What’s your favorite bird? Mine’s blue.

By GREG PECK ( Contact )   Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 11:58 a.m.

I spent many days in my youth watching birds flit around my grandmother’s flowers and bird bath. They included robins, blue jays, hummingbirds, and even the occasional cardinal and Baltimore oriole.

I love many of these birds and during summers enjoy spending time on our deck as hummers buzz our feeder and zip past my head. I appreciate the many cardinals in Janesville. I call back to mourning doves sitting on wires above our house. I love hearing the primitive honk of sandhill cranes and would hate to see the state enact a hunting season on them. I relish chances to see bald eagles on trips to Canada and when visiting my parents in Minocqua. My parents also get big pileated woodpeckers at their feeders. I remember well the days of barn swallows racing past my head in my uncle’s dairy barn.

I also grew up singing that old song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” which includes the line, “Mister bluebird’s on my shoulder.”

Give me a bluebird any day. Maybe it has something to do with the description that it’s almost as if the bluebird is “carrying the sky on its back,” as Anna Marie Lux explains in her column in today’s Gazette.

Wisconsinites helped nurture a record number of young eastern bluebirds in nesting boxes in 2010. I like to think I played a small role with a couple of boxes at our Wisconsin River property near Muscoda. The numbers of young birds, however, fell drastically in 2011 because of a late spring and massive outbreak of black flies.

In her column, Lux interviews Kent Hall. He’s vice president of the Bluebird Restoration Association of Wisconsin. Hall will offer a free public program, “Learning to Think Like a Bluebird,” from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15, at First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, 54 S. Jackson St., Janesville. Hosted by the Green-Rock Audubon Society, it sounds like a program worth attending.

So what’s your favorite bird? Do you put out feeders or nesting boxes to encourage them?

Greg Peck can be reached at (608) 755-8278 or gpeck@gazettextra.com. Or follow him on Twitter or Facebook

reader COMMENTS
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(27)
kangaroojack
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:21 p.m.
Suggest removal

red tail hawks

Olderandornerier
Feb 10, 2012 at 2:55 p.m.
Suggest removal

Owls

frogger
Feb 10, 2012 at 8:30 a.m.
Suggest removal

I thought somebody would mention the one in your hand by now ! )

frogger
Feb 10, 2012 at 8:30 a.m.
Suggest removal

wax wing I think is the other one similiar to titmouse

dvonfalkenstein
Feb 10, 2012 at 8:26 a.m.
Suggest removal

Everybody knows that the bird is the word.

jocose
Feb 10, 2012 at 7:38 a.m.
Suggest removal

Big.

janesvillecomments
Feb 9, 2012 at 10:45 p.m.
Suggest removal

Foghorn Leghorn!

"Son, ah say lookie here son! See that man standin' up to his tailfeathers in snow tryin' to feed the hummingbirds? Looks like he's a few kernels short of a full cob."

frogger
Feb 9, 2012 at 6:52 p.m.
Suggest removal

"Tufted Titmouse"
is this the one that looks like cardinal except gray and yellowish. There is another that looks like this cannot remember the name. They look very sililiar to me. One seems to have a black mask.

JohnWicket
Feb 9, 2012 at 5:54 p.m.
Suggest removal

I enjoy seeing Eastern Phoebes,Chipping Sparrows,Purple Finches, and an occasional Tufted Titmouse in my back yard. But most of all, I enjoy watching hummingbirds hiding/resting on branches of a nearby peach tree. One day last fall I had as many as 12 different hummingbirds around the house. Aren't all birds living decorations to our environments?

Duckcarver
Feb 9, 2012 at 5:46 p.m.
Suggest removal

Although it is considered waterfowl, mine is the canvasback drake.

ImJustSayin
Feb 9, 2012 at 5:09 p.m.
Suggest removal

Sigma40 - I thought you were going to say something like "My favorite one is a BLU-82".
Close, but I get no cigar today.
That only counts in horse shoes...

theone
Feb 9, 2012 at 4:35 p.m.
Suggest removal

Wild turkey, hummers, and swallows.

dugway12to85
Feb 9, 2012 at 4:35 p.m.
Suggest removal

I like the one's I only get to see a few times a year. the Scarlet Tanager and the Pileated Woodpecker and Indigo Bunting witch there feathers are really black not blue

Runner78
Feb 9, 2012 at 3:23 p.m.
Suggest removal

Any bird except the blackbirds that dive bombed me while running on the trail last spring/summer.

BooRadley
Feb 9, 2012 at 2:54 p.m.
Suggest removal

I love cardinals, bluebirds, and little purple and yellow finches.

Purrmaid
Feb 9, 2012 at 2:50 p.m.
Suggest removal

A male ring-necked pheasant. Am always amazed at the beautiful autumn coloring and multitude of patterns on their feathers. They also have the cutest strut when they kick up snow.

snirt
Feb 9, 2012 at 2:44 p.m.
Suggest removal

I grew up watching Robins and hoping to see a Cardinal or Oriole. My Grandmother always pointed out Bob Whites. Today the Western Meadowlark is a favorite. That probably partly due to my geography.

saxcat70
Feb 9, 2012 at 1:59 p.m.
Suggest removal

ooooh woodpeckers. I'll sit outside my camper in the summer and here those little buggers. drives me crazy. not the sound, but the fact that I can always hear them, but have trouble finding them.

IndyColtFan
Feb 9, 2012 at 1:50 p.m.
Suggest removal

Yes I have a feeder right outside my window in the winter. It is 18 inches from the glass. My favorite is the red bellied woodpecker as it is the prettiest bird I`ve ever seen. Also see black capped chickadees, white breasted nuthatchers, bluejays, juncos, purple & gold finches, 4 cardinals, and downey woodpeckers daily. I see turkeys once in awhile, but only once did I see a pileated woodpecker which was spectacular. In the summer come the occasional orioles, bluebirds, cranes, and more often the hummers. Birdwatching is my winter hobby.

frogger
Feb 9, 2012 at 12:56 p.m.
Suggest removal

No need to go to Canada to see Bald eagles. Go to Riverside Park.
I love the look of Cardinal in the winter.
I like the bright yellow finches.
I don't think I have ever seen a blue bird.
Blue Jay pretty.
I get to see a woodpecker once in a while.

wibirdhunter
Feb 9, 2012 at 12:41 p.m.
Suggest removal

The wild turkey,grouse,woodcock and pheasants all rank high on my list.

JCK
Feb 9, 2012 at 12:40 p.m.
Suggest removal

I enjoy feeding the birds though I can't say as I have a favorite. I get six or seven different species though if I could distinquish the different sparrows it would probably be more. I even get an occassional wild turkey. Bluebirds are cool and I've got three nesting boxes on my property. I feed them as well. My mother has a friend who has trained a pair to eat out of her hand. I tried to do that but didn't have the patience.

ChsMkr
Feb 9, 2012 at 12:37 p.m.
Suggest removal

Northwoods duck-Tasty!

saxcat70
Feb 9, 2012 at 12:23 p.m.
Suggest removal

don't have a favorite bird, but Steve Miller does a great rendition of "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah"!

Sigma40
Feb 9, 2012 at 12:04 p.m.
Suggest removal

My favorite one is a Firebird, a blue one also.

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