Saskatchewan Birds? (1 Viewer)

[Craig S]

You are fortunate to be seeing so much waterfowl, we haven't really seen that much.
Last trip to Fort Whyte Center we saw a family of Wood ducks, a family of Mallards and of course Canada Geese.
We've had an injured Brown Thrasher at our feeders for four or five days, looks like his wings, legs and tail feathers are injured. He couldn't fly but could hop, but when ever he stopped hopping he would lay in the grass. He didn't like moving. We figure he was hopping from the hedge at the rear of our house to the feeders at the front of the house where he would feed on spilled seed, then returning to the hedge. We managed to chase him down today and my wife got her nylon mesh bug jacket over him. We have him in a large rubber maid bin with some suet and water and will take him to a rehab center on Wednesday.
Saw a Wren the other day but haven't had time to figure out which kind of Wren yet.
A Rose Breasted Gross Beak has been at our feeders for the last few days. Other than that we have the regular birds that frequent our feeders.
We had a very tiny Downy Woodpecker crash into our window last week, it hit hard and died almost immediately.
Another 4 or 5 weeks and the summer birds will be heading south. This is the time the Hummingbirds usually start frequenting our feeder. They usually stay until late September.
Wednesday we are heading to Winnipeg to try out a Tamron 70-300 lens, just came out last year, but is quite a bit cheaper than the Canon 70-300 IS lens. This Tamron lens gets some really good reviews.
I ordered and returned a cheaper 1.4x teleconverter as it just wasn't very good. May try the pro version of the Kenko teleconverter next spring.

 

[AlainaLee]

hope hes okay!! i wanna see a wood duck so bad!! but we dont have any around here
im interested in that tamron lens for nikon...i keep saying, i have a birthday coming up.. lol

today got to see more babies.. pied billed grebes, horned grebes (they were far out though), and more coots.. then some other kind of duckling, but dont know what kind.. i notice they all look alike.. ill ID them eventually, but im still having problems identifying the females of most types..

 

[Craig S]

We were going to take the bird to a wildlife rehab center near Winnipeg on Wednesday but someone came out and picked it up Monday afternoon. The first day I saw this bird his wing tips looked all chewed up, his tail feathers were a mess and some appeared to be missing. The bird looked better Monday. We will call Wednesday afternoon to see how he is doing.
Haven't had a lot of time to get out birding lately. Weather looks good for the next few days so will likely go to Fort Whyte Center on Wednesday and go for a walk on Thursday or Friday.
The Tamron lens reviews quite well and is relatively cheap for such a lens, price difference is only about $50 between Canada and the U.S., but the U.S. has a rebate for U.S. customers.
Here is a link that hosts several reviews for the Tamron lens.
http://lensreviews.1001noisycameras....m-f4-56-di-vc/
Here is another link that compares the Tamron lens to the Canon 70-300 L, which sells in Canada for $1,700.00and in the U.S. for $1,500.00..
http://frontallobbings.blogspot.com/...-f4-56-vs.html
Just had a Red Winged Blackbird here, first time I've seen one at our feeders.
In the last few days the Blue Jays have discovered the suet feeder, and the Brown Thrashers the peanut feeder.

 

[Craig S]

I bought the Tamron lens on the 13th.
Here is a link to two photos I've taken with it, plan on getting more today.

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=2193912#post2193912

Had a Blue Jay attack a House Sparrow in the tree by our feeders last night, the sounds the House sparrow made were horrendous. When the two dropped to the ground I walked over and scared off the Blue Jay, the sparrow was pretty traumatized, just lay on the ground and allowed me to pick it up, which brought more distress cries.
The Blue Jay roosted near by, probably waiting to finish off the sparrow.
We put it in a plastic bin and kept it in the house for a few hours until it had seemed to have recovered.
We thought it might have been injured so we took it into the garage it perched on my finger for a few minutes before flying across the garage. Seemed OK so we opened the garage door and after some minor drama it flew off and joined its buddies in the bushes across the street.

 

[nikovich]

Hi to both of you. I'm in Saskatoon. You might want to take a look at my website and blog ?
If any of you are around we could hook up and do some birding. Lots of Christmas Bird Counts coming up too.
Nick
http://www.saskbirder.com/

 

[AlainaLee]

Im WAY south of you.. Near Estevan... checking out your blog though!]
havent seen many lately.. had 2 snowy owls hanging around for awhile last month, but they took off.. got my first redpolls (common methinks??) .. with 6-8 cats around the house at any given time, really cuts back the amount of birds we see

 

[AlainaLee]

well im at almost a year (basically may to about june... and again this march) i have counted approx 96 birds.. im hoping to get 100 by may...(and by counted, ive photographed)...