Bismarck, What's That Splashing In Your Birdbath?

These are some of our more popular backyard birds in North Dakota

I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say I'm going to get henpecked by the bird-watching community for this article. But before y'all get out the tar and feathers, just consider this is just a way of providing some really cool resources to help you identify birds in your backyard. (or all around the state). So, while my examples may not be precise- heck in some cases I'm sure they're downright bird-brained, consider it an attempt to interest people in our fine feathered friends.

These are some of our more popular backyard birds in North Dakota, but of course, there are ducks, geese, cranes, eagles, owls- you can take a peek at the most common birds in the city or countryside. Obviously, some birds like the Turdus Migratorious are more prevalent during certain seasons.

I would like to share a personal and terrifying tale of the Turdus.

My dog Titus (no relation to Turdus) and I would regularly go on long walks in the big park area just north of Mandan High School. There's a creek with some pretty heavy tree cover. I'd say it was January 2004, when Titus and I were walking along that creek and started to see purple spots in the snow. As we kept walking there were. more and more purple spots until the snow was almost completely stained purple.

The trees were teeming with Turdus Migratorious

Deep in the woods, we looked up and the trees were teeming with Turdus Migratorious- or robins. They were eating so many berries that those juices one way or another were dropping down to the snow. Now, robins are not a scary bird- except, when you stumble across a flock in January! Were they going to kill us so we wouldn't squeal? We just backed out real slow.