Bird Feeder News August 6, 2014

     Over the last two days, I've had pine siskin and red crossbill visit the feeders. The pine siskin is a spunky fella with a hoarse voice. I spotted something small and brownish. First general impression was of finch-like behavior, a bit more nervous and shy than the usual drop-in at the feeders. Once he opened his mouth, I knew. It was that raspy "zipper" call that gave him away. He called while feeding and flitting back and forth between his chosen feeder and the middle branches of the tree. 

     His buddy the red crossbill was a bit less nervous, having already been to the feeders. The crossbill ate quietly, picking the seeds out and not having to fly into the tree to crack the seeds open. I suspect it was the chickadees who led them to the backyard. 

     Within walking distance are fields, woods, a couple of parks, a creek, and some wetlands. That siskins and crossbills would live nearby was not a surprise. I wasn't expecting them to show up. Both are irruptive. With the surrounding environs, they didn't have to travel very far. I didn't recognize any females although they could have been present. 

     One female hairy woodpecker came briefly to the feeder the other day. She was very pretty-- if such as adjective is not out of place in describing a wild bird-- and stayed for only a minute before flying away.

     The red-bellied woodpecker has become a regular. I've spied it between two and four times a day eating from the sunflower kernel feeder. These three visitors have caused me to wonder what is going on in the woods. Either the food supplies there are not what they usually are [summer has been rainy and late this year] or perhaps the presence of two aggressive dogs living near the woods have forced them to look for food in places where the pooches are not able to go. [Our yard is fenced in]. The presence of our aging dog-- who does not chase birds, only squirrels-- did not seem to bother these three visitors.

     Over the last couple of summers, there has been a gradual increase in our population of red squirrels and younger red x gray squirrel crosses. [Reports are that they can and do interbreed]. The tails of the reds are less bushy than those of the grays. The reds are also bolder, daring to use the deck railings as a pathway to one of the trees. Staring at them gets them to turn around. I really do not want any squirrels so close to me that I can touch them. They are wild and deserve to stay that way.

     I haven't seen the crow that was buzzing me but the male red-wing blackbird continues to hang with some of the local grackles. He flies in with a bunch of them. The grackles mostly concentrate on the corn while the red-wing eats from the sunflower kernels and the suet. The grackles will sample other things as well, but the corn mixture [which includes pumpkin seeds and peanuts] seems to be their favorite. I've watched quite a few grackles hop down from the platform feeders with corn kernels in their bills. They are confident birds. When the sun is out, their bluish-black feathers shine. I now have an underfeather-- a very small one about the size of a pinky nail-- which also glistens a pretty bluish color in the sun.

     The cast of regulars continue to show up: chickadees, nuthatches, mourning doves, a pair of purple finches, some house finches, tons of goldfinches [who are now eating the safflower seeds again along with the sunflower kernels], and of course the grackles. Swallows continue to fly overhead. Starlings have been absent from the yard. Perhaps the grackles discourage them, I don't know.

     I've been studying the way that some of the birds land and how the ones that land in a tree get down to the feeders or the ground. I've also been noting who is wary of who and which bird species appear to be buddies. This is something that has been impossible for me to figure in the woods. I suspect this could be spotted in the nearby parks as well. Truthfully, I prefer the woods and the fields to more civilized places but dog and I do go to the parks sometimes.

     Dog likes to sniff out frogs near and in the creek. [We have our own captive-bred frogs in tanks at home]. She snuffles through the bolt holes in the winter and hunts frogs at her feet while standing in the creek. She doesn't chase them ever but seems to enjoy watching them swim around. A well-behaved and trained dog is a pleasure. Taking the time to teach a dog how to behave is its own reward for both human and dog. This one has not been a deterrent to birding at all. She is not allowed to chase or harass any of the animals around us. [And yes, I pick up her poop!].

          ~sapphoq and friends

Bird Feeder News: July 12, 2014

Chickadees and grackles continue to predominate at the feeders, along with the same three blue jays, a pair of mourning doves, a pair of cardinals and a single younger male cardinal, grackles and the one red-winged blackbird who continues to hang with a few of those grackles, and a few nuthatches.

     I can identify which of the three blue jays are visiting based on their facial markings, although they do tend to fly in as a loose trio most often. The one with the most gray about his face and neck drank from one of the water pans that is hidden by some wildflowers this evening. I was surprised by this as the blue jays will feed out in the open at the feeders closest to the back porch. None of the trio have presented as shy or hesitant. There are several water dishes available and I just would not have figured on him using that particular one.

     A crow came to visit me twice this week, much to my astonishment. I must have passed muster both times. The crow studied me from a perch on the nearby cherry tree and then flew off at a leisurely pace.

     The five or six house sparrows [a.k.a. English sparrows] who hang out in one of the smaller pine trees also stop in to feed along with a few goldfinches, house finches, and purple finches. Folks tend not to care for the house sparrows much but they don't bother me.

     I like the grackles too. They seem to be intelligent to me. I suspect that they hang with particular other grackles [and the one male red-winged blackbird] but that is only a guess. I do not have the means or knowledge to verify or to disprove that notion. One grackle delighted me last night by plowing into the water of the shallow dish on the ground and then taking a "bath." He used his beak to throw water on his back several times. He shook himself off and then flew to a branch to preen himself. The grackles seem to favor the shallow water dish on the ground for drinking but that was the first grackle bath that I was privileged to watch.

     Tonight something landed in an upper section of the tall oak and remained stationary for a good five minutes. I followed him as he flew down to the cherry tree and then crouched on a branch walking until he reached the long feeder and the sunflower kernels. He perched there with no difficulty and ate. I heard him use a soft call. He flew back up to the oak tree, drummed for a short bit, and then took off in a south-easterly direction. It was, no doubt, a male red-bellied woodpecker. The bird books say they will visit a feeder in winter. I have not found a reference to them visiting a feeder in the summer. But this one did.

     He may have ventured out from the woods. Or he may have been knocked about by one of the almost nightly storms we have been having. I did not see a mate or any other red-bellies around the area. Admittedly one could have flown to the oak and hid there. [Or not]. I was thrilled to see the male red-bellied in my backyard. The absence of a female did not detract from my happiness.

     Notably missing from my backyard this week/this summer have been starlings and swallows, flickers, and both white throats and white caps [sparrows]. The fox and the song [sparrows] that I saw last month have also not returned. The starlings, swallows, and flickers are all in abundance in the neighborhood. No starlings in my backyard I find to be curious. They certainly hung out here last year. I don't know what changed. Perhaps the boisterous grackles prevent the starlings from wanting to re-acquaint themselves with my backyard this year. The starlings are in the neighbors' yards though. I'm not complaining. Just saying is all.

     Swallows have never hung in the yard here and I've seen one of the neighborhood flickers in my yard only once ever since I've been here. That the other sparrows have not been around this July perhaps is related to breeding or weather conditions or something else. I think the sparrows are declining in numbers here in general but I am not for sure on that. We certainly have had a wet summer with lots of thunderstorms and high winds-- and some hail ranging in size from peas to meatballs. The summer has been so wet in fact that I haven't had to water the gardens at all, and have only had to water the plants in pots outdoors twice.

     The storms alternating with intense heat have been remarkable, not necessarily in a happy happy way. Perhaps some of the birds are also dismayed with the weather, who knows? Just because they don't use words does not mean that they can't notice weather patterns, identify other individual bird "friends and foes," and think. 

     Human beings have made assumptions that those other animals without words don't have well-developed cognitive processes. Me, I've watched birds as well as the resident squirrels and chipmunks [yes I can identify a few of those individually too] use the environment as tools to solve simple problems. Countless chickadees have used the blunt end of a forsythia bush to pry black sunflower seeds from their shells. A few have also used a rock for the same purpose. The squirrels are skilled acrobats who easily defeat any sort of "defense against the squirrels" bird feeders and baffles. The chipmunks have taken to storing corn kernels in the one compost bin which features a chipmunk-size hole. I can't leave out the one male red-winged blackbird who hangs out with some grackles daily in my backyard. He flies in with them and leaves with them. From these events I've witnessed informal evidence of what may be the deliberate usage of tools, solving problems, and identifying which grackles are in an odd group of peers.

     The birds and chipmunks and squirrels-- and indeed my own dog, cats, and frogs-- are much better at being birds and chipmunks and squirrels [and dogs, cats, frogs] than I ever could be. I don't have the same set of skills that any of them do. My dog can smell every individual blade of grass in an area where she is roaming [with my direct supervision and under voice control always]. I can't do that. Even when leaving out stuff that is accounted for by instinct, there is other stuff they do that give me the idea that thinking is involved. We humans don't have the monopoly on intelligent behavior. To proclaim that we do ignores the observations of well-respected naturalists like Bernd Heinrich. 

     sapphoq n friends

     

     

May 20, 2014 at the Bird Feeder

     There are now two families of house sparrows in residence-- one family in a small pine tree and the other near the top of a large oak. I've seen the chippy [chipping sparrow] over the past two weeks and yes, we still have a male red-wing blackbird who thinks he is a grackle. Hopefully he will figure it out before too long. 

     The mourning doves are nesting, goldfinches still all over the backyard tree, and the usual chickadees/ nuthatches/ juncos remain in force. We had two surprise visitors this afternoon. 

     I heard the "me-ow" before I saw him; a male [I think a male although there is no way of telling without instruments of torture] gray catbird. He was finely mustached and flitting about the tree cautiously. Ignoring the bird feeders as befitting his species, he issued several plaintive cries and then landed on the hook supporting one of the hummingbird feeders. He drank sugar-water from the reservoir [astonishing!] but rejected all of the other water available for drinking in the yard. He flew back into the leaves when his mate flew in. I could see his rusty coloration under his tail feathers. His mate did not come out of the thicket of leaves. The male attempted to drink from another hummingbird feeder and then both flew off. The couple came back twice after that and inspected various branches of the tree.

     The tree is some sort of sour cherry-- not the edible to humans kind-- which the birds seem to fancy. We also have a garlic patch and several other planted areas. One end holds the wildflowers and red bee balm and a bush whose name I've forgotten for the moment. The other end features lilacs, a few random tulips, ferns, several kinds of berries, and a spice bush. The gray cat birds must have found the plantings to be satisfactory else they never would have ventured into the tree. 

     The bees are out full force. My hovers are indeed back and so are the wasps and yellow jackets and a few honey bees. We don't subscribe to any sort of treatment for the grass. It grows as it will and when we mow it all down, it looks fairly green. The "grass" no longer qualifies as a common lawn. We have wild violets and other things intermingled with it. We don't use chemicals or even fertilizer. The grass and plantings all grow or not and that is the way of it. The humans have allergies and the dog is old and I like my grass to be varied and free from the foul crap that our neighbors pay to have sprayed on their more typical lawns. 

     In the neighborhood, folks tend to leave their little yellow placards up for several twenty-four hours in hopes I suspect of keeping dogs from pooping on their lawns. The chemical stuff smells nasty. I feel like gagging when I come across fresh applications on our walks. The crap in the chemical spray used binds with the proteins that are naturally present in the pads of dogs. Yes, a dog can die from that.

     Living in the modern world, all of us are to some degree or another "at war" with nature. Nature does not give a rat's ass for the likes of us. The wild things which to overgrow the artificial boundaries that we have set and reclaim what was theirs long before we ever got here. While walking tonight along the edge of a field that has an unruly collection of trees and bushes and scrub, I noted two eyes reflecting the light from my LED-hat back to me. The animal was crouched at the bottom of a tree. I figured it for a mouse or rodent of some sort [or a small kitten???]. I also figured that the animal did not want to meet the dog and I. So we kept going.

sapphoq n friends.

Bird Feeder News

     Of late, the bird feeders have hosted juncos, black-capped chickadees, tufted titmouse, nuthatches-- one took a clump of dog hair from a pile to the nesting site, grackles, one crazed adolescent red wing blackbird, three blue jays, a yearling pair of cardinals, and the mourning doves that multiply in the yard from year to year. Several years ago, we hosted three mourning doves regularly-- a couple plus a younger female. Last year we had eight. Now we have about twenty of them. I've seen one chippy [a chipping sparrow] and one fox [sparrow] and several house sparrows. There is a stray starling but so far he hasn't invited any of his buddies along. If you are mourning a lack of goldfinches, they are all in our tree along with a pair of house finches [red finches]. We have a ton of goldfinches right now.  

     I was thrilled last year when a pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks stopped by to eat from the feeder. Also cool and unexpected was the presence of a male goshawk who perched on an old fence post. He flew like a blue streak when he left. One night several years ago I happened upon a barred owl clutching a mouse. I think he was as startled to see me as I was to see him.

     Today a pair of white crown sparrows happened by. (We have a regular crop of white throats [sparrows] who prefer the brush in the side yard but I haven't seen them lately). Seeing the white crowns was quite a treat. Both attacked the leaf cover with vigor in search of seeds that other birds threw around along with creepy crawlies I suspect. One sat smack in the middle of the forsythia bush to rest.

     The dog used to vigorously protest the presence of mourning doves and was given to chasing them away when she was younger. She has made her peace with them and allows them to perch on the railing of the deck while she is taking a snooze less than two feet away. She still will chase the squirrels. Most of the squirrels will leap off of the tree branches into the neighboring yards to get away. We have one who for the past two years insists upon going to ground. He runs down the tree trunk and then makes his escape under the fence. The dog leaves the chipmunks alone though.

     In the neighborhood there are deer, wild turkeys, turkey vultures, raccoon, fox-- both silver and red, shrews, blue and little green herons, skunk, and possum. I've seen all of those around, just not in the yard.

                       ~ sapphoq and birdy friends