Bird Watching!

We must have been working in a migrating corridor today.
Had some hundred Barnacle Geese passing on their way to Svalbard ( I know that, because the Greenland corridor is further to the west)
6 Honey Buzzards on the way to Sweden and an Eagle on the way to god only knows.
 
We have been enjoying more than the average number of Western Tanager sightings this summer. I'm especially glad of it, since it seems that for the last several years they have only been declining in numbers. They are a particularly beautiful songbird.

 
The name "tanager" is familiar to me, but I don't know from where. I'm wondering if I saw one of the varieties around here and looked them up. I might have to dig around, and see if I could expect to find one out this way. A quick look on wikipedia says they're mainly tropical birds, but that doesn't mean they all are.
 
All my trees have woodpeckers. That's a good thing, right? :^D

I was watching a couple pileated woodpeckers in my pine spar. Super cool birds, and they can really move some bark/wood. Pic didn't turn out great cause it's on max zoom, but it's what I've got...

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A bunch of years ago I was at a friend's house, and next door there was a woodpecker drumming on a piece of aluminum on the barn. Holy hell that was loud :^D
 
That one at my friend's place is the only time I've seen one mess with a structure. I only see them in trees.
 
Years ago I had a timber framing project that I was working on in an open-sided pole barn near a pond out in a huge corn field. Periodically a pileated should strafe the edge of the pond alongside the pole barn making their usual racket. It was just like getting machine gunned by a warplane. I don't know if the bird had a nest nearby, or had just watched too many old war movies.
 
We just got back from a camping trip at a nearby state park. I had hoped to see some eagle at the lake, but didn’t. As it turned out, after we got home, when our middle daughter left our house headed home, she spotted a pair of bald eagles in a hayfield a half mile from our house. So we rode up there in the car to see them. The adult flew up into a pine about 200 yards away, while the juvenile circled above us. Beautiful and majestic birds they are.
 
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