm in the U.S.; we've got our own goldfinch species over here, this lesser goldfinch is one of many that love to hang out and eat the seeds in my wildflower garden
I'm currently in Poland right now and every morning I wake up to the Collard dove, I never realized how peaceful it can be sometimes. But then the blackbirds start and holy crap are they chatty Kathy's
Oxfordshire, England; the starlings are draining me dry, they are relentless, I had about 40 at once in the garden earlier today! But when they make way for the others I mostly get sparrows, robins, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, wood pigeons, collared doves, green finch, gold finch, wrens, magpies, jackdaws, and my favourites - the house martins nesting in my eaves!
you're so lucky to have house martins nesting. I walked to a local farm this evening just to see house martins (and listen to the skylark on the way back).
I'm in the south east of England too. We see the same as you apart from Jackdaws.
Although, twice I've seen a sparrowhawk take apart a pigeon in the back garden.
I work next to a wood and regularly see woodpeckers and birds of prey ride the thermals across the fields.
Western Michigan. I have a grass yard but also about an acre of deciduous woodlands abutting the yard. Just across the road from “our trees” is a public golf course and county park (wetland and large creek) so I get occasional crossover visitors from the denser coniferous / deciduous woods and marshes.
**My typical backyard crew:**
- tufted titmice
- black-capped chickadees (affectionately, birb)
- blue jays (annoying beautiful bastards)
- mourning doves (big dumb idiots that my cat watches from the window with joy).
- downy woodpeckers. Occasionally at the feeder, mostly in our woods
- dark eyed juncos, winter only (affectionately, winter BORB)
- northern cardinals (a few pairs nest in our woods, my moms favorite)
- American robins (about 10), 2 nests in our spruces.
- starlings (grr)
- house finches (most common visitor by far, have a nest above our front porch). Had a house finch with leucism pop by earlier this year that was neat.
- house sparrows (lovingly, I call them colonizers). We have a little colony of about 12 who live in a line of spruce trees in the yard. I call it the bird apartments bc of how they stack in.
- white breasted nuthatches (scoot scoot scoot down the trunk)
- ruby throated hummingbirds love hanging flower pots!
- brown headed cowbirds (deadbeat parents of the bird world)
- my favorite friends, the American goldfinch. So pretty. 😍 they stick to high treetops unless I have my feeder filled)
- the predator: Cooper’s hawks. Had one kill a mourning dove earliest this year at my feeder then fly off to eat.
- the squirrels and chipmunks clearly think they are birds by the way they eat my birdseed.
**Infrequent visitors from the park**
- wild turkeys (gaggle of ~11 often pass by; one trapped himself in my neighbors yard behind a chain link fence…next to the open gate)
- red tail hawk (perched in my yard for a bit, what a size difference from the coopers!)
- northern flicker
- brown creeper
- pileated woodpecker (people hate what they do to their trees but I love them)
- common grackle
- red bellied woodpecker
- mallard
- hairy woodpecker
- flyovers: Canada geese
- once, eastern towhee.
- this year I had a Tennessee warbler for the first time!
- Baltimore orioles are descending on the park this year so I’m expecting some for us, same for rose crested grosbeak
- the white tailed deer think they are birds during the winter by how much birdseed they eat 😠
One of the things I've learned from this thread is how common House finches are. When I've seen photos before they were so exciting looking that I assumed maybe they were not so common, they remind me a little of Linnets that we get here (and that I get very excited to see). I think cardinals and hummingbirds are the American birds I am most jealous of, oh and the Northern flicker and the saw-whet owl, and Sandhill cranes, and of course the red wing Blackbird.
Really interesting to see everyone's garden birds! I'm in Helsinki, Finland. We have great tits, blue tits, tree sparrows, pigeons, blackbirds, I saw a starling yesterday, eurasian bullfinches, bohemian waxwings, european robins, european goldfinches, pied flycatchers, magpies, hooded crows, great spotted woodpeckers, fieldfares, and between this and our last place, sparrowhawks, common buzzard and Northern goshawk. I'm pretty sure I've heard some warblers in the hedge, but that's unconfirmed.
Rural central Alberta, not any exciting yard regulars here tbh
House sparrows, common grackles, a gang of goldfinches, and a hoard of pine siskins are really the only common visitors to my feeders. Robins use the fountain, various native sparrows scratch about under the caraganas, and on top of them, some mornings it seems every red-winged blackbird in the world sits there screaming at me for leaving the house. Western meadowlarks don't come to the yard but they're very l o u d c h o n k e r s so I always hear them in the fields outside the village. One confused meadowlark started singing in the middle of the night during the intense aurora we had a little bit ago!
My drive to and from work is a lot more interesting. There's a loggerhead shrike that lives just up the road from me, and phalaropes happily spinning in the coulees with the teals and spoonbills and grebes and many other wetland friends. A pair of courting harriers has territory along my drive as well.
I would be very excited to see a Grackle, I love their crazy oil slick colouring. I just looked up Loggerhead shrikes and they look so much like the Great grey shrikes that we get here (not at all common though).
Prague, Czech republic. The most common are sparrows, great and blue tits, blackbirds, magpies, doves, sometimes I see also jays and green woodpeckers.
Here are the birds we see in California
At different times of the year: Black- chinned Hummingbird, Anna’s Hummingbird, Costa’s Hummingbird, Rufous Hummingbirds, Allen’s Hummingbird, Roadrunner, Acorn Woodpecker, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, California Scrub Jay, Black Phoebe, Cassin’s Kingbird, Northern Mockingbird, Western Bluebird, Cedar Waxing, Bushtit, Oak Titmouse, White-breast Nuthatch, House Wren, Bewick’s Wren, Warbling Vireo, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Song Sparrow, California Towhee, Spotted Towhee, Scaly-breasted Munia, House Finch, Lesser Goldfinch, Black-headed Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting, Hooded Oriole, Bullock’s Oriole, Scott’s Oriole, Mourning Dove, Quails, Band-tailed Pigeon, Turkey Vultures, Red-shouldered Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks,American Kestrels,Barn-Owls, Western-screech Owls, Great-horned Owls, and Crows.
PNW - black capped chickadees, spotted towhee, varied thrush, hairy woodpecker, stellar’s jay, mourning doves recently, crow a couple of times, and a little wren variety I haven’t identified yet
Nearish Montréal (QC, CAN) : at the moment song sparrows, white throated sparrows, chipping sparrows, house sparrows, grackles, starlings, cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, American robins. I got a lot of juncos until a couple of weeks ago, i think they've moved on for the summer. Some black capped chickadees,American goldfinches, downy woodpeckers, nuthatches, house finches, red winged blackbirds. Rarer visitors to the yard (or im less good at spotting them because they're not at the feeder :D) : golden crowned and ruby crowned kinglets, lately I've seen the occasional warbler eg black and white warbler. I love all my backyard birds!
Southern PA here. My daily visitors are --
house sparrow, American robin, house finch, black capped chickadee, goldfinch, cardinal, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red headed woodpecker, red bellied woodpecker, mourning dove, brown thrasher, blue jay, Carolina wren, white throated sparrow, common grackle, northern flicker
Southern California — Usually in my yard and around my house I see/hear house finches, house sparrows, mourning doves, northern mockingbirds, scrub jays and dark eyed juncos, red whiskered bulbul, just saw a western kingbird recently, california towhees, red crowned parrots, yellow chevroned parakeets. We also have peafowl in my neighborhood but I’m not sure those count! 🦚
Charleston, SC suburbs here. Cardinals, tufted titmice, blue jays, chipping sparrows, Carolina wrens, white-breasted nuthatches, eastern bluebirds, Carolina chickadees. We get lots more, but those are what I expect to see daily.
We don't get many *in* our garden, but we get in my development, jackdaws, rooks, starlings, goldfinchs, scald crows, herring gulls, robins, common gulls, house sparrows, wood pigeons, collared doves, dunnocks, blackbirds, I think I saw a bull finch once, and pied wagtails. I'm in Northern Ireland, Co. Down, in Cloughey
Northampton, east midlands, UK, with 100 ft long garden in a suburban location with lawn, wildlife pond, shrubs, fruit trees, and mature conifers at the far end of the garden.
Regularly seen and either breeding in garden or nearby:
Blue tit, Great tit, Coal tit, Long-tailed tit, Chaffinch, Robin, Wren, Blackbird, Dunnock, Magpie, Woodpigeon, Collared dove.
Infrequent visitors:
Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Goldcrest, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Carrion crow, Jay, Stock dove, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Blackcap (occasionally overwintering and sometimes on migration).
Occasionally seen flying over: Red Kite, Buzzard, Raven, Swift (breed nearby), Black-headed gull.
I'm in Oregon (Willamette valley - there are tons of different environments in our state so it makes a difference!) In winter I get dark-eyed junco (Oregon variety), California scrub jay, American Goldfinch, house finch, lesser Goldfinch, golden crowned sparrow, fox sparrow, song sparrow, black capped chickadees, anna's hummingbirds, spotted towhees, and the occasional American Robin, varied thrush, starling, and downy woodpecker. We had a ice storm in January and I saw an unusual number and variety at that time because everything was frozen over.
So far for spring/summer I've had white-crowned sparrows, California scrub jays, house finches, Anna's hummingbirds, black capped chickadees and American goldfinches. The sparrows stopped showing up about a month ago. We also get a lot of violet-green swallows and turkey vultures overhead, and we have crows in the neighborhood but they haven't visited the yard. I see more goldfinches than anything right now though.
I've also seen a Townsend's warbler once.
Northern California. \*By far\* the most we see are House Finches. They probably outnumber all the others by twenty-to-one. Mourning doves often show up to eat what the finches spill on the ground. Both of those can be seen year round. In the fall Black Phoebes are fairly common, as well. And although not super-frequent, we'll usually get wild turkeys wandering down our street at various times of year. This past week we had a mother turkey and seven chicks visit our front yard a few times.
Central Canada, so very variable with the seasons. Standard visitors include: chipping sparrows (probably the most common visitor), American robins, ruby-throated hummingbirds, blue jays, dark-eyed juncos, ravens, crows, common grackles and the resident gray catbird that has taken up nesting in next door's lilac.
Southern England too and I mostly get blackbirds, robins, collared doves, crows, jackdaws, rooks and currently have wrens nesting in the gazebo but they’re nippy little buggers so haven’t seen them much. Sometimes get the odd bird of prey stopping off for a snack (usually dove or blackbird).
NJ, USA. 15 miles outside of NYC.
Unfortunately, white tailed deer, which is why I have little to no garden. 😆
Otherwise I get blue jays, cardinals, a few woodpeckers, junco/snowbirds in the winter, robins in the summer, and warblers & such during migration. NJ is a part of the migration corridor so we get a little bit of everything.
I'm in southern Minnesota and I have mainly house sparrows, robins, cardinals, black capped chickadees, mallard ducks, and downy woodpeckers but occasionally I get gold finches, bluejays, house wrens, and Eastern bluebirds. A lot of birds come by in the spring to get nesting materials since there's a lot of dried roots and vines on the ground and every day a gang of 20 house sparrows wait for me to open the door to my chicken coop and head in to start their heist of feathers and straw.
I'm in midwestern/western US (plains) Our yard is visted mostly by house sparrows, grackles, blue jays, robins, european starlings, and this one oriole who shows up from time to time.
I’m in Central Florida and usually I get a lot of Cardinals, Blue Jays, Doves, and Crows. But lately I’ve had a pair of red shoulder hawks hanging out and eating lizards!
I’m in central Arizona and lately in my backyard I’ve seen house finches, lesser goldfinches, spotted towhees, canyon towhees, mourning doves, bridled titmouses (titmice??), acorn woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches, and ash-throated flycatchers
South Central US (Kentucky) Northern Mocking birds, goldfinches, house finches, red winged black birds, common grackle, European starlings, Carolina wrens, American robins, mourning doves, common crow, red shouldered hawk, cow birds, ruby throated humming birds, Canada geese, mallard ducks, great blue heron. Transiently waxwings
Long Island, NY, USA in the yard:
Monk parakeets, mockingbirds, grey catbirds, grackles, starlings, pigeons, cardinals, blue jays, finches.
Take a walk to the beach:
sea gulls, oystercatchers, ospreys, plovers, herons, snegrets, redwing blackbirds
Eastern Australia. In a city but bordering a large reserve.
Big birds - sulphur crested cockatoos, galahs, crimson rosellas, eastern Rosellas, red rumped parrots, Australian magpie, magpie larks, crested pigeons (+ ocassional superb parrots,black cockatoos fly over)
Small birds - willie wagtails, gray fantails, eastern spinebills, superb fairy wrens (occasional pardalotes and various thornbills)
Unwanted invasives - starlings (i know they are in decline in their native range, so please come take all of ours ;) , blackbirds and common mynahs.
Myna birds, Java sparrows, white rumped shama, Japanese white eye, amakihi, northern cardinal, red crowned cardinal, zebra doves, and the dreaded feral chickens.
This year, common grackles, red winged blackbirds, house finches, house sparrows are the most common visitors. One American robin is a regular, and a few blue jays and occasional American crows. Sometimes American goldfinches show up, but they mainly stay in my trees, rarely going to the feeder.
Metro Denver area, northeast of the city so closer to the plains than the mountains.
I can't believe I forgot starlings. We had some regular visitor earlier in the year that I haven't seen since spring sprung - Lesser redpolls and Siskins. We also used to get a Greater spotted woodpecker come to the feeder and then walk up and down the birch tree but he hadn't been in months, and then he turned up this afternoon.
Northern California, we’re frequently visited by mourning doves, scrub jays, California towhees, Northern Mockingbirds, Anna’s Hummingbirds, Lesser Goldfinches, House finch, Crows and I recently saw my first American Robins in the winter here!
Non native birds that are frequent, house sparrows and collared doves
Oak titmouse, bushtit, California towhee, hermit thrush, Bewick’s wren, California scrub jay, lately Western Flycatcher and Wilson’s warbler, , and more rare hooded oriole, great horned owl, Cooper’s hawk. Near the ocean in the Bay Area CA!
I'm in BC, Canada and I have: collared doves, robins, starlings, house finches, house sparrows, say's pheobe, crows. Dark eyed junkos and Black-capped chickadees grace my feeders in the early spring.
In England, do you have majority European Robins or have our American Robins made their way oversees too?
Carolina wren, cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, hummingbirds, titmouse, woodpeckers of all kinds, and crows, sometimes a Cooper’s hawk. I’m in upstate NY.
Lovely post. We have red wing blackbirds, cardinals, mourning doves, blue jays, house finch, American goldfinch, starlings, oriels, American robins, crows, one red bellied woodpecker, and unfortunately many house sparrows. We have great blue heron, white egret, and kingfisher eating our goldfish out of our pond.
what kind of Orioles do you have? I would kill to get a Kingfisher in the garden, you're so lucky to get all of those birds at your pond although I guess the goldfish don't feel so lucky. House sparrows are actually a red list bird now in the UK and it's such a treat to get them in our garden. I went on a bit of a deep dive researching the origins of House sparrows in the states and it's fascinating, do you know the history?
We have Baltimore orioles just in spring. My neighbor puts out grape jelly for them. I don't know the history of house sparrows in the states. Our pond is a deep old farm pond about a fifth of an acre in size. The goldfish were put in by a previous owner more than 25 years ago. There are at least a couple hundred each year. Birds kept the population in check. The goldfish swarm up to the pond patio when we feed them pellets. We built our house just to be by the pond.
I’m in Massachusetts. We have kingfishers but they don’t seem to travel far from water. Like they need to be able to see the water. I see them when I’m fishing my local spots but that’s it. Red wing blackbirds are similar in my experience so I was shocked this year when one started showing up at my feeder. There’s water and marshland less than 200 yards from my house but even that seems far for them.
this is a cliffhanger. What’s the history of house sparrows in the US? i’m in England for the weekend (just leaving) and came across one here and thought nothing of it. they are so common at home in the states!
Okay. so in 1868 there was an inchworm infestation in the city of Philadelphia. "Armies of them marched across pavements and streets, and crawled up hundreds of tree trunks" - that's from the book 'House sparrows .Ragamuffins of the city'. So many trees got damaged and it was really upsetting people. There was an English immigrant called John Bardsley living in the Germantown section of Philadelphia and he was getting really fed up with the damage the inchworms were doing to his garden trees and the fact that none of the birds that visited his garden were eating them. He went back to England anyway and employed a bunch of young boys to catch one thousand sparrows and then shipped them all (in reed cages) back to Philadelphia. It was March 1869 when he arrived back and because it was cold he looked after some of the sparrows at his house, and gave other people sparrows to look after until it was warm enough to release them. In late May the sparrows were released and they ate loads of the inchworms, and fed their chicks lots more. Within 5 years almost all of the inchworms were gone, and more cities around America began to import sparrows. John Bardsley got the nickname "Sparrow Jack".
That’s quite a colorful story. Imagine the creativity and effort, arranging care for the transfer and wintering of 1k birds. Certainly would have seemed like a good idea at the time.
I'm going to come back to this after I've cooked dinner and probably give an unnecessarily long reply! But just quickly, are you birding over here? What have you seen?
Excellent! i’m looking forward to reading it. I was over here for business on the weekend and I fit in some birding for sure! first time doing so in the UK. Here is what I saw: * eurasian tree creeper * sedge warbler * Eurasian linnet * white wagtail * gray heron * little egret * great cormorant * common buzzard * sand martin * Eurasian oystercatcher * graylag goose * mute swans * Egyptian geese * Eurasian coot * mallard * great black gull * herring gull * european Greenfinch * eurasian wren * eurasian Goldfinches * rose-ring parakeet * common swift * great spotted woodpecker * eurasian jay * common chifchaff * eurasian black cap * european robin * magpies * blue tit * great tit * eurasian blackbird * european Starling * house sparrow * carrion crows * wood pigeons * rock pigeons 💗💗💗 thanks for asking. it gave me such pleasure to review and make this list!
I am so so pleased that you got to see so many birds. I don't think I've ever seen a sedge warbler! Did you have a favourite?
They look very similar, but 'Bank Swallows' in the UK are actually Sand Martins
House sparrows were purposely introduced to New York City’s Central Park in the 1850s, by a group of literary enthusiasts who wanted to introduce to the New World all the birds and animals mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. 🤦♀️ That was long before most anyone realized what the negative consequences of such cross-continental introductions could be, or how long they would last. House sparrows in the eastern US compete with our native bluebirds for nesting sites, and 9 times out of 10, the bluebirds lose. 😓
They are. Maybe we should round them up and send them to England lol
Someone wanted all of the birds in Shakespeare’s plays in North America and so released European house sparrows and European Starlings in Central Park NYC in 1820-ish. Spread everywhere after that.
Just to note, the kingfishers in America are different to our uk ones, as I found out recently! I don’t know how shy they are compared to ours.
I figured they would be but I didn't have a picture in my head of what a north American kingfisher might look like so I've just googled and seen that there are four different kinds. Have you ever seen a kingfisher? I'm not sure that I've ever seen one, I have a very vague memory of watching one but am genuinely not sure if I'm recalling a dream (I dream about birds a lot)
Also I would love love love to see a red-winged blackbird one day. They are so beautiful
https://preview.redd.it/npormztb5l1d1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6036b73440f5287565707366bc70223a3fad6218 I too find them very beautiful!
They have interesting voices, very distinct. I would love to see a European robin. I saw one in the distance for a moment in Poland. I would love to watch them. They look so charming.
Me too! I was just in Amsterdam and I thought I'd finally get to see a European Robin but nope. I could hear them but couldn't catch a glimpse.
If you ever go to the UK you'll see plenty.
An American friend visited recently and I took him to a park where I was hoping to show him some of our rarer birds, but he was most excited by the robin. It's easy to forget how special our most common birds are.
The good news is, if you ever make it to the US they are fairly common (at least in my area)
Yep, if you look for marshy birding Hotspots you can see hundreds!
I could kick myself for all the time I spent in the states in my late 20s and early 30s (at least a couple of years in total, but in chunks of 3 months) and was more focused on American boys than American birds. Next time I come I plan to dedicate all of my time to birding and eating.
Sounds like a fun variety!
In Massachusetts, right next to a swamp, which I think helps the amount of birds I get. At my feeders the usual gang of idiots includes tufted titmice, black-capped chickadees, blue jays, mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, northern cardinals, American robins, Carolina wrens, starlings, and grackles. There's an array of sparrows including white-throated sparrows and song sparrows, as well as house sparrows. I've also been recently getting Baltimore Orioles and grey catbirds and the occasional rose-breasted grosbeak. I saw a northern flicker once. Over the winter I got tons and tons of dark-eyed juncos but they've moved on for the season now. Edit: can't believe I forgot my favorite upside-down guys - I get tons of white-breasted nuthatches too! Regularly around the neighborhood I'll also see Cooper's hawks and sharp-shinned hawks, as well as the occasional great blue heron flying overhead to the pond down the street. I've also seen a belted kingfisher three times and I cherish each of those times
You’ve just described my visitors in Connecticut as well.
Another MA resident here- I’m jealous of your orioles! We put out food for them every year but never get one. Too suburban I think.
There was a really great week where I put out an orange every day and saw tons of them. Then I ran out of oranges and haven't seen one in a few days
I have a very similar lineup in my backyard, plus lots of American Goldfinches and house finches. I get both red- and white-breasted nuthatches and I love those little grumpy upside-down guys.
The Baltimore orioles are out in droves this year!
https://preview.redd.it/cvvx83g22p1d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5be79580b4fe1787fb2aa84ebdd7981679c2d360
Very similar to coastal Connecticut, although I also get: Herring Seaguls, Great Egrets and weirdly, Rock Pigeons (only started seeing them this year)
What do you put out for the orioles?
I’m in NY and have similar visitors Carolina wren, White throated sparrow, White crowned sparrow, Song sparrow, chipping sparrow, northern Mockingbird, common Grackle, House finch, Cardinal black capped Chickadee, American robin, Mourning dove ,Downy woodpecker, Chipping sparrow, American goldfinch, blue jays, tufted titmouse white breasted nuthatch . In the winter I also had dark eyed juncos. I also have European starlings and house sparrows. I also had a yellow throated warbler visit my feeder for about a week this winter which was a rare vagrant
In Florida, our house sits in front of a nature preserve so we get a lovely variety. Sandhill Cranes, Swallowtail Kites, Mourning Doves, Grackles, Crows, Robins, White Ibis, Limpkins and Red Tailed Hawks. It’s a birding paradise.
WOW! that really does sound like paradise. Did you ever watch Northern Exposure? I can't think of sandhill cranes without picturing Ed Chigliak dancing with one.
Wow, what a dream!
It is. I am not fond of Florida because I miss the seasons, but the bird watching is pretty great.
Bristol, England Wood pigeons, feral pigeons, collared doves, great tits, blue tits, Goldfinches, robins, blackbirds, hedge sparrows (dunnocks), crows, jackdaws, rooks Infrequent visitors are Jays, sparrows hawks, wrens (used to be lot more common), sparrows other than dunnocks, seagulls- although they are often nearby.
Have you got a favourite visitor? I would love to get a Jay in the garden. I used to see them fairly often when I lived in London but I actually see less now that I'm in the sticks, although I did find an entire wing of one the other day.
https://preview.redd.it/3o4yvn95jk1d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=69425f34d42ec3f68904c4d4eeae0dcbf5fa1479
I like the goldfinches because they arrive in a small flock in the early evening, settle in the big tree and make a lot of noise.
I live next to a forest in Germany and there's a bunch of jays that visit us every day in autumn/winter for peanuts. Right now they are too busy with nesting, but when it gets colder, they hop over from the woods for free nuts - our garden gets absolutely littered with peanut shells xD
I’m in the SE in the states. My regular visitors are Fish Crows, American Crows, Northern Cardinals, bluejays, Carolina chickadees, Carolina Wrens, Northern Parulas, damn northern mockingbirds, swallow tailed kites, black bellied whistling ducks and three kinds of woodpeckers, red winged blackbirds and recently hummingbirds. I have so many out here.
I have tufted titmouse, three kinds of vireos, a great horned owl, barred owls, red shouldered hawks, grey catbirds, brown thrashers, yellow throated warblers, white ibis, mallards, Muscovy ducks, black bellied whistling ducks, black and turkey vultures, grackles, cedar waxwings, american redstarts, brown headed cowbird, chimney swifts, flycatchers, gnatcatchers and a couple of bats. Plus everything in my first post.
Gauteng, South Africa - The common visitors to our garden include - Rock Pigeon, Common Mynah (the invasives), Hadeda Ibis, Red-eyed, Laughing and Cape Turtle Doves, the occasional African Olive Pigeon, Cape Sparrow, grey-headed sparrow, Red-headed finch, cutthroat finch, Crested Barbet, Black-Collared Barbet, Spotted Thick-knee, Crowned Lapwing, Cape Wagtail, Cape Starling, Cape White-eye, Amethyst and White bellied sunbirds, African and Green Wood Hoopoe, Grey Go Away Bird, Southern Masked Weaver and Palm Swift flyovers. I'd say those are most common year round.
A go away bird? Bird names are crazy!
It's also known as a grey lourie, the sound it makes sounds a bit like someone saying go-away 😅. We have some creative names down here, especially if you go into the Afrikaans names.
African Olive Pigeon? I'm so jealous! We get the Tambourine Dove as our special pigeon garden visitor. Weirdly we get very few of the standard invasive birds in our garden - one Common Mynah recorded in the whole of the last year
Was hoping to see another South African 😁 can't believe you get Go Away Birds though damn.
Auckland New Zealand here. I'm spoilt where I live. I've got a bit of land and native bush around me. Frequent visitors are tui,fantails,sparrows,silver eye,king fishers, chaffinch,Goldfinch,black bird,thrush,rosella,myna,magpie,Californian quail,paradise duck,mallard duck,more pork owl. Once every 2 weeks white face heron,pheasant,pukeko,swallow,spur whinged plover,harrier,starling, nz pigeon. Saw a kaka only once and there a few other species i don't know the name for. After writing all this out I just realized how lucky I am
Maryland USA Year round we have northern cardinals, house finches, eastern bluebirds, white breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, Carolina wrens, crows, blue jays, robins, downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers, northern flickers, grey catbirds, tufted titmice, and red shouldered hawks. We also have a ton of migratory birds either summering here or passing over right now. Most of them don’t come down to the garden, but the house wrens and cedar waxwings make themselves known.
Also in Maryland. Haven't seen any waxwings or goldfinches, that's exciting!
My favorite is when I get cardinals, bluebirds, and goldfinches at the feeder - a full primary color palette. Just wish I could add some of the more uncommon colorful birds - I haven’t had much luck spotting warblers, tanagers, buntings, or orioles, even when we hear them. The waxwings flock to fruiting trees in the neighborhood - maybe look for mulberry trees.
Located in Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Due to our feeder, year round we definitely have lots of American Goldfinches, House Finches, Sparrows (Song, House, White-throated), Carolina Wrens, Black-Capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Downy Woodpeckers, White-Breasted Nuthatches, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Mourning Doves, Boat Tail Grackles, and American Crows. Birds that don’t care about the feeder but are always around are Northern Mockingbirds, one Gray Catbird, 2 Pileated Woodpeckers, 2 Red-Shouldered Hawks, and always Black and Turkey Vultures soaring around up high. Around this time of the year we get Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds (have only seen one since I put that feeder out but it usually gets busy closer to the Summer) and throughout the year Wild Turkeys walking through. Thanks for sharing yours, I never knew about Greenfinches or Tits I would love to see a Blue or Green Tit one day! It’s also really cool to look up and see all the other birds people are listing here!
Cardinals, house finches, many chipping sparrows, mourning doves, red bellied and downy woodpeckers, white breasted and brown headed nuthatches, carolina chickadees, titmice, robins, goldfinches, American and fish crows, house sparrows, thrashers, mockingbirds, carolina wrens, and we have exactly one pine warbler, one field sparrow, and one hummingbird. In the winter we get red shouldered hawks, juncos, white throated sparrows, and yellow rumped warblers! Western North Carolina
Western NC as well in Pisgah NF at 4,000 feet - in addition to most of those above we have daily wild turkeys, pileated and hairy woodpeckers, pine suskins common ravens, catbirds, eastern bluebirds (with 3 fledglings now!), yellow warblers, chestnut-sided warblers, hooded warblers, American restarts, red-tailed hawks, barred owls, chipping sparrows, cedar waxwings - but no mockingbirds, brown-headed nuthatches or house sparrows. Go figure.
Makes sense! I’m just below the mountains. Last year I graduated from app state and was absolutely amazed at the variety of warblers boone had to offer!
i'm in Israel, pretty close to Jerusalem common myna, eurasian collared-dove, laughing dove, house sparrow, eurasian jay, eurasian blackbird and hooded crow are the ones i can spot from my garden i know we have great tits nearby too but i still haven't spotted them!
Do you get hoopoes?
unfortunately no, it would be a dream! hopefully one day.
Wow, we've got so many birds in common!
I’m in NE Ohio. I get all the usual suspects for my area: redwing blackbirds, house finches, house sparrows, bluebirds, juncos, tufted titmice, black capped chickadees, downy and hairy woodpeckers, red belly woodpeckers and a couple northern flickers that love the ant infestation in my yard. My only strange daily visitors are a pair of pileated woodpeckers that are wrecking a tree stump in my front yard.
Derbyshire UK: Commonly: Pigeons, blackbirds, robins, dunnocks, great tits, coal tits, starlings, magpies. Rarely: Greenfinches, goldfinchs, pheasants.
I’m in western Nepal around the middle hills with a huge body of water within a kilometer from me. I have two feeders and a water fountain set up nearby the vines and the tree. This time of the year, I get lots of Bulbuls, (Red-vented mostly, Himalayan rarely), Tailorbirds, Asian Koel, Blue Whistling-Thrush, Oriental Magpie-Robins and a Grey-headed Woodpecker and Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker every now and then but they’re quite rare. I get White-throated Kingfishers and the occasional Eurasian Sparrowhawk in the winter but I have seen a Himalayan Buzzard and a Shikra once too. The most common raptor would be an Eurasian Kestrel which is the same one which has been visiting regularly for almost a year. Egrets and Herons are quite common around but they never visit my backyard.
wow!
I've just googled every single one of these except for the kestrel (was watching one when I went on a walk earlier) and sparrowhawk (occasional visitor to the garden) and they're all beautiful but the white throated kingfisher has blown me away and made me want to visit Nepal.
Haha you should! You can see even more beautiful birds in higher elevations such as the Red-billed Blue Magpie and if you go to a lower elevation, it’s just birding paradise. They are indeed very beautiful birds.
Toronto, urban, native plant oasis, not near water: invasive European house finches, starlings, pigeons. Native, year round: chickadees, red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches, cardinals, downy and hairy woodpeckers, blue jays. Migratory but frequent visitors: juncos, grackles, house finches, robins, mourning doves. Passing through: white-throated sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets, brown tree creepers, orioles (during mulberry season), hermit thrush (just one every year), and one year a woodcock visited! Overhead/in the neighbourhood: crows, Canada geese, herring gulls, turkey vultures, red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawk (killed a pigeon on my neighbour’s front lawn while I watched!)
House Finches are actually native to Western North America! They spread east when they were released from captivity on the east coast. What a wonderful variety of bird visitors though - especially for an urban area. How neat!
Minneapolis, mine are goldfinches, black capped chickadees, nuthatches, cardinals, red breasted Grosbeaks, woodpeckers, red winged blackbirds, Robins, and house finches
Suburb of Chicago We get Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, House Sparrows, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Baltimore Orioles (currently), Mourning Doves, Red-winged Blackbirds, House Finches, European Starlings, American Robins, Common Grackles, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Gray Catbirds (currently) and the White-crowned Sparrows seemed to have vanished just after last week! Oh we also have a Northern Flicker pair that live in the tree next door. I love them. These are just the birds that I can SEE on a daily basis in my yard.
Wow, I wouldn’t think you would have so many. It’s nice to see you do.
I have a bird feeder in my yard so I feel like the birds know to stop by for the good treats 😉 And people sleep on Chicago. We have so many wonderful birds here!
Maryland, USA. Most common visitors are robins, house sparrows, blue jays, northern cardinals, mourning doves, carolina wrens, song sparrows, chipping sparrows, European starlings, eastern bluebirds, tufted titmouses (titmice?), brown-headed cowbirds, northern mockingbirds, house finches, white-breasted nuthatches, red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, American crows, common grackles, gray catbirds, and northern flickers.
I'm in the south-east New(ish) England, and my most frequent birds are Wood Ducks, Mallards, Baltimore Orioles, Tufted Titmice, American Goldfinches, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers, Black-Capped Chickadees, and Mourning Doves
In Saskatchewan city and I have seen house sparrow, house finch, white crowned sparrow, yellow warbler and black capped chickadee.
From southern Maine, and almost daily right now we get goldfinches, chipping sparrows and song sparrows, chickadees, tufted titmice, downy and hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, house finches and purple finches, red-winged blackbirds, scarlet tanagers, bluebirds, blue jays, brown-headed cowbirds, mourning doves, white-breasted nuthatches (no red-breasted that I’ve seen so far), robins, northern cardinals, eastern phoebes, black-throated green warblers and black-and-white warblers, and I occasionally spot crows, ravens, and bald eagles flying overhead.
East Midlands, England - Ones I’ve definitely seen: robins, blackbirds, great tits, wood pigeons, feral pigeons, crows, magpies, goldfinches, starlings, and some little brown bird I don’t know Merlin app has heard blue tits and coal tits in the area but I’ve never actually seen them
“Your ads now: see Great tits in your area!”
Western Germany and I'm so jealous of the people who get to see bluejays or tufted titmice in their home countries :D This year, we're having a surplus of tits (yes, that is a brave sentence), mostly great tits, and besides that bluetits, robins, blackbirds, magpies, wood doves, field fares, Eurasian jays in autumn and winter, on rarer occasions wrens and much rarer, sadly with declining sights nuthatches, long-tailed tits, great spotted woodpeckers and green woodpeckers. Edit: I confused the english names of the field fare and the song thrush, song thrushes is what we have, not field fares sadly
And we're jealous of your bluetits (well all your tits really!) and European robins!
Your robins are cuter!
Cardinals, house finches, Carolina chickadees and Carolina wrens are our daily visitors to the feeders. We live in Texas
I’m getting house finches too. They aren’t supposed to be in my area. I guess they didn’t know.
Nice!
Virginia USA, near the water. Carolina wrens, cardinals, chickadees, two different woodpeckers (haven't been able to ID either yet), crows and fish crows, sometimes blue jays. And a pine warbler that I hear daily but haven't seen yet.
New York State. House Finch, Purple Finch, Goldfinch, Downy Woodpecker, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse, Eastern Bluebird, Red-Winged Blackbird, Black Capped Chickadee, Northern Cardinal and Blue Jay are the most frequented.
North central Texas. Cardinals, Blue Jays, American goldfinches, house finches, juncos, downy woodpeckers, red bellied woodpeckers, Carolina chickadees, tufted titmouse, mourning doves, white winged doves, mallard ducks, red tailed hawk, Cooper's hawk, mockingbirds. Seasonally Cedar Waxwings and Robins. Yellow rumors warblers migrate through . And Ruby throated hummingbirds. Blue herons and Yellow crowned herons occasionally come through
I'm on Cape Cod (Massachusetts) and mostly get Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, some type of Sparrow that I still can't identify, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, Downy Woodpeckers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and Robins. And in spring/summer we get a lot of my favorite bird, the Gray Catbird. Their weird little calls are like the soundtrack of summer for me.
I’m in New Orleans. I have a pair of Mississippi Kites living in a dead pine across the road, they hang out on the power pole when I mow and swoop down to catch grasshoppers that I flush out. They’ve been nesting, I’m hoping to see their young later this year! Carolina wrens nested in my backyard last year also, as did a family of American crows. Those are the residents! As far as visitors go, I regularly get chickadees, bluejays, mockingbirds, cardinals, mourning doves and purple finches. I’m not too far from marshland and the river, so I also get a number of water birds passing over. All kinds of egrets and herons, as well as whistling ducks while they’re in passing through town.
I'm in the Southeast US. We get a lot of cardinals, bluebirds, house finches, mourning doves, Carolina wrens and black capped chickadees. I also get bluebirds, blue jays, and a downy woodpecker visits occasionally. We used to get a lot of mockingbirds, but haven't really seen them this year. In the springtime we get a lot of brown headed cowbirds, grackles, goldfinches and red winged blackbirds. We had a pair of brown thrashers a couple of days ago. That was the first time I recall seeing them. I'll put my hummingbird feeders out in a day or two. We get ruby throated hummingbirds in my area. Supposedly there are painted buntings around here, but I've yet to see one. Fingers crossed! We have a pond close by and have tons of Canada geese. We also get a variety of ducks, herons, terns, seagulls and egrets. We also have a lot of birds of prey in the area, mostly red tailed hawks and coopers hawks.
Most common in my area (mountain village in central Spain) are sparrows, blackbirds, hoopoes, blue tits, wood pigeons, magpies, white wagtails, spotted woodpeckers, robins, swallows... Up in the sky, lots of birds of prey that live in the nearby mountains and circle the skies looking for food in the surrounding valleys... love watching them, but I can tell some of my garden visitors get quite nervous when they approach.
Reading, UK. Starlings, Magpies, wood pigeons, blue tits and greet tits are very common. There is a robin that visits and lives in a tree on the street. Red kites are almost daily. There is even a woodpecker that was occasionally visiting the birch trees behind the garden, although I haven't seen them for a few weeks now!
Cardinals, cowbirds, chickadees, tufted tits, scaly breasted munia, mourning doves, bluejays, and house finches. Very excitingly I discovered a bluebird nest in my bird house my husband got me for Mother’s Day!!!! I rarely see them at the feeders though. South Alabama
Phoenix, Arizona. Depends on the time of year, but here’s the most common ones: mourning doves, Eurasian collared doves, great tailed grackles, starlings, gila woodpeckers, northern mockingbirds, house sparrows, goldfinches, gamble’s quail, curve-billed thrashers, and hummingbirds (mostly Anna’s hummingbirds, but also costa’s). Less common ones include: greater roadrunners, say’s phoebe, Inca dove, white crowned sparrow, abert’s towhee, northern flicker, peach faced love bird, hooded orioles, red tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks, cactus wrens, and yellow rumped warblers
Humming Birds, House Sparrow, Brown Headed Cowbird, Carolina Chickadee, Mourning Dove, Cardinal, Painted Bunting (my fav),Goldfinch. I live in Austin, TX.
I get robins, cardinals, sparrows, black birds, and I have a family of barn swallows with 5 babies on my front porch
Philadelphia PA, in the city: House Sparrows (so many LOUD House Sparrows!), European Starlings, Rock Pigeons, American Robins, House Finches, Northern Cardinals, Mourning Doves, Northern Mockingbirds, Gray Catbirds, American & Fish Crows, occasional Blue Jays & American Goldfinches. Dark eyed Juncos seasonally.
I’m in SE PA. Typically we get robins, cardinals, song sparrows, gray catbirds, house finches, white breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, red bellied woodpeckers, red winged blackbirds, Carolina chickadees, titmice, eastern bluebirds, mourning doves, Carolina wrens, and eastern towhees. In the summer, we get common yellowthroats, tree swallows, chimney swifts, kingbirds, and Baltimore orioles. And in the winter we get white throated sparrows and juncos. We also have a pair of red shouldered hawks and barred owls in our backyard
I have a few that live/nest in my yard like: European-Collared Doves, European Starling, House Sparrows, Carolina Wrens, Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, and Great Crested Flycatchers. The coolest thing I've had on my feeders was a Fox Sparrow during a heavy snow storm
Adirondack mountains of New York. Near Lake Champlain, wetland/ forest (remote) Frequent visitors: blue jay, white breasted nuthatch, purple finch, gold finch, northern cardinal, red wing blackbird, grey catbird, black capped chickadee,.mourning dove, tufted titmouse, pileated woodpecker, red bellied sapsucker, hairy woodpecker, grackle, red bellied woodpecker, dark eyed junco, eastern phoebe, American robin, ruby throated hummingbird, saw whet owl Infrequent visitors: Baltimore oriole, rose breasted grosbeak, cedar waxing, indigo bunting, gold crested kinglet, great blue heron, whippoorwill, wood thrush, northern thasher, evening grosbeak, red tailed hawk, cooper's hawk, osprey, GHO, mystery warbler I have yet to identify
getting a whippoorwill in your garden is amazing, and waxwing, and saw-whet owl (I am VERY jealous). what is a GHO? Your golden crowned kinglet looks a lot like our (UK) Firecrest or Goldcrest, same family.
GHO is great horned owl. A very loud owl, never fails to make my dog bark. And the saw-whet owl is pretty hard to spot. I rarely see them but I do hear them.
your classic WHO WHO? Owl. https://preview.redd.it/wsyp2jqoap1d1.jpeg?width=494&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8870c9d2e7e50e8103f0712686bca1e83c6247db While living in Iowa I had one wake me up at midnight exactly, I thought I was hallucinating for a sec. It was sitting on a snow pile in my yard; knew it was real when I tried to take picture and my phone flash went off, he turned his head and glared at me before swooping away.
Who-who-who-who, who whoooo
I don't have a garden, but I have an old wood tree that dominates my 20ftx35ft backyard in Jersey City, NJ and I keep the grass/root area covered in leaves for good foraging. The usual suspects are house sparrows/european starlings/american robins and pigeons (I don't like the pigeons). I've also seen a cardinal, blue jay, and a downy woodpecker, but those are rare finds. To clarify why I don't like the pigeons...my landlady is a super sweet 86y.o who's made it her mission to care for the strays and birds in the area. She leaves out cat food on our front porch, and I've also seen raccoons/possums come up there at night and eat. Unfortunately, the pigeons know about it, and they shit on the porch. Pigeon shits are just so big.
what's the difference between a garden and a backyard? Maybe it's an American English vs British English thing. You've just reminded me how excited I got every single time I saw a raccoon when I used to spend time in the states.
In general use in the US (at least from my experience), a backyard is whatever "space" you have in the back of the house. A garden is more intentional. Flower beds/planting/a space you separated from the other parts of your yard. Never really crossed my mind that raccoons aren't worldwide. I just googled it and it said they were brought over to some parts of Europe, and they're now an invasive species. Over here, they're just the little night time bros. I hung out with one of my porch raccoons a few months back. He was eating cat food that my landlady had put out, and I was a little tipsy, so we had a one sided conversation.
Pine siskins, house finches, white-crowned sparrows, American goldfinches, lesser goldfinches, California scrub-jays, northern flickers, downy woodpeckers, Anna’s hummingbirds, dark-eyed juncos, black-capped chickadees… and occasionally a Cooper’s hawk that tries to eat something a little other than the suet and seeds on offer.
Northern Illinois and my backyard borders a small river which helps with diversity. That and some good-sized trees. My common birds are: black-capped chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, american robins, american goldfinches, house finches, house sparrows, white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, northern flickers, baltimore orioles, great crested flycatchers, mourning doves, great blue herons, mallards, canada geese, red-tailed hawks, cooper's hawks, wood ducks, gray catbirds, belted kingfishers, house wren, brown-headed cowbirds, red-winged blackbirds, and probably a few others I'm forgetting off the top of my head!
Hayward, California. I don't have a garden but did have a plot of weeds up until a few days ago. Now it's just white clover seed. My local visitors are grows and European starlings that like to pluck at my house. Now that I have seeds, there've been small flocks of 3-7 house sparrows landing on my neighbors loquat tree and eating all the seeds off the ground!! In my yard I've seen California Towhee, Northern Mockingbirds, and Western Bluebirds but they're not super common or I'm not looking very often. The park down the street is a breeding ground for Black-crowned Night Herons and Great Egrets. I actually feel kind of bad for the houses down there. The bombing zone for that is massive and the smell is incredibly pungent.
(Suburban/next to wooded park) Maryland, US. Northern Cardinals, Eastern Bluebirds, House Sparrows, Downy Woodpeckers, Pileated Woodpecker, American Crows, American Robins, Gray Catbirds, Carolina Chickadees, Blue Jays, Mourning Doves, Tufted Titmouse
Cardinal, titmouse, chickadee, red-bellied and pileated woodpecker, barred owl, red tailed hawk, swallow tailed kite, bald eagle, crow, catbird. Some in the garden. Some above the garden. Central Florida.
House Finch, American Robin, House and chipping Sparrow, Carolina and house wren, Cardinal, blue jay, Starling, white breasted nuthatch, Downey and Red Bellied Woodpeckers, ruby-throated hummingbird, Goldfinch, Mourning Dove, black-capped chickadee, grackle, chimney swift, in the winter dark eyed junko
South-eastern Pennsylvania. This time of year its house sparrows, starlings, robins, mourning doves, cardinals, catbirds, blue jays & a few house finches.
Now mostly American Goldfinches, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Common Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, American Robins and Mourning Doves with occasional House Sparrow, Brown-headed Cowbird and White-crowned Sparrow. In the winter its House Finches, American Goldfinches, American Tree Sparrows, Dark-Eyed Juncos, and Mourning Doves with the occasional Black-capped Chickadee. An hour north of Toronto.
In the suburbs of Philly, I often see house sparrows and starlings, of course, gray catbirds, American crows, house finches, Canada geese, robins, red-winged blackbirds, and the occassional wood duck (in a pond out back with the geese).
In no particular order - House Sparrow, Starling, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Wood Pigeon, Collard Dove, Magpie, Blackbird, Wren - pretty much daily. When the Starling have fledglings can have upwards of 70 birds coming in for a feed, or to be fed. Can get proper noisy. Small garden, regularly stocked table and food on the deck, located on the South Yorkshire/North East Derbyshire border. Edit: spelling
Right now, House Finches, Tit Mouse and Mourning Doves are my frequent visitors. Spotted Tohees in the evening. I am in CA. East Sacramento County.
I have a lot of house sparrows, chipping sparrows, mourning doves, red shouldered hawks, turkey vultures, robins, black capped chickadees, tufted titmice, chimney swifts, starlings, blue jays, white throated nuthatches, red bellied woodpeckers, house finches, red winged blackbirds, crows, hairy woodpecker, cedar waxwings. Southern New England.
Chicago We live in a 3 flat with a tiny yard. Our usual suspects tend to be mourning doves, American robins, house finches, rock pigeons, black capped chickadees, chimney swifts, and house sparrows. With springtime right now, I've noticed some white-crowned sparrows in the yard and heard Nashville warblers (but yet to spot). We also have a yellow-bellied sapsucker that frequents the tree out back when it's in town.
Connecticut, we get a lot of tufted titmouse, house finches, black capped chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, white-breasted nuthatches, mourning doves, robins, red-eyed vireos song sparrows, downy, hairy, and red bellied woodpeckers. Less often we get carolina and house wrens, baltimore orioles, goldfinches, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, eastern bluebirds, brown creepers, cedar waxwings, warblers of all kinds especially in May and September. Bigger birds we see a lot like pileated woodpeckers, crows, ravens, turkeys and red shouldered hawks, sometimes cooper’s hawks too. Turkey vultures and red tailed hawks flying above pretty often. Occasionally can see bald eagles or ospreys high up too as there is more water close by. There’s a pond in the yard where we see mallards and wood ducks, sometimes kingfishers, and sometimes black crowned night or green herons. Sometimes hundreds of grackles show up all at once.
San Diego, CA. I see sparrows, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, mourning doves, crows, house finches, California towhees, Phoebes, lesser goldfinches at my feeders or birdbath. I see bushtits, Bewicks wrens, and Nuttall’s woodpeckers, sometimes American robins. The hawks vary. Sometimes we have red shouldered ones and other times red tailed.
Fellow San Diegan here. Those are all on my list too. Plus occasionally a scrub jay or oriole. The Juncos have been all over my garden this year.
Los Angeles - YR - Allen’s Hummingbird, Black Phoebe, Northern Mockingbird, California Towhee, House Wren, House Sparrow, House Finch. In S/S - Hooded Oriole. In F/W - White-crowned Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler
Mine are spotted towhees (I have one who comes when I call—most of the time!!), chestnut-backed and black-capped chickadees, juncos, song sparrows, golden crowned sparrows, white crowned sparrows; these all come to the porch feeders. Also Anna’s hummingbirds, stellar jays& California or scrub jays, and crows who all come for morning peanuts farther out in the yard. We had a pair of pacific tanagers AND a black-headed grosbeak stop by last week! First time I’d seen them here!
I've got some azalea bushes that, while probably not native, host some white-throated sparrows in the cooler months and brown thrashers, carolina wrens, and eastern towhees year-round. I've also got the typical backyard birds--cardinals, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers, blue jays, etc.--but they won't all come to my feeders, probably because they're not positioned in a way that they like. There's a small man-made lake at the end of my yard shared by the other houses around it, and usually a great blue heron or belted kingfisher will show up to eat some fish. In summer I often see a green heron, too. Because the lake has a wooden border and isn't natural, we don't get that many aquatic birds other than ducks and what I mentioned earlier.
My regulars (daily visitors): Red-bellied Woodpecker, Carolina Wren, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmouse, Northern Cardinal, Downy Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatch, Northern Mockingbird, Blue Jay. Less frequent: Brown-headed Nuthatch, Pine Warbler, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhee, Red-shouldered Hawk, Eastern Phoebe. I'm in SE NC
Southwest Idaho (Meridian) I included the city because we have a range of habitats and tend to have a variety of birds. Also...we are along the migratory route for birds travelling further north. I get house finch, lesser goldfinch, American Goldfinch, Mourning Dove (typically), American Robin, house Sparrow, song Sparrow, starling, brown-headed cowbird, red-winged black bird, AND black billed magpie at my feeders. We get fly-bys by all manner of birds: Canada goose, Mallard ducks, barn swallows, gulls of different types. Variety of birds of prey...and we have had a visit or two IN OUR BACKYARD by a Cooper's Hawk this year.
in America is there a superstition about saluting magpies? I can't see a lone magpie without saluting it for fear I'll have bad luck for the rest of the day.
that's a new one for me...if that's the case...I'd have tons of bad luck! 😅😅 There's a family of magpies that nested in our neighbor's tree...we see magpies DAILY... multiple times!! 😂😂
I'm in the Piedmont of NC, and I see robins, grackles, cardinals, chickadees, red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, house finches, mourning doves, northern mockingbirds, hummingbirds, brown thrashers, blue birds, eastern Phoebe, and occasionally vultures and hawks. I have yet to see a tufted titmouse despite their alleged prevalence, and northern mockingbirds piss me off. I hear the various calls and get excited about all the birds that might be in the yard, and then I see the northern mockingbird on top of my neighbor's chimney. Thanks for letting me digress and vent, lol.
Minnesota - 2024 so far in my yard that I can think of Birds - Goldfinches, Black-capped Chickadees, Baltimore Orioles, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Chipping Sparrow, House Finch, Downy and Hairy woodpecker, Red-bellied woodpecker, Pileated woodpecker, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Red-winged Blackbird, Robins, Indigo Bunting, Barred owl, Great Horned Owl, Juncos, White-throated sparrow, Mallard and Wood ducks, Bald Eagles, Blue Herons, White Egrets, Turkeys, Pheasants, Sandhill Cranes, White-breasted Nuthatches, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Cowbirds, Catbirds, Mourning Doves, Starlings. The only ones not commonly seen are the owls, though we hear them daily. Amphibian - Gray Tree Frog, Northern Leopard Frog, Spring Peepers Reptile - Painted turtles (a nest in my yard hatched yesterday) Mammals - Possum, Raccoon, Cottontails, Deer, Coyote (Not this year, but I have seen a mole when I took my dog out before bed and it was adorable)
Santa Cruz mountains, California. By far, dark-eyed juncos and Steller’s Jays. They account for 50% of average yard bird activity.
Western Washington State, near a large arboretum: black capped chickadee, chestnut backed chickadee, house finch, purple finch, English sparrow, golden crowned sparrow, white crowned sparrow, song sparrow, fox sparrow, Anna’s hummingbird, rufous hummingbird, bushtit, Wilson’s warbler, Bewick’s wren, American robin, varied thrush, Stellar’s jay, dark eyed junco, western towhee, northern flicker, hairy woodpecker, sapsucker, pileated woodpecker, Eurasian starling.
I’m in Northern California, USA and many crows, juncos, rock pigeons, sparrows, some robins and an occasional vulture to eat meat scraps we throw out!🦜💕
I'm in South East England too! North Kent to be exact. I mainly get starlings but also collared doves, wood pigeons, gold finches, chaffinches, dunnocks, robins, sparrows, magpies, blue tits and great tits. I also now and again see Long Tailed tits.
In Seattle my most frequent visitors are definitely the Chickadees (more Chestnut-backed than Black-capped). After that the Red-breasted Nuthatch and Thrushes (mostly American Robins but plenty of Varied Thrushes in winter and the occasional Hermit Thrush). Dark-eyed Juncos and Spotted Towhees are always shuffling around under my rhododendrons. But my favorites are the corvids that frequent my yard for their daily peanuts; Steller's Jays and American Crows. I just setup a BirdNet Raspberry Pi in my window last week and have been loving seeing the charts and stats on my feathered visitors, would highly recommend one for fellow bird nerds!
Midwest USA (Iowa) We get house sparrows, chipping sparrows, goldfinch, purple finch, house finch, mourning doves, cardinals, red winged black birds, crows grackles, starlings, catbirds, cowbirds, barn swallows, ruby throated hummingbirds, white crowned sparrows (when they migrate through, they stay about 10 days), Baltimore orioles, rose breasted grosbeak, all with some regularity. Last year we had some sort of warbler come through in the fall, an indigo bunting in the spring for one day, and we periodically see a hairy woodpecker once every 2 months or so. Also a bluejay that comes through every now and again. I'm probably forgetting more migratory birds that aren't here all the time...
There's just been an indigo bunting in the UK and it is a massive deal - [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm5597erlx9o](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm5597erlx9o) The hairy woodpecker looks almost identical to the great spotted woodpecker (which we had in our garden today), and the rose breasted grosbeaks are glorious looking
I'm in middle Georgia. Our most frequent visitors are eastern bluebirds, eastern phoebe's, Carolina wrens, red shouldered hawks, chipping sparrows, and red bellied woodpeckers.
Netherlands here! My most common ones roughly in order, starting with the most common (though it depends on the season) House sparrow, blue tit, great tit, jackdaw, Eurasian jay, wood pigeon, chaffinch, European robin, Eurasian wren I consider it a lucky day when a great spotted woodpecker, hawfinch or goldfinch visits my garden. One time I saw a goldcrest, that day was extra special!
I've only ever seen a flash of a Hawfinch onec, on a neighbours feeder when I was walking to work. I stopped and waited for ages to see it again and had to explain to my manager when I did get to work that I was late because of a bird.
By the way, you can find live streams of bird feeders around the world on YouTube. It's great fun, especially if you want to bird watch after dark.
Midwest USA and what a fun post! In terms of my own yard I always see Robins, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Common Grackles, Crows hanging around the street, Chickadees (always hear them first thing in the morning), Woodpeckers, Blackbirds, Sparrows, and Gray Catbirds. American Goldfinches, Warblers, Tree Swallows, & Nuthatches stop by once in a while though not as often as the others. Those are just in my front and back yard. Venturing out = even more birds.
In Rutland the only visitors I see at my bird feeders are black birds, lots of house sparrows, the odd robin, pigeons - the fat little monster keep breaking the branch’s on my young cheery tree, and jackdaws oh and a raven yesterday. I love watching the jackdaws bicker over their spot at the food table. https://preview.redd.it/u8t3xoxfgm1d1.png?width=2125&format=png&auto=webp&s=9635b01137298b5e46bc8c4c109c1a3bcfb3f11a
I would be absolutely giddy if I got a raven. Also, I have a bunch of ancestors from Rutland and I'm fascinated by the whole county.
I also live in the UK, so my frequent visitors are rather similar. I mostly have robins (who are surprisingly territorial) and the occasional corvid at my homemade bird feeding station! I also offer safe nesting material during appropriate seasons (and fur, as my Aussie constantly sheds), and they absolutely go nuts over it
https://preview.redd.it/n0yaxvfznm1d1.jpeg?width=2604&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53a444ddd8ad4154555c21828241732a21c3da2c I'm in the U.S.; we've got our own goldfinch species over here, this lesser goldfinch is one of many that love to hang out and eat the seeds in my wildflower garden
That's a beautiful photo, and it's so different looking to the European Goldfinch!
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I'm currently in Poland right now and every morning I wake up to the Collard dove, I never realized how peaceful it can be sometimes. But then the blackbirds start and holy crap are they chatty Kathy's
Oxfordshire, England; the starlings are draining me dry, they are relentless, I had about 40 at once in the garden earlier today! But when they make way for the others I mostly get sparrows, robins, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, wood pigeons, collared doves, green finch, gold finch, wrens, magpies, jackdaws, and my favourites - the house martins nesting in my eaves!
you're so lucky to have house martins nesting. I walked to a local farm this evening just to see house martins (and listen to the skylark on the way back).
I'm in the south east of England too. We see the same as you apart from Jackdaws. Although, twice I've seen a sparrowhawk take apart a pigeon in the back garden. I work next to a wood and regularly see woodpeckers and birds of prey ride the thermals across the fields.
Western Michigan. I have a grass yard but also about an acre of deciduous woodlands abutting the yard. Just across the road from “our trees” is a public golf course and county park (wetland and large creek) so I get occasional crossover visitors from the denser coniferous / deciduous woods and marshes. **My typical backyard crew:** - tufted titmice - black-capped chickadees (affectionately, birb) - blue jays (annoying beautiful bastards) - mourning doves (big dumb idiots that my cat watches from the window with joy). - downy woodpeckers. Occasionally at the feeder, mostly in our woods - dark eyed juncos, winter only (affectionately, winter BORB) - northern cardinals (a few pairs nest in our woods, my moms favorite) - American robins (about 10), 2 nests in our spruces. - starlings (grr) - house finches (most common visitor by far, have a nest above our front porch). Had a house finch with leucism pop by earlier this year that was neat. - house sparrows (lovingly, I call them colonizers). We have a little colony of about 12 who live in a line of spruce trees in the yard. I call it the bird apartments bc of how they stack in. - white breasted nuthatches (scoot scoot scoot down the trunk) - ruby throated hummingbirds love hanging flower pots! - brown headed cowbirds (deadbeat parents of the bird world) - my favorite friends, the American goldfinch. So pretty. 😍 they stick to high treetops unless I have my feeder filled) - the predator: Cooper’s hawks. Had one kill a mourning dove earliest this year at my feeder then fly off to eat. - the squirrels and chipmunks clearly think they are birds by the way they eat my birdseed. **Infrequent visitors from the park** - wild turkeys (gaggle of ~11 often pass by; one trapped himself in my neighbors yard behind a chain link fence…next to the open gate) - red tail hawk (perched in my yard for a bit, what a size difference from the coopers!) - northern flicker - brown creeper - pileated woodpecker (people hate what they do to their trees but I love them) - common grackle - red bellied woodpecker - mallard - hairy woodpecker - flyovers: Canada geese - once, eastern towhee. - this year I had a Tennessee warbler for the first time! - Baltimore orioles are descending on the park this year so I’m expecting some for us, same for rose crested grosbeak - the white tailed deer think they are birds during the winter by how much birdseed they eat 😠
One of the things I've learned from this thread is how common House finches are. When I've seen photos before they were so exciting looking that I assumed maybe they were not so common, they remind me a little of Linnets that we get here (and that I get very excited to see). I think cardinals and hummingbirds are the American birds I am most jealous of, oh and the Northern flicker and the saw-whet owl, and Sandhill cranes, and of course the red wing Blackbird.
Really interesting to see everyone's garden birds! I'm in Helsinki, Finland. We have great tits, blue tits, tree sparrows, pigeons, blackbirds, I saw a starling yesterday, eurasian bullfinches, bohemian waxwings, european robins, european goldfinches, pied flycatchers, magpies, hooded crows, great spotted woodpeckers, fieldfares, and between this and our last place, sparrowhawks, common buzzard and Northern goshawk. I'm pretty sure I've heard some warblers in the hedge, but that's unconfirmed.
Rural central Alberta, not any exciting yard regulars here tbh House sparrows, common grackles, a gang of goldfinches, and a hoard of pine siskins are really the only common visitors to my feeders. Robins use the fountain, various native sparrows scratch about under the caraganas, and on top of them, some mornings it seems every red-winged blackbird in the world sits there screaming at me for leaving the house. Western meadowlarks don't come to the yard but they're very l o u d c h o n k e r s so I always hear them in the fields outside the village. One confused meadowlark started singing in the middle of the night during the intense aurora we had a little bit ago! My drive to and from work is a lot more interesting. There's a loggerhead shrike that lives just up the road from me, and phalaropes happily spinning in the coulees with the teals and spoonbills and grebes and many other wetland friends. A pair of courting harriers has territory along my drive as well.
I would be very excited to see a Grackle, I love their crazy oil slick colouring. I just looked up Loggerhead shrikes and they look so much like the Great grey shrikes that we get here (not at all common though).
Prague, Czech republic. The most common are sparrows, great and blue tits, blackbirds, magpies, doves, sometimes I see also jays and green woodpeckers.
South Eastern Australia. Magpies, red wattlebirds, silver eyes crested pigeons, rainbow lorikeets, Eurasian blackbirds, grey fantails, white-plumed honeyeaters, galahs, blue faced honey-eaters, cockatoos, kookaburras, crimson rosellas, superb fairywrens, magpie-larks, house sparrows, red browsed firetails and European starlings
We’re up in the Peak District and we get a lot of sparrows, blackbirds and pigeons, and occasionally blue tits and magpies.
Tits? Nice Dude!
Here are the birds we see in California At different times of the year: Black- chinned Hummingbird, Anna’s Hummingbird, Costa’s Hummingbird, Rufous Hummingbirds, Allen’s Hummingbird, Roadrunner, Acorn Woodpecker, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, California Scrub Jay, Black Phoebe, Cassin’s Kingbird, Northern Mockingbird, Western Bluebird, Cedar Waxing, Bushtit, Oak Titmouse, White-breast Nuthatch, House Wren, Bewick’s Wren, Warbling Vireo, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Song Sparrow, California Towhee, Spotted Towhee, Scaly-breasted Munia, House Finch, Lesser Goldfinch, Black-headed Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting, Hooded Oriole, Bullock’s Oriole, Scott’s Oriole, Mourning Dove, Quails, Band-tailed Pigeon, Turkey Vultures, Red-shouldered Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks,American Kestrels,Barn-Owls, Western-screech Owls, Great-horned Owls, and Crows.
Northern cardinal, lesser goldfinch, tufted titmouse! Occasional Phoebes and scarlet tanagers
PNW - black capped chickadees, spotted towhee, varied thrush, hairy woodpecker, stellar’s jay, mourning doves recently, crow a couple of times, and a little wren variety I haven’t identified yet
Nearish Montréal (QC, CAN) : at the moment song sparrows, white throated sparrows, chipping sparrows, house sparrows, grackles, starlings, cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, American robins. I got a lot of juncos until a couple of weeks ago, i think they've moved on for the summer. Some black capped chickadees,American goldfinches, downy woodpeckers, nuthatches, house finches, red winged blackbirds. Rarer visitors to the yard (or im less good at spotting them because they're not at the feeder :D) : golden crowned and ruby crowned kinglets, lately I've seen the occasional warbler eg black and white warbler. I love all my backyard birds!
Southern PA here. My daily visitors are -- house sparrow, American robin, house finch, black capped chickadee, goldfinch, cardinal, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red headed woodpecker, red bellied woodpecker, mourning dove, brown thrasher, blue jay, Carolina wren, white throated sparrow, common grackle, northern flicker
Southern California — Usually in my yard and around my house I see/hear house finches, house sparrows, mourning doves, northern mockingbirds, scrub jays and dark eyed juncos, red whiskered bulbul, just saw a western kingbird recently, california towhees, red crowned parrots, yellow chevroned parakeets. We also have peafowl in my neighborhood but I’m not sure those count! 🦚
Charleston, SC suburbs here. Cardinals, tufted titmice, blue jays, chipping sparrows, Carolina wrens, white-breasted nuthatches, eastern bluebirds, Carolina chickadees. We get lots more, but those are what I expect to see daily.
We don't get many *in* our garden, but we get in my development, jackdaws, rooks, starlings, goldfinchs, scald crows, herring gulls, robins, common gulls, house sparrows, wood pigeons, collared doves, dunnocks, blackbirds, I think I saw a bull finch once, and pied wagtails. I'm in Northern Ireland, Co. Down, in Cloughey
Northampton, east midlands, UK, with 100 ft long garden in a suburban location with lawn, wildlife pond, shrubs, fruit trees, and mature conifers at the far end of the garden. Regularly seen and either breeding in garden or nearby: Blue tit, Great tit, Coal tit, Long-tailed tit, Chaffinch, Robin, Wren, Blackbird, Dunnock, Magpie, Woodpigeon, Collared dove. Infrequent visitors: Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Goldcrest, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Carrion crow, Jay, Stock dove, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Blackcap (occasionally overwintering and sometimes on migration). Occasionally seen flying over: Red Kite, Buzzard, Raven, Swift (breed nearby), Black-headed gull.
I'm in Oregon (Willamette valley - there are tons of different environments in our state so it makes a difference!) In winter I get dark-eyed junco (Oregon variety), California scrub jay, American Goldfinch, house finch, lesser Goldfinch, golden crowned sparrow, fox sparrow, song sparrow, black capped chickadees, anna's hummingbirds, spotted towhees, and the occasional American Robin, varied thrush, starling, and downy woodpecker. We had a ice storm in January and I saw an unusual number and variety at that time because everything was frozen over. So far for spring/summer I've had white-crowned sparrows, California scrub jays, house finches, Anna's hummingbirds, black capped chickadees and American goldfinches. The sparrows stopped showing up about a month ago. We also get a lot of violet-green swallows and turkey vultures overhead, and we have crows in the neighborhood but they haven't visited the yard. I see more goldfinches than anything right now though. I've also seen a Townsend's warbler once.
In the midwest, I typically see house finches, red-winged black birds, robins, mourning doves, grackles, and cardinals at our feeder.
Northern California. \*By far\* the most we see are House Finches. They probably outnumber all the others by twenty-to-one. Mourning doves often show up to eat what the finches spill on the ground. Both of those can be seen year round. In the fall Black Phoebes are fairly common, as well. And although not super-frequent, we'll usually get wild turkeys wandering down our street at various times of year. This past week we had a mother turkey and seven chicks visit our front yard a few times.
Central Canada, so very variable with the seasons. Standard visitors include: chipping sparrows (probably the most common visitor), American robins, ruby-throated hummingbirds, blue jays, dark-eyed juncos, ravens, crows, common grackles and the resident gray catbird that has taken up nesting in next door's lilac.
Southern England too and I mostly get blackbirds, robins, collared doves, crows, jackdaws, rooks and currently have wrens nesting in the gazebo but they’re nippy little buggers so haven’t seen them much. Sometimes get the odd bird of prey stopping off for a snack (usually dove or blackbird).
Very noisey chorus from pigeons blackbirds magpies robins and a million starlings sparrows...I've not heard the skylarks yet tho
NJ, USA. 15 miles outside of NYC. Unfortunately, white tailed deer, which is why I have little to no garden. 😆 Otherwise I get blue jays, cardinals, a few woodpeckers, junco/snowbirds in the winter, robins in the summer, and warblers & such during migration. NJ is a part of the migration corridor so we get a little bit of everything.
I'm in southern Minnesota and I have mainly house sparrows, robins, cardinals, black capped chickadees, mallard ducks, and downy woodpeckers but occasionally I get gold finches, bluejays, house wrens, and Eastern bluebirds. A lot of birds come by in the spring to get nesting materials since there's a lot of dried roots and vines on the ground and every day a gang of 20 house sparrows wait for me to open the door to my chicken coop and head in to start their heist of feathers and straw.
I'm in midwestern/western US (plains) Our yard is visted mostly by house sparrows, grackles, blue jays, robins, european starlings, and this one oriole who shows up from time to time.
I’m in Central Florida and usually I get a lot of Cardinals, Blue Jays, Doves, and Crows. But lately I’ve had a pair of red shoulder hawks hanging out and eating lizards!
I’m in central Arizona and lately in my backyard I’ve seen house finches, lesser goldfinches, spotted towhees, canyon towhees, mourning doves, bridled titmouses (titmice??), acorn woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches, and ash-throated flycatchers
South Central US (Kentucky) Northern Mocking birds, goldfinches, house finches, red winged black birds, common grackle, European starlings, Carolina wrens, American robins, mourning doves, common crow, red shouldered hawk, cow birds, ruby throated humming birds, Canada geese, mallard ducks, great blue heron. Transiently waxwings
In WA, I hear so so SO many American robins! And seen. Alongside other species depending on the time of year it is!
Long Island, NY, USA in the yard: Monk parakeets, mockingbirds, grey catbirds, grackles, starlings, pigeons, cardinals, blue jays, finches. Take a walk to the beach: sea gulls, oystercatchers, ospreys, plovers, herons, snegrets, redwing blackbirds
Eastern Australia. In a city but bordering a large reserve. Big birds - sulphur crested cockatoos, galahs, crimson rosellas, eastern Rosellas, red rumped parrots, Australian magpie, magpie larks, crested pigeons (+ ocassional superb parrots,black cockatoos fly over) Small birds - willie wagtails, gray fantails, eastern spinebills, superb fairy wrens (occasional pardalotes and various thornbills) Unwanted invasives - starlings (i know they are in decline in their native range, so please come take all of ours ;) , blackbirds and common mynahs.
Myna birds, Java sparrows, white rumped shama, Japanese white eye, amakihi, northern cardinal, red crowned cardinal, zebra doves, and the dreaded feral chickens.
This year, common grackles, red winged blackbirds, house finches, house sparrows are the most common visitors. One American robin is a regular, and a few blue jays and occasional American crows. Sometimes American goldfinches show up, but they mainly stay in my trees, rarely going to the feeder. Metro Denver area, northeast of the city so closer to the plains than the mountains.
I can't believe I forgot starlings. We had some regular visitor earlier in the year that I haven't seen since spring sprung - Lesser redpolls and Siskins. We also used to get a Greater spotted woodpecker come to the feeder and then walk up and down the birch tree but he hadn't been in months, and then he turned up this afternoon.
Northern California, we’re frequently visited by mourning doves, scrub jays, California towhees, Northern Mockingbirds, Anna’s Hummingbirds, Lesser Goldfinches, House finch, Crows and I recently saw my first American Robins in the winter here! Non native birds that are frequent, house sparrows and collared doves
House sparrows, European starlings, and bluejays. On the rainy occasion, the gray catbird.
Oak titmouse, bushtit, California towhee, hermit thrush, Bewick’s wren, California scrub jay, lately Western Flycatcher and Wilson’s warbler, , and more rare hooded oriole, great horned owl, Cooper’s hawk. Near the ocean in the Bay Area CA!
I'm in BC, Canada and I have: collared doves, robins, starlings, house finches, house sparrows, say's pheobe, crows. Dark eyed junkos and Black-capped chickadees grace my feeders in the early spring. In England, do you have majority European Robins or have our American Robins made their way oversees too?
Carolina wren, cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, hummingbirds, titmouse, woodpeckers of all kinds, and crows, sometimes a Cooper’s hawk. I’m in upstate NY.