Tag Archives: Backyard birds

Birding Once Again

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I’ve been laid up after last Thursday’s surgery and while I have enjoyed watching birds coming to our feeders, it was nice to get out in the woods early this frosty morning for my first outdoor outing in nearly a week.  Mary has done a great job with keeping the dog exercised but I was ready to take back that duty — carefully.

There’s not a lot out and about at daybreak aside from the chickadees, nuthatches, blue jays, and crows but they were nice to hear and see as I trudged up the crusty frozen path. I’ve been reading up on birding by ear and looking into recording and analyzing calls so I brought my iPhone along.  Even though we live in the country, the background noises can be loud in the early morning.  We have a noisy rooster a mile or so off and there’s always a dog or two barking in the distance.  The traffic noise, even though the road is a half-mile off, can get loud and of course, I have the Vizsla tromping back and forth “helping” me bird.  I think recording will be a work in progress for a while .. but an interesting aspect of birding to look into.

A Blue Jay eyes our suet package.

Since I had to take it easy and pause periodically, it was fun to remember past sightings as I moved along our trail — the trees where three Brown Creepers were calling to one another as they foraged, the dead snag where a hawk sat until the dog spooked it, the little meadow where a couple of Common Yellowthroats drove me nuts as I tried to get them to settle for a photograph.  We then flushed a partridge and the dog was off and running again.

I find that this “virtual birding” is enjoyable — recalling specific birds you have seen at given points along a patch that you frequently bird.  It’s a diversion on days were there are few birds but it also is a reminder that hey, it won’t be long until we start seeing ______ again.

A group of Common Redpolls made their first visit this morning.

And sure enough, as I returned and thawed my hands out, I noticed a new bird at the feeder.  It was our first Common Redpoll of the season.  We’ve been expecting them and it was great to see them again.

The Supply-side Economics of Bird Feeding

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Ever watch a Black-capped Chickadee or White-breasted Nuthatch pick away at the feeder, discarding stuff left and right until a sunflower seed pops up?

Eat the millet — it’s good for you!

I have a deck littered with millet and other rejected seeds as Nuthatches, Chickadees, and finches select the good stuff.  So why did I buy bags of mixed seeds?  It seemed to be an economical way to feed birds but the only folks happy are the chipmunks and red squirrels, and an occasional night-time raccoon who vacuum up the leftovers.

Last week, Mary got sick of sweeping the deck (as did I)  so she bought a bag of black oil sunflower seeds — the feed we have used in years past — and the birds no longer have a choice.  (Well, they still do because I have to integrate the rest of the mix into the feeder — but of course, even camouflaged with sunflowers, it still gets left there.

When I read this article from BirdWatching Magazine, I thought, “Well, I think we did the right thing.”   Here’s an excerpt:

As a result of this year’s drought and high temperatures, agricultural prices are expected to reach record-setting levels. Economizing on bird feeding is a priority. Below are tips that will help you do so while increasing both your enjoyment and your feeding’s value to birds.

Sunflower-seed prices are high, for sure, but switching to cheaper mixes that include a little sunflower seed and more generic “bird seed” is an excellent example of being penny wise but pound foolish. Most birds ignore a lot of the seeds in mixes, especially inexpensive ones, and not only are those filler seeds a waste of money but some attract nuisance wildlife such as rats. Just as bad, seed that doesn’t get eaten rots, exposing your birds to disease-causing bacteria and fungus.

Many of the smaller seeds in mixes are popular with birds that don’t need subsidies from us and cause problems for native birds. Although it’s counterintuitive, in the long run, you’ll spend less by offering sunflower seed alone. You’ll still be providing food for the widest mixture of native birds, including chickadees and nuthatches, finches, small woodpeckers, jays, and doves…

 

We’ll feed sunflower seed, niger seed for the finches, and suet for the woodpeckers.  That should keep our birds, and our farm supply store, happy this winter.

Project Feeder Watch Starts Soon

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The 26th season of Project FeederWatch begins November 10, and participants are needed more than ever. By watching your feeders from November through April and submitting what you see, you’re making it possible for scientists to keep track of changing bird populations across the continent. New or returning participants can sign up anytime.

After unusual winter weather in some parts of the country last season, many participants found themselves asking, “Where are the birds?”—but the story might be different this year.

The AccuWeather long-range forecasting service is predicting some big storms in the Northeast this winter, so FeederWatchers in that region may see more birds at their feeders than they did last winter. Forecasts also call for another year of below-normal snowfall for the Midwest, above-normal snowfall and below-normal temperatures for the central and southern Rockies, and a wet winter with above-normal precipitation for the Gulf Coast and Southeast.

“We’ll have to see if those predictions pan out and how they might affect feeder-bird numbers,” says David Bonter, project leader for FeederWatch. “The one number we definitely want to see increase is the number of people taking part in FeederWatch. It’s easy to do, and the information is incredibly valuable in helping us better understand what’s going on in the environment and in the lives of the birds we enjoy so much.”

Other things to look forward to as the season approaches:

  • A new photo gallery featuring some of the many photos FeederWatchers sent in during the 2011-12 season.
  • This year’s Winter Finch Forecast shows it could be a great winter for birds at feeders—so don’t miss it! Red-breasted Nuthatches, Red Crossbills, Evening Grosbeaks, and other birds are likely to be on the move after a relatively poor summer for cone crops. Read the full forecast for more details.
  • Winter Bird Highlights is the annual summary of the previous season’s results. The 2012 issue is being mailed to Canadian FeederWatch participants in their kits and will be mailed to U.S. participants with the fall issue of Living Bird News (late October). You can also get a PDF version online and read it immediately.

To learn more about joining Project FeederWatch and to sign up, visit www.feederwatch.org or call the Cornell Lab toll-free at (866) 989-2473. In return for the $15 fee ($12 for Cornell Lab members), participants receive the FeederWatcher Handbook and Instructions with tips on how to successfully attract birds to your feeders, an identification poster of the most common feeder birds, and a calendar. Participants also receive Winter Bird Highlights, an annual summary of FeederWatch findings, as well as the Cornell Lab’s quarterly newsletter, Living Bird News.

(Project FeederWatch is a joint research and education project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada.

Image: Dick Mansfield

Bird Larders – storing up for winter

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I’ve been watching birds cache food this week. The days are shorter, and the birds are preparing for the next season. The nuthatches prefer the hulled sunflower, and they’re choosing the heavier seeds as those are the ones higher in fat content. Their activity begins very early in the day. The titmice are taking one seed at a time and seem to cache higher in the trees than the nuthatches. The chickadees are caching in the middle of the day, and their pantry of seeds is in a knothole in a maple.

This caching behavior has its advantages. They’ll retrieve the larder of seed on days when the weather isn’t suitable for them to for forage. Their warehouses are available when the long winter settles upon them and other sources are no longer abundant, and yes, their memories are sharp!

(written by Sue McGrath of Newburyport Birders)

Brown Creepers Make Me Smile

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Walking in the woods yesterday afternoon, I heard a loud “see” call. I thought it might be a White-throated Sparrow or even a Dark-eyed Junco but as I searched, I saw a little brown bird climbing up a White Pine. It flew over to the lower part of another tree and started climbing as I watched.

Brown Creepers blend in with the tree trunk and can be hard to spot.

Some of my friends have lost their upper range and can’t hear Brown Creepers but fortunately, in spite of being around jets and other planes, I can pick them out.  It helps because they can be really tough to see.  You sometimes can pick them up when they fly or if they expose their white belly.

Getting a look at the white belly helps spotting these elusive birds.

They seem to be oblivious to birders and once you pick them up, it’s fun to watch them spiral their way up a tree, picking bugs out of the bark with their curved beak.  They seem to balance like a woodpecker with their long tail as the work on a stubborn piece of bark.  Every so often, I’ve seen one going up as a White-breasted Nuthatch works its way down.  We have quite a few Brown Creepers in our woods – they are one of species that hangs around so I look forward to their antics this winter.  They are one my favorite birds.

 

Brown Creeper (top image) by Wildreturn    Lower image by David-Mitchell

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Stock up on Niger Seed, the Siskin Boys (& Girls) are in town

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We take in our feeders at night to avoid bear and raccoon problems.  Early yesterday morning, I hung up the bird feeder and thistle feeder and immediately had a dozen Pine Siskins flitting about, waiting for me to leave.  The same thing has happened all week — we have an onslaught of Siskins — as do other parts of New England in reading the eBird reports and list serves.


Pine Siskins are fun to watch but rather drab, after months of American Goldfinch watching.  

Here’s what the Cornell Lab of Ornithology says about them:

This nomadic finch ranges widely and erratically across the continent each winter in response to seed crops. Better suited to clinging to branch tips than to hopping along the ground, these brown-streaked acrobats flash yellow wing markings as they flutter while feeding or as they explode into flight. Flocks are gregarious, and you may hear their insistent wheezy twitters before you see them.

A Canadian ornithologist, Ron Pittaway, each year issues a  Winter Finch Forecast.  He notes that there is a “widespread tree seed crop failure in the Northeast” this year.  We may have a lot of visitors this winter — we’re already seeing a lot of Purple Finches and Dark-eyed Juncos.

This is the first winter in the last four that we are staying in Vermont — might be a good one for winter avian visitors.  My feed store friends are going to love me.  

Quieter Woods

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Things are pretty quiet these days in our woods as I walk the dog on our trails — aside for some deer watching us nearly every walk and numerous red squirrels and chipmunks, the activity has died off as birds prepare for migration and winter.  The Chickadees are still chipping away and I watch them for visiting warblers honing in on their local knowledge.  Blue Jays are as raucous as ever and lately, Red-breasted Nuthatches have been calling away as they forage.

There are some spots along the way where I have seen Common Yellowthroats all summer.  They are still here but never sing and even chip less frequently.  I can tell where they are from the movement of the bushes where they hide and every so often, get a glimpse of one — as the shot below illustrates.

A Common Yellowthroat hiding in the bushes.

Song Sparrows are also still here but furtive in their movements.  They no longer sing from the top of bushes but we have a nice crop of juveniles getting fattened up for their trip south.  They tend to sit a little more cooperatively like this guy that I photographed a few days ago.

A young Song Sparrow

It has been interesting watching the American Goldfinches at the feeder.  Some have bright new plumage, others are pretty ratty looking as they molt.  All seem to be loading up with food and I expect that soon their boisterous arrivals and departures — a spectacle of gold and black — will be out of here.

Dozens of American Goldfinches adorn our backyard but they’ll be off before long.

The White-Throated Sparrows don’t sing their “Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” call that livens up our woods all spring and summer but they are around with a new crop of youngsters.  They may head out but we’ll have their northern cousins here all winter.

A White-Throated Sparrow hiding from the camera

I read an interesting article on fall birds by Kenn Kaufman in the latest Bird Watcher’s Digest.  I had never thought about the fact that many more birds migrate in the fall than the spring (due to the hatches during the spring/summer).  Kenn notes that due to the foliage, the duller plumage, and lack of singing, that birding is much harder in the fall — and thus to some a welcome challenge, and to others — a “forget about it” time for birding.   I’m going to take a hard try at picking out the warblers as they come through but I already know it’s going to be frustrating.

Backyard Digiscoping

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I’ve fiddled with digiscoping for the last year, reading a lot of forums, shooting a lot of poor shots — both with my point and shoot and with my SLR.  Because of camera shake and problems with picking up images on my SD4000, I’ve decided to work with my Canon 60D and 50mm lens.  I also decided to practice, practice at home on the birds in my yard and patch and work on settings, technique, and just picking up birds in the scope.

So, for that last few days, I’ve lugged my heavy camera, scope, and tripod around our woods trails on my many walks with the dogs and started practicing.  Of course, the dog is a wonderful help.  Every time I try for a Common Yellowthroat or Song Sparrow in the brush, she sees me looking and decides to take a look for herself.  So, a certain amount of “you idiot” or worse accompanies my digiscoping.

Here are some shots I’ve taken in the last couple of days:

Here’s a young Common Yellowthroat hiding in the bushes.  They constantly move and are a real challenge for me to digiscope.

 

Two molting Goldfinches at the thistle feeder.  They seem to be really hitting the food these days.

 

We are getting a lot of hummers to the feeder.  They like to rest in the old crabapple tree.

 

We have quite a crop of song sparrows enjoying the bugs around our yard.  No singing but very active.