What is Front Yard Birder?

April of 2020, as I settled in for the "quarentimes" or however we refer to this time with the spread of the Covid 19 virus and social distancing, I decided to hang several bird feeders I have had in my garage for a while. Two of the bird feeders were from my grandfather- he was not using them anymore.

This one has seen better days, but the birds and I have been managing with some duct tape repairs since one of the perches went missing. I blame a squirrel, but it may have been the wind...

The other one was a lovely wooden cardinal-looking bird feeder which my parents got me for my birthday a couple years ago (or it may have been for the winter holidays? With a December birthday, the presents can run together).

I had a bag of sunflower seeds I'd been saving for the  feeder (the kind marketed for birds- no picture of that), and picked up a bag of wild bird food from a hardware store.

I also had a lovely wooden birdhouse that I was given the same year as the cardinal bird feeder

I hung all of these up in my front yard- one bird feeder on a post on the front porch, and the others in the large tree in our front yard (I believe it is a maple tree). 

I put the sunflower seeds in the cardinal shaped feeder (because of its design it can really only hold large sized seeds and bird food) and the wild bird food in the other two.

Almost immediately I started seeing birds and squirrels at the feeders, and even occasionally saw birds investigating the bird house. I started trying to identify the birds, and took out the Nikon camera I got when I took a photography class 10 years ago. I am far from an expert photographer, and the camera is not the fanciest, but for the past few weeks I have been photographing the animals through my front window (and occasionally in the backyard when I am there, though there are currently no feeders there). 

My plan for this blog is to post the pictures of birds (and occasionally other species) I have identified, or birds I need help identifying, and try to catalog the species I see. I will also post pictures that I think are pretty, interesting, or otherwise worth sharing. 

Thanks!