Stokes Garden in Country Gardens Magazine

Our bird garden is featured in the summer issue of Country Gardens magazine, now on newsstands. Get your copy and learn all we share to help you attract birds.

Our 48 acre bird property in southern NH is named Bobolink Farm, here's a view from our deck.

We named our property after the Bobolinks who nest in our hayfields, which we do not cut until late summer so they can complete their breeding.

Everything is landscaped with an eye towards attracting birds. Here are the Prairie Fire crabapples in bloom. Their fruits attract Cedar Waxwings, robins, thrushes, bluebirds, vireos and more.

The article on our garden was produced by well-know garden writer, Tovah Martin and photographed by Rob Cardillo, one of the country's top garden photographers. Editor of Country Gardens, James Baggett also came on the shoot. We had lots of fun working with them all and the article is fabulous. It's titled "A Garden Takes Flight." Here Rob is standing on our deck to get an aerial view of our kitchen garden, and Don and James look on while Tovah is in the garden. There is a lot of work behind-the-scenes, including our getting the garden looking its best for the shoot. It rained for some of the time, but was misty at other times, so Rob was able to take photos.

Our kitchen garden has a hummingbird feeder hanging from the center planter. Pick veggies and enjoy the hummingbirds! We have many more tips for you to attract birds in the article.

We strive for good design and add plantings for the birds. I choose the plant material combinations, Don does much of the heavy work. 

A gazebo to the right has hummingbird feeders hanging from it, so we can enjoy them while sitting and overlooking this perennial border. A blue urn is a focal point.

We have many, many bird feeders, including offering unusual foods, like oranges for the Gray Catbirds.

 We have lots of bird houses and 15 breeding pairs of Tree Swallows, shown here, as well as Eastern Bluebirds. Enjoy the article!

Blackpoll Warbler, yes

Blackpoll Warbler, male, against a gray sky, on top of Cannon Mt. NH

Here's a side view

He was singing, and singing.

Went birding this weekend in northern NH and here are some photos of a Blackpoll Warbler that we found on top of Cannon Mt., NH. This is a cool warbler, that nests in spruce-fir forests and has a VERY high-pitched song, above some people's hearing range.
Gray sky, backlit, dense forest, very challenging conditions and I took these photos with my new Canon SX 40 point and shoot superzoom, with lens at full digital zoom as the bird was far away, hence not top quality photos, still.... I am still learning what this camera can do.

Blackburninan Warbler

Blackburnian Warbler                              

I love Blackburnian Warblers, they're one of my favorite warblers. What's your favorite warbler?

Northern Saw-whet Owl, baby!

I'm on the NH Audubon birdathon fundraiser today, doing a big sit category in our yard and just got this photo of a young Northern Saw-whet Owl in our owl nesting box, too cool!!!
Ok, back to the birdathon.

Bestseller, The Stokes Field Guide to Birds of North America, now in its third printing!

Bestseller!

The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America is now in it's third printing!!! Yippee!

Buy it here or from your local bookstore.

Morning Walk

This morning, weather dreary and it had been raining. Went with Don and the Corgis around our big field. Took the Canon SX 40 HS, just to see what it could do in the dim light. The Canada Geese have babies already.

Tree Swallow was resting and drying

Aren't they all cute! (Abby on the left, Phoebe on the right)

This is not that good an image, but I use it as an example of what the camera can do at full digital zoom (way beyond the 840 mm optical zoom) and a very difficult situation of a moving bird, dim light and obscured by foliage. ISO 400 1/125 f 8. For all of these images, I only sharpened them a bit, nothing else. I am continuously experimenting with this camera and trying different settings. One of the fun things is you can take scenics, close-ups and far zooms, all with one little lightweight camera with you.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak and warblers are migrating!

Beautiful, male, Rose-breasted Grosbeak at our feeder. Can't get enough of this bird. Attract them with sunflower seed and a feeder with a wide enough ledge or perch to accommodate their size. These birds (as well as many warblers, vireos, thrushes and more) are migrating through many places now. Photo taken with my new Canon SX 40 HS camera.

We've been birding every chance we get, since this is peak migration time for much of the middle and northern parts of the country. In the East, warblers are coming through big time. Get out and go birding, even in between raindrops, as many birds will stay grounded during rain. Check your own property, as well as known birding hotspots near you. Here are some of the beautiful warblers we have been seeing.

Blackburnian Warbler

Magnolia Warbler

Nashville Warbler

Chestnut-sided Warbler

This weekend we are participating in the NH Audubon Birdathon fundraiser, where participants try and see how many species they can see in a day. Hope the skies clear and there are lots of migrants. Wish us luck!

From Tanagers to Bluebirds

Summer Tanager

Eastern Bluebird

We migrated back from FL to NH, just like the birds are doing. Summer Tanagers were flooding into FL on migration. Eastern Bluebirds have a nest with eggs already, here in NH. These photos were taken with my new little Canon SX 40 HS camera, which I am still learning about and has a lot of potential. It's nowhere near as good at my Canon 1D Mark IV, but then it shouldn't be, given the price difference (about $400 for the SX 40 vs. about $5000 for the Mark IV). Bluebird photo taken at 800 ISO.

Fallout, Sanibel Lighthouse

Every birder dreams of fallout. Today dreams came true at Sanibel Lighthouse park where neotropical migrant birds were pouring in, in historic numbers. A big weather front came through the Gulf of Mexico, migrants came behind it, then got slammed with the strong NW winds which grounded them. The fallout went on all day and will likely continue tomorrow as there are still strong winds.

Here are some of the photos I took, giving a small taste of the amazing and colorful parade of birds. You could see many species just in one tree. Summer Tanagers, like this male, were everywhere.

14 warbler species, including this Magnolia Warbler zipped around.

Many Eastern Kingbirds flew in.

Scarlet Tanagers flocked in the trees.

The most abundant species was Indigo Bunting. There must have been hundreds of them. Everywhere you looked there were spots of blue.

Baltimore Orioles ate the fruits of the fig trees, as did many migrants.

Orchard Orioles filled the trees with the Baltimores.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks came in numbers.

This secretive Yellow-billed Cuckoo hid in a tree, delighting the many birders who were there.

Tennessee Warblers were in multiples.

This Black-and-white Warbler worked over a tree trunk.

HIdden in the underbrush, a Northern Waterthrush hung out by one of the water pools made by the rains.

Multiple Dickcissels were seen. We had Warblers, Kingbirds, Vireos, Tanagers, Orioles, Buntings, Grosbeaks, Thrushes, including Gray-cheeked and Wood Thrushes and a Veery. It was an amazing, amazing day, and it's still going on. Word has it that much of the west coast of Florida experienced this fallout today. Get out tomorrow.

Worm-eating Warbler in the bananas

Worm-eating Warbler

Worm-eating Warbler

Last evening this Worm-eating Warbler showed up in our Sanibel yard, cool! This is a less common migrant warbler here, so we are always excited to see one. This warbler breeds on wooded hillsides and ravines in the lower part of the East. It is known for foraging in dead leaves, and as we watched it in our yard, it worked its way through leafy tangles then went to our banana plants and foraged on the dead lower leaves, classic!!!

We also had a steady stream of migrant warblers moving through our yard at the end of the day including, 12 Prairie Warblers. a Black-and-white Warbler, 4 Palm Warblers and a Common Yellowthroat. 

(photos taken at 1600 ISO, from quite a distance, in dim light)

Baby Owls!

Great Horned Owls

Burrowing Owls

Baby owls are just amazing. We recently got to see both Great Horned Owl and Burrowing Owl young. In both cases, the young were getting old enough to leave their nests soon. You can see them literally stretching their wings.
Great Horned Owls live in trees and do not build a nest, but use the old nest made by another bird. In this case, the nest was made by an Osprey. Burrowing Owls dig a nest burrow in the ground.
We just loved watching the antics of these young owls.

Prothonotary Warbler beauty

This lovely Prothonotary Warbler came in to the Sanibel lighthouse on migration recently, and first stop was the Strangler Fig tree fruits to refuel. Gotta love that buttery yellow plumage. We just stood and enjoyed watching it feast.

By the way, it's pronounced "pro tho no tary" (not "tory").

These striking warblers nest in wooded swamps and actually nest in cavities. I remember canoeing with Don once in the Pine Barrens of NJ, seeing many Prothonotary Warblers along the route, glowing like flames against the dark wooded edges of the stream.

Kentucky Warbler, Hooded Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, oh my!

Life is good when you see the more southern breeding warblers coming into the Sanibel lighthouse on their migration. This morning we saw this Kentucky Warbler, male. Now that's a bird we don't see in New Hampshire where we're from.

Kentucky's like to skulk 

in the underbrush, so your'e lucky to get a good look, let alone photograph one in the dense vegetation at this location. What a cool bird!

This Yellow-throated Warbler had just crossed the Gulf of Mexico and landed in a tree next to us.

There are two subspecies of Yellow-throated warbler and here is how to tell them apart. dominica breeds from s.e. New Jersey to s. Florida; it has a yellow supraloral dash (just above the eyeline) and usually a yellow chin and throat (although the uppermost part of the chin may be white. The species pictured here is subspecies albilora; it is white above the lores and has a white chin and the white can extend slightly down the sides of the throat, as seen here. This subspecies breeds in the rest of the Yellow-throated Warbler range. 

Here's a close up view of white under and on the sides of the chin.

Such a dramatic coloring, with the bright yellow throat set off by the black.

This Hooded Warbler, male, was seen yesterday. 

You can see why it's called a Hooded Warbler. This is again a species that lays low in the understory. At the lighthouse, very few warblers sing or even call, unlike by the time they reach the mid and northern sections of the country, when they are singing. Hooded Warblers, however, can be located because they do give a call note, a metallic "chink."

These warblers breed mainly in the more southern to mid areas of the eastern part of the country. Look for them soon.