@jo 

I put out oriole nectar with orange halves. Hummingbirds will also drink oriole nectar, although orioles prefer it along with oranges.  I usually get at least one pair of orioles a year.  The male is orange and back and the female has some yellow and white feathers.

It's interesting, Narnian78, the only thing our orioles enjoy is the grape jelly. I have tried orange slices, but they don't touch them. I find this odd, but each birdie to his own, I guess.  

I heard a wood thrush two days ago in a small wetland preserve close to the town in which I live. June 14 is near the end of the spring migration period so it is rather unusual to hear this bird so close to town. By this time these woodland birds have mostly reached their forested habitat.  They will not usually nest near cities unless there is an enough unfragmented woodland. I’m glad I heard the bird singing before it left the area for better habitat. Birds have been tracked and banded at various locations, and some of the destinations are very unusual.

This is a wonderful episode of Nature about shorebirds.  I hope PBS and Nature can continue to exist.  I have always loved the Nature series.

https://youtu.be/aywVS2njnVE?si=gSz5fVIpzCQ_5rb5

This is an interesting video about birdwatching which I found on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/z7xwv3twYDI?si=kl_QHu6Kx2ewmcZn

I would recommend the hobby as a relief from stress.   The only thing it requires is patience.  If you’re not overly fussy it does not require learning every species, and you can invest as much time in doing it as you like.  It may be the best hobby for your mental health that was ever created.  🙂

I had one of these birds at my feeder recently.  I consider these nuthatches to be autumn birds and they are very much in season.  They are on one of my decorative plates and I also have a mug featuring them. 

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-breasted_Nuthatch/id

A friend and I had an interesting bird-related experience this past weekend. Around midnight we stepped outside to look at the sky but apparently disturbed a pair of owls in the large maple tree near our observing spot. One flew off with a loud ruffle of feathers while another left a gift of droppings in the driveway before also departing. It was hard to be sure in the dark, but they were probably great horned owls.

The American goldfinch is quite common at our bird feeders in the summer:

https://youtu.be/yDjDdpRZFc0?si=fkb11bOtaHUkLMfL

I feed them nyger thistle and sunflower seeds, and they frequent my bird feeders mainly during the summer. They have yellow and black feathers during that time, but they revert back to olive green in the fall and winter. I was wondering if the people here have this beautiful bird in their backyards and gardens. Or do you have a similar bird in your area?  🙂

Some of the bird songs of early spring here in North America with tips for identification. I think they are fine examples.  The video is quite helpful in that it shows the birds while singing their songs.  🙂

https://youtu.be/CbJgJb12o4w?si=DMQ_a__OvZonfGKM

I just had a marvellous time today on a boat cruise to the Farne Islands, just off the coast of Northumberland in north-east England, with an hour to wander on the largest island, Inner Farne. The islands are a wildlife sanctuary owned by the National Trust, and tens of thousands of seabirds make their nests there at this time of the year. I saw several "firsts" for me: guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, and my new favourites, the almost impossibly cute puffins.   Also eider ducks, said to have been particularly loved by the monk St Cuthbert, who lived as a hermit on the islands in the mid-late 600s AD. Eiders are a seagoing species with especially warm feathers, which is where we get the term "eiderdown" for a feather-filled quilt.

And even though this is a birdwatching thread, I shouldn't leave out that while on the boat, we also got a great view of the colony of grey seals on one of the other islands — hundreds of them just lounging around on the cliffs, apparently quite enjoying themselves, and some of them looking as curiously at the boatload of gawking humans as the said humans were looking at them!

@courtenay 

We have puffins here in the U. S., but they are found on the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific and not on Great Lakes.  As for ducks we have them here in Michigan including the beautiful wood duck, but we do not have kittiwakes.  So the ocean coast’s wildlife is not exactly the same as on the Great Lakes, and Michigan has many water birds. But the freshwater wildlife is so different from the salt waters of the ocean. 🙂

@narnian78 We don't have puffins or guillemots or razorbills or kittiwakes or eider ducks in Australia, either, so they're all completely new to me! I've lived in the UK for over 14 years now, but not near the coast, and this was the first time I've been out in a boat at seabird nesting time.