New Year's Day at Bird TV

Right outside my living room window is my big bird feeding station (the small one is off the back deck).  I can sit right on my sofa and look out the window to enjoy all the action from the comfort of my house.  Here's what the action looked like on New Year's Day:

The key to all this activity is providing Food (keep those feeders filled), Shelter (note the brush pile and the X-mas tree propped against the maple), and Water (I refill that bird bath daily...if I have the time).

I must admit, that most of November and for a part of December there wasn't much in the way of food and open water at this station - funds were tight and I was busy at work and rarely home.  But over the holidays I had lots of time at home and had stocked up on all sorts of food, so things were hopping.

Lots of folks want to know what kinds of seed to put out for the birds.  When push comes to shove, and I can only afford one kind of seed, then that is black oil sunflower seed.  It is packed with fats/oils, which the birds crave, and being a smallish seed with a thin shell, it is easy for even the smallest-beaked birds to crack open.  So, I (almost) always have black oil on hand.

The next important seed to provide, in my humble opinion, is peanuts out of the shell.  Just about every bird will vie for this treat.  I have several peanut feeders, and they need refilling often.  Peanuts in the shell are also popular, especially with the blue jays (see the video at the end of this post).  That said, I was greatly surprised a couple weeks ago to see a red-breasted nuthatch work a peanut (in the shell) out of the feeder and fly off with it!

Then, suet.  Again, chocked full of fats and oils, this is very popular with most birds.  Woodpeckers especially like it, but you'll find chickadees, nuthatches, starlings and others will also take their turn at this important food.

What about nyjer?  Also called thistle, although it is actually the seeds of a daisy-like plant from Africa, this seed is considered a must if you want goldfinches.  And yes, goldfinches and house finches will eat the nyjer, but they will also eat the black oil sunflower seeds, and since nyjer can be expensive, I sometimes provide it, and sometimes not.

Over the holidays I also picked up a bag of grey-striped sunflower seeds and mixed it with safflower seeds.  The grey-stripeds are larger seeds with a harder shell, but birds with strong beaks have no trouble opening them.  And the safflower seed is popular with cardinals.  I scatter these seeds on the ground (cardinals do not like to perch on tube feeders - they are too big and prefer the ground or platforms).

So, let's see some of the visitors I had:

I'm very excited when cardinals show up.  We rarely had these in Newcomb.

With the right food and shelter, they show up here.  

Is there anything more stunning in winter?

Downy and hairy woodpeckers both visit my feeders.

This downy was searching for suet - the wooden

feeder is currently empty.  I have a batch of homemade "suet"

(peanut butter, bacon fat, sand, cornmeal and seed mix)

just waiting to be smeared into the holes. 

Red-bellied woodpeckers are a bit of a novelty for me. 

We didn't have these in Newcomb, either, although I

occasionally saw them where I grew up in central NY.

Earlier this day I also had a flicker at the suet!  How 

strange to see flickers in the winter.

 

White-breasted nuthatches are very common around here.  

This winter many red-breasted nuthatches have shown up, too.  

This is a reversal from Newcomb, where the RB outnumbered 

the WB.  Both are welcome at my feeders - a couple of my 

favorite avian species.

Dark-eyed juncos (aka:  slate-colored juncos) are common

here in the winter.  They hop around on the ground in their 

search for food.  These are good birds to learn, especially

if one wants to study bird behavior as a means of

learning what else is happening nearby.   

And who can resist the adorable tufted titmouse?

Another favorite, I only saw these maybe twice in the ten

years I was in Newcomb.  They often hang out with

the chickadees, making a totally delightful mixed flock.

The mourning doves (and a starling) took contented refuge 
in the brush pile.

Now, here was something interesting.  Keep an eye on the right-most sparrow.  Toward the end of the video, watch what it does.  It hovers over the water dipping its toes down to get wet.  Why?  Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

And, as promised, here is the blue jay, who just can't get enough peanuts.

So, the key to a really hoppin', successful bird feeding station is providing the big three:  food, shelter and water.  If you have these, you'll have birds.

Another Bird

These are bird days - lots of activity!  I was simply tickled pink to have an oriole come to my feeders!

First it was trying to feed from the hummingbird feeder, but this wasn't designed for orioles.

So I quickly refilled the oriole feeder, which has larger feeding ports and perches set at oriole distance from the holes.  It also has little dips around the edges for grape jelly, which supposedly orioles love.  I have yet to have an oriole ever eat the jelly, but I've heard other people say it works.  

Between the oriole(s) and the hummingbirds, I have run out of sugar!  I must get a bag today so I can make some more nectar.

Nectar is very easy to make, and so much cheaper than buying it:  boil four cups water and add one cup sugar.  Cool and serve.  No red food coloring is needed.

Four cups of nectar used to last me a month...if the weather was cool and the nectar didn't mold.  Now, however, I'm going thru four cups in a couple days!

And then there are the barn swallows...

Six!

Over the years I have watched many hummingbirds at my feeders and gardens, but have never had more than two attempt to feed at the same time...and never successfully, for one always drives the other away. Always.

Well, things were looking pretty much the same here, when one day I saw TWO sitting down to eat together. Amazing!

 I'd forgotten I had hung this feeder right off the side porch, so I refilled it the other day and this is what I watched that evening:

Awakenings

I woke up Sunday morning to see this outside my living room window. HM. Either that was one large raccoon, or I had a bear. I put the leash on Toby and went out to assay the damage.




Stop 1: Where It Got In
I always knew that this fence would never keep out a bear, especially a determined one. Still, I remained hopeful. So much for hope. The bear just pushed the fence down, bending the fencepost by the garage, and walked right over the wire.


Stop 2: The Attractant
This feeder pole and its feeders were only about 50 feet from the entry point. The coiled up snarl is the remains of the peanut feeder, which I had filled last week (and the blue jays let me down here, because they usually empty it in less than a day and it's been sitting there for over a week). The smell of peanuts must've been more than a hungry bear could stand. The blue feeder, while severely cracked and with a twisted hanging wire, was amazingly resilient. The nyjer feeder, full of nyjer seed, was untouched (you can just see the yellow bottom at the bottom of the photo).

Stop 3: The Compost Bin

A quick walk across the yard, past the shed and the veg garden, brought the bear to the compost bin. While as a general rule I don't put meats or dairy in my compost bin, there was stuff here that the bear obviously wanted. Like the jar of furry lard that I lobbed in there this winter. And the paper towels full of doggie barf from Toby's upset stomach last week.

Stop 4: More Birdseed

This pole has seen bear damage twice before - and twice before my dad has gotten it straightened back out for me. Luckily I had taken in the really big hopper feeder - the one that can hold about five pounds of seed.

Stop 5: A Survivor!

This is the weakest of my feeder poles - but notice the distinct crook in its normally straight mien. The feeder you see on the pole was already empty, so the bear left it alone. A second feeder, which normally holds peanuts, had been filled with sunflower seeds a couple days before. It was chewed to bits and lying on the ground (you can see the green top, the green bottom, and the silver wire middle at the bottom of the photo).

Stop 6: Exit, Stage Left

I next walked the fenceline, knowing that the odds of the bear leaving the same way it came in were probably slim. This is why I had Toby on a leash - I didn't want him haring off into the woods after a now-phantom bear. Sure enough, at the back corner the bear found a weak spot where two rolls of fence had been joined together. He just leaned against the wire and pushed. The join separated right behind the green fencepost there - you can't really see it too well.

>sigh<

I really have no one to blame but myself. I knew I was taking a risk by still feeding the birds, but I just didn't get motivated enough to bring in the feeders.

Damage repair commenced. I straightened the fence as best I could, used pliers to repair the join, put a new fencepost in by the garage and rehung the fence, and tried, half-heartedly, to reassemble the compost bin.

Compost bin: post "repairs" -

I think I need to get out some tools and do some more straightening.

And no, I never heard a single noise while all this havoc was being wreaked. For once, I was sleeping soundly. And if Toby heard anything, well, he isn't saying.

And from my dad, this poem:

Bear wakes up,

realizes it is hungry.

Bye, bye Jo's fence and feeders.

Heat Wave

Monday (yesterday) was a glorious day. Even Newcomb hit the mid-40s temperature-wise. Unfortunately, I was out-of-town most of the day, either on the road or sitting at the eye doctor's. But, it was still light out when I got home, so I grabbed the camera and decided to see what was photographable in the yard.

Toby would've rather played. As you can see, he doesn't think too highly of photography:


First stop was the bird feeders. Yes, at last "someone" has finally decided to sample from the new feeder.

Actually, I've been watching the blue jays work away at this feeder for a couple weeks now. They don't use the perches, though -I suspect the perches are too small. Instead they cling to the branches of the tree and take stabs at the Bark Butter.

My yard beaver has been acting as a solar sink, absorbing the heat from the sun and melting the snow at its base. I wonder if the ants stay inside the beaver all winter, or if they go underground before the ground freezes. Hm....

Now, if one didn't know better, one might just think that this is a close-up of a liverwort. In fact, it is a close-up of a golden cedar. This tree is still a small shrub and has a place of honor in one of my flower beds. I have no idea how big it will eventually get, but at the rate it has been growing, I don't think I have to worry about it casting too big a shadow on the other plants any time soon.

Twenty points to anyone who can guess what this is:

Here's another clue - this is the loaded seed pod of the same plant:

Yes, it is a hollyhock. Isn't it amazing how strange things can look through a macro lens? I love hollyhock seed pods - probably my favorite, after milkweed pods. The seeds are all tucked together in a nice tight ring, like some kind of pastry or coffee cake.

Okay, how about this one:

It's a native plant, but one I don't see very often. In fact, the only place I've seen it in almost twenty years is in my garden where I planted it.

Here it is again, but this time with the flower head still in tact:

This is New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis). I'm constantly trying to photograph the thing, but it seems that every time I try the wind starts to blow and I never get an unblurry shot. This included yesterday...had a devil of a time trying to capture an image. The flowers are a beautiful dark purple, and the plant grows over five feet tall. In fact, it is taller than I - so it's gotta' be at least five-and-a-half feet tall. According to Lawrence Newcomb, ironweeds can reach up to ten feet in height!


I love this shot. Any guesses?

It looks to me like some kind of exotic orchid, but in fact it is just the empty seed pod of a daylily. Kind of neat, though, don't you think?


As mentioned before, the birds are ignoring the sunflower seeds this year. Still, they make for a nice photograph:

Here we have a pretty good close-up of a nifty plant that is starting to take over some of my gardens: Verbascum.

Verbascum is in the same family as mulleins. In fact, they are in the same genus (Verbascum). Mulleins are not native, although they have naturalized pretty darn well and many of our native birds feast on their tiny seeds. This Verbascum has been featured on my blog in the past, with its lovely colorful flowers - scroll down past the hollyhocks here.

Today we woke to fresh snow - I actually had to shovel the driveway (well, it was only a couple inches, so I didn't really HAVE to shovel, but I felt like I should - it is winter after all). More is on the way. In fact, the weather gurus are forecasting a winter storm watch for later today through tomorrow morning. Up to six whole inches. Those of you in the DC/Maryland/PA belt, with your 56" of snow, will likely laugh at our measley 6", but that will almost double what we've had all month! Things are in a state of drought up here. Total new moisture for February so far: 0.31". That's zero-point-three-one...hardly any moisture at all. Dry dry dry. Either we're gonna get nailed later on, or we will be suffering another dry year. Only time will tell.

The Homemade Birdfeeder

I love this feeder. This bird feeder was a gift this Christmas from my mom. She got it at a local (to her) craft fair.

Apparently the woman who made it was just trying to find something to do with the metal bottlecaps she had from juice (or tea) bottles. She cut the triangle from a piece of scrap wood, nailed the caps to it and added a few dowels for perches. A quick paint job, a piece of string, and voila! I love it when people use scraps and create something totally useful!

I put this out for the first time this morning. I haven't had anything to put on the caps for food, but yesterday I purchased some peanut butter spread:

Normally I don't promote these things because they are pretty expensive. One could easily make up a batch for a fraction of the cost (it's just rendered beef suet, peanut butter, and I think cornmeal), but I was feeling lazy and just bought the tub. It's pretty soft (like peanut butter - imagine that) and spreads easily.

None of the birds flocked to it this morning before I left for work. I'll check it out when I get home tonight (it'll still be light!) and see if anyone was brave enough to approach this new and strange thing hanging in the tree.

Da Boids

The evening grosbeaks were here in droves this morning, calling from the tree tops in that finchy way they have. I filled and hung the feeders and went about the business of opening the building for the day. Then I grabbed the camera and tried to get some pics.

Grosbeaks are not brave birds.

I took several shots through the windows, but they just don't come out well, y'know.

Aren't they just about the handsomest birds you've seen?

So I grabbed a cup of seed and went out on the deck, sprinkling seed on the railings. Of course, all the birds took off.

Chickadees and nuthatches are brave, though, so it was only a matter of a minute or two before they came back, bringing a few goldfinches with them. One little chickadee looks to be in pretty bad shape. It kind of reminds me of a chicken that's been picked on by the other chickens - henpecked.

I wonder if his feathers will protect him enough through these subzero days/nights we are having.

The grosbeaks, however, stayed in the trees. After ten minutes or so (I'm standing out there sans coat, hat, mittens...waiting...at about 4*F), they drifted down to the lower branches, but just wouldn't come feed. They so obviously wanted all that seed I put out, but not one was brave enough to get it.

Finally, as I was getting ready to call it quits, a couple took the plunge, but only to the seed farthest away from me.

I still didn't get any really good shots, though. BUT! I'll accept this as a challenge.

I did finally get a couple fair photos of a white-breasted nuthatch, which has been on my list, so it wasn't a total loss.

The Breakfast Rush

I heard a red-winged blackbird calling "conker-REEE" a couple weeks ago, so I wasn't totally surprised to see this lone male at my feeders this morning. He was helping himself to the blackoil sunflower seeds, oblivious to the other greedy visitors who flew in and tried to bully him away.



Yes, those bullies were evening grosbeaks. They have been in the neighborhood for a few weeks now, but this is the first I've seen them at the feeders. They even chased the blue jays away - a real feat! If you look closely, you'll also see a brave chickadee and a timid goldfinch in the photo (and the blackbird, clinging to the blue feeder). The goldfinches finally gave up at this feeding station (even though the nyjer feeder was not being used by anyone else) and went to the nearby peanut feeder, where I was unable to photograph them (wrong angle, being so close to the house).


Despite their bullying nature, and their hoover-like feeding habits, I do like evening grosbeaks. They come into their full glorious colors by mid-winter and are such a joy to see at the feeders. Between them and the blue jays, it can be a very colorful sight. Now, if only I could entice our pair of cardinals to come to my feeders...

Although, now that I think of it, I haven't heard the cardinals in quite some time. I wonder if they've finally given up on Newcomb as simply too cold. HM. I thought we had gotten up to two pairs in town, but maybe they've moved on to greener pastures (or maybe our growing feral cat population took 'em out). I'll have to keep an eye and an ear peeled for them.

Afternoon with the Blue Jays

It was a sunny afternoon and the Jays were in the 'hood. I couldn't resist a) watching them extricate peanuts from the peanut feeder and b) trying to capture it "on film." So, here we go...


First, the approach. "I see the nuts. I want the nuts. Gotta get the nuts."



Step Two: Assess the Situation



Step Three: Make sure there are no spies around to steal your technique:

Step Four: grab the biggest nut you can find and pull.

Step Five: Fly away with the bootie!

Sometimes the rest of the family shows up. Things can get out of hand. Sharing is not in their vocabulary.

It's MINE! Go away and find your own peanut feeder!

Sometimes you cannot get a hold of a whole nut, and you have to work your way through the shell instead.

Keep trying. Whack-whack-whack!

Success!!! Swallow the nut whole and grab another.

The clean-up crew is always on hand to grab any nuts that fall on the ground.

Blue jays (Cyanonsitta cristata) are amazing birds. Members of the Corvid family, which includes crows and ravens, they are highly intelligent. You can see this in the way they assess situations, especially if food is involved.

Lots of people don't like Corvids. Instead of seeing highly intelligent birds, they see "mean" birds. We have to keep in mind that terms such as "mean" and "cruel" are human labels. We really shouldn't use them to describe animals and their behaviors.

One of the things that many people don't like is that Corvids have been known to eat eggs from other birds' nests, or even nestlings. Blue jays are not exempt from this habit, but the greater part of their diet consists of nuts, seeds, grains and insects. I think eggs and such make up less than 1% of their diet, and it's probably more of an opportunistic thing, rather than a regular habit.

One of the really cool things about blue jays is their gular pouch. This structure is essentially a sac that is located beneath the bird's tongue and extends down the throat to the upper portion of the esophagus. The purpose of this pouch is storage, and anyone who has watched jays at their feeders will readily agree as to its effectiveness. Blue jays can stash two or three acorns in this pouch, and then carry a fourth in their mouth and a fifth at the tip of the bill. Just imagine how many sunflower seeds they can haul off! If you don't believe me, set out a tray with seeds on it and count how many the bird inhales before flying off. You can see a pretty full pouch in the photo of the jay protecting the feeder from it's sibling(s).

Take a good look at the last photo, the one with the jay on the ground. As I continued to watch this bird, it tried to swallow that whole peanut, shell and all! I guess it thought that if it could swallow an acorn, then a peanut would surely fit! I don't think it succeeded before flying off.

Do blue jays migrate? This is actually a great question, to which the answer is yes, no, and sometimes. Studies have shown that young jays are more likely to migrate than adults, but sometimes adults do, too. In addition to this, a jay may migrate one year, but not the next, and then maybe the third year it will...or not. There is apparently no way to predict if or when jays will get the urge to see what's beyond the horizon.

And just like every zebra has different stripe patterns from every other zebra, apparently blue jay masks are all different. Some biologists believe that this variation allows the birds to recognize each other as individuals. See...I told you they were highly intelligent. I'd be willing to be that without a lot of study most of us would never notice the differences from one jay to the next. Hm...I see an afternoon project in this...