Lake Lanier in Georgia is a hotbed for Red Heads. By that, I mean the red-headed woodpeckers that seem to be everywhere. I think I saw a dozen at least – – full families of moms, dads, and kid red heads. It happened on Site 60 as I was doing bird observations from my picnic table at Camp Margaritaville. This is one type of woodpecker that has not been seen at the Johnson Funny Farm, so seeing these birds in rich abundance was a thrill!
As if that weren’t enough, I glanced over my shoulder to see a juvenile hawk scouting a tiny yellow bird for a morning treat. It saw my movement and flew off, granting the smaller prey a release from the threat of becoming a meal. Perhaps the smaller bird knew that the threat of the hawk was greater than the threat of the human – at least in the bird world.
I like to use Merlin and eBird together to count birds in an area. I have Merlin “listen” to find the bird calls and identify them, and then I use binoculars to find the birds whose calls are detected. I also notice many birds that are not picked up by sound, as in the case of the hunting hawk – and those are recorded as well, but only if I’m sure of the type of bird I’m seeing. Then, I record my counts in eBird for each observation. I usually listen for a half hour to an hour whenever I do a count.
Birdwatching
I wonder sometimes:
am I watching the birds, or
are they watching me?
Common Threads 
Mim,
That haiku is a little Hitchcockian, if you know what I mean! I envy your ability to see the birds. Birding, even w/ binoculars, is an activity I’ve always found difficult.?My vision is just too flat. I have the Merlin app but am not very good at using it,, but I do love looking up for birds and still have faith I’ll see one occasionally. I did see two birds jockeying over a piece of food (bread, a chip, perhaps) in the TJ Max parking lot a few days ago. They were entertaining.
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