H.J. Ruiz – Avian101

Put kidding aside, when people that read and see my photographs from my backyard write comments such as “how do you manage to get so many birds by you?” or “What’s your secret to get the variety of birds that visit your backyard?Of course I could mention some other comments alike those.

I wonder about that also, is it that I’m so “lucky”? or maybe I’m doing something right and I just don’t know what!

I have the feeling that it has to do mainly with the terrain and topographic set up.

When I bought my house in Georgia, I picked the location of my house to be close to a 250 years old oak tree which is about 100 yards from my house, this beautiful tree sits next to a small creek that runs across my backyard, I can not see the stream because it’s bordered by lines of pine trees and all kinds of plants and bushes. This environment makes the perfect habitat for any kind of birds. My belief is also that most birds in this case follow the creek as guide or stop over when they do local migration or distant migration.

Thus, when I added feeders with variety of seeds, birds learn where to stop for food.

I want you to know that I see birds that I have never photographed but for not having my camera ready or any other reason I miss them and I keep hoping that they’ll come back so I can add them to my list of birds.

This small creek serves as a safe corridor for avians and I just happen to be located next to it! Yes, I’m lucky!

By the way I had a little visitor a couple of days ago, you know him, it’s the Brown-headed Nuthatch!

Text and photographs © H.J. Ruiz – Avian 101