Winter is a great time to learn more about the birds in your own backyard by participating in Project FeederWatch. There’s still time to join! You can also follow the cam on Twitter and tweet @FeederWatchCam, where we’ll be posting feeder tips, screenshots, and observations from the Bird Cams team and the community of viewers.
After an incredible fall on the
West Texas Hummingbird Feeder Cam, activity is starting to wind down for the winter. Ten species were seen during this short season by viewers, often appearing in a bewildering array of immature and adult plumages to make identification a challenge. Together we learned the sometimes cryptic clues to puzzling out each species’ identity, and over 1500 of you hazarded guesses in our two Hummingbird ID Challenge contests (thanks to cam sponsor Perky-Pet® for the hummingbird feeder prizes). Hummingbirds weren’t the only ones visiting, either—
butterflies and
Acorn Woodpeckers made appearances on cam, too! Take a moment to
tell us which hummingbird species were your favorites, and you could win a Perky-Pet® hummingbird feeder of your own!
Cold winter weather will eventually lead to the hummingbirds heading downslope or further south by late November. The cam will go offline in late November; only three short months before we should start seeing the first Broad-tailed Hummingbirds of spring arriving. Thanks for a great season!
Savannah Owls on the Horizon
Last year’s surprise season with a pair of Great Horned Owls in Savannah, Georgia, captured the imagination of hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide. In their first year of nesting on cam they successfully fledged two owlets from an abandoned eagle nest near the top of a dying loblolly pine (watch highlights). No one knows whether the owls will return and nest this year, but our partners at Skidaway Audubon have reported seeing the adults courting and making alterations to the nest.
In hopeful anticipation of the owls’ nesting again, we have activated all of the camera equipment added and a second camera for a wide, fixed view of the nest from the west. The cams are streaming live, and it may still be a couple months before the owls begin nesting in earnest (last year’s pair laid their first egg on January 1). Tune in and you may be lucky enough to be greeted by hoots in the distance, or even a pair of wide eyes staring back at you! Watch cam.
The Ontario FeederWatch cam returns this year with a bang! New feeders (thanks to cam sponsor 
