The five most common birds I’m seeing outside my window halfway up the coast of Maine are (most frequently sighted first):
1. Chickadees
2. Goldfinches
3. Nuthatches
4. Crows
5. Woodpeckers
Where you live, what are the five most common birds you see outside your window?
i’m no birder (wish i had the time) but out here in Amish country PA there are huge clouds of black (i’m guessing) sparrows that jump from fields to trees to doing gigantic complex aerial ballet unbidden by any verbal command (it’s the “hive” instinct or mechanism at work i’m told).
i nearly drove off the road in fascination first time i saw it. Just spellbinding.
I’m with Kimmijo — sounds like starlings. I have memories from time living in New York and Ohio of those birds flocking in unbelievably cool patterns by the thousand… usually in the space between a plowed field and some trees. Hitchcock must have seen starlings.
Tom, those are starlings. Truly amazing cloud formations.
Here in Ann Arbor I have
1. juncos
2. chickadees
3. house sparrows
4. cardinals
5. crows
Okay, starlings it is then. We have a stable population of red tailed hawk, two big owls nesting somewhere in the woods behind my house, loads of geese flying overhead these days, cardinals at the bird feeders (and blue jays?), and an occasional woodpecker.
Thanks for the tip on the birds’ identity, Kimmijo.
Here in OH:
Flocks of starlings
Canadian geese that stay all winter
Robins that stay all winter
Sparrows
Turkey vultures
Starlings are absent where I live, which is strange, given that the birds were seen in huge flocks when I was a child growing up just 100 miles from where I live now. It’s also peculiar that I’m not seeing any sparrows.
I see most often:
Crows
Chickadees
Juncos
Tufted Titmice
Cardinals