Over the past couple of years I've been keeping track of the birds I see in or from my yard while I sit and smoke, or am putzing around. I've got one of those small green Audubon bird ID books you're all probably familiar with, and keep a list of the birds I've seen on the inside cover and fly pages. Being that I live in a community of duplexes, my yard is rather small. But it abuts a slough, which in turn is connected to Lake Minnetonka, so we get plenty of visitors. My "rule" is that I have to be in my yard when I see the bird. Fly-overs are OK as long as I can get a good ID of the bird.

Yesterday I saw my 40th bird specie, a Common Redpoll. I know I've seen more than 40 bird species, but this is the number I feel that I have ID'd properly. Ducks are tough for me to ID, and there are a couple of swifts & flycatchers I'm still trying to sort out. Probably others too.

My favorites are the Pileated Woodpeckers, and the occasional Wood Duck and Bluebird. The most memorable may be the Cooper Hawk I saw take a female Cardinal off of the birdfeeder and eat it in the backyard. Sort of gruesome.

I wouldn't have really considered myself a "bird watcher," but I guess once you write them down and make a list, you qualify.

Here's a winter picture of my back yard from the living room window. It's about 30 feet from my back door to the wood pile on the lower left.

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Very cool. My grandfather was a bird watcher, so I inherited a little bit of an affection for birds and other wildlife. I like to sit behind my condo and watch the birds too, mostly cardinals (seem to be a lot of them lately), robins, gold and purple finches, chickadees, canadian geese and mallards. Also see deer, an occasional fox and various other small game. Something to be said about relaxing with a cigar and watching nature. :-)
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