Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for April 08, 2013

Mr Johnson has been spying on me and the wife!! My wife thinks we should have all manner of birds in the backyard here in the big city. Reality is, only the most common and dull birds inhabit our fair city. Yep, we got those little brown birds too!

Saw one of those red-headed Pileated woodpeckers in my yard just last week! Much larger than any woodpecker I had ever seen!

Sunflower seeds……Brings in all kinds of birds…..Normal “Wildbird Seed” is crap……Seriously, sunflower seeds….all you need…..(My cat’s call it bird bait…)

Once when I was young, my brother and I startled a Golden eagle away from a kill. Let me tell you it was something to see that thing take off from the ground not 15 feet away from you.

LBJs abound in a birder’s world . . .

LBBs for the win!

A friend gave us our Bird Watcher’s Guide two decades ago after I pointed out the “Spardinals” that had started visiting our new feeders. Grinning, he turned to the page that identified the sparrow looking birds with their varying coverage of red on backs and heads as Purple Finches.No purple anywhere. Sparrows with a splash of cardinal red.We still call them Spardinals. Its more fun.Happy Spring, Neighbors.Respectfully,C.

Arlo needs to update his bird book. Little brown bird??? LOL

Yes Varnes our cat is always telling me to fill the bird trap.

We have some hummingbirds around here, love watching them!

Yeah, it’s just about time to put the “hummer” feeder out here in Michigan. Love watching them. Very aggressive. Am building a waterfall this summer. Hope to attract more of them.

I thought I saw a red headed double breasted mattress thrasher the other day.

I agree with the sunflower seed post — it attracts some more colorful birds. Our cardinals seem to love it.

The dailies have been in color lately… until today!

I believe the technical term used by serious birders is ‘LBJs’—little brown jobs.

We have a bunch of black fatbirds

This is the start of a 2010 Arlo and Janis rerun week.

A Mockingbird sings in a tree outside my window in the middle of the night.

The comic looks as much like one of these as a bird:That links to a much bigger version.And of course if you look at the file name, that bug was named that way because it looks and acts like a hummingbird. Picture taken in my yard last summer.

Yes- where is their color???

No they’re not, they’re little black and white birds!

Respectful Troll: Roger Tory Peterson had the best description of a purple finch: “a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice”.

Forget those cheap bags of mixed seed. Much of it is filler, which will be wasted, and trash your yard. Buying the “more expensive” bags of individual seed types can actually be cheaper in the long run.

Don’t buy seed with millet in it: it’s the favorite food of non-native house sparrows and during nesting season they are thugs who put beaks through brains and murder every nesting songbird and egg in the vicinity, decimating the other species. If you have a birdhouse and house sparrows move in, clear them out.

Hard to tell they’re brown birds considering everything is in black and white.

I live in the desert with all kinds of critters and varments. If you put out a bird feeder the birds spill seeds. Spilled seeds attract pack rats. Pack rats attract snakes including rattlers. Rattlers bite and cause extreme pain and possible death if not treated quickly. Thus for the safety of my family including pets, no bird feeder. However, we do have a bird bath which does the trick of attracting all kinds of birds, esp during migration time.

I thought they were LBJ – Little Brown Jobs – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_brown_job

Using a mix of black oil sunflower seeds, an inexpensive no melt suet, and thistle I get spardinals(purple finches), house wrens, north carolina warblers, chickadees, blue jays, grackles, tufted titmouse, cardinals, gold finches, downy woodpeckers, nuthatches,catbirds, and more. On the ground we get doves, rufus sided tohes, mockingbirds, robins, and cowbirds. Hummingbirds like the feeders near the bushes. The squirrels can’t get past the baffle on my feeder pole but I’m often tempted to buy one of those spinner feeders to put somewhere they can get to it. I hear they learn to leave it alone after a few throws.^Sadly, we also get starlings. I understand starlings were a gift from the Shakespeare society of Boston who felt all birds mentioned in the Bard’s works should be made native to the colonies.I’m glad Shakespeare didn’t write about the Marabou Stork.Glad you folks like Spardinals. Maybe with a little effort, we can get the purple finch renamed to either Spardinal or Raspberry dipped Sparrow. Nice one Hippogriff. :)Respectfully,C.

Originally published 4/5/10, but then it was colorized.

My guess is the “little brown birds” are pine siskins. They are fairly common here in the south — I have seen dozens of them this winter at my feeder, and maybe Janis is too.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/pine_siskin/lifehistory