The Right Feeder

 

 

Confused when they begin to feed themselves, juvenile birds are fun to watch.  They fly all over the deck, pecking at everything.  Eventually they seem to find the right feeder. 

 

 

Sunflower seeds for the little cardinal

 

 

 

He decides to try out a different feeder.

He still has a sunflower seed in his mouth.

 

 

 

He sits there not knowing exactly what to do.

Finally he determines that his beak is not going to work with this feeder.  So he goes back to the sunflower seeds.  This little bird tends to take a seed and fly to the deck railing to crack it.  Perhaps because that's where the parents fed him for a while.  And then, despite his long and noisy protests, the parents ignored him.  And so he learns.  Just like other little ones.

Amazing Sight at the Birdfeeders

Red Crossbills are a rare sight at our elevation.  One year we made a little birding record in North Carolina.  We had Red Crossbills who nested in our conifers and brought their fledglings to our feeders. http://ncmountainwoman.blogspot.com/2009/05/fledgling-is-red-crossbill-one-for.html

Last week my husband looked out and saw a pair of them.  It was amazing to see a pair of them again.

The male is on the right, just in front of a cardinal.  The female is on the left.

They seemed to enjoy the sunflower seeds.

The male saw me but continued to eat.

They are wonderful to see.

I highly doubt this pair will stay around here.  This year our conifers have few to no cones so this might not be a good place for them.  Perhaps next year...

They Seldom Get It Right

They said it would be a very cold and snowy winter here in the NC mountains.  They were so wrong.  This has been one of the mildest winters on record.  At this point we have not had any significant snow...no more than a dusting.

Here is what February and early March looked like in 2010 and in 2011:

March 2, 2010 brought our first Towhee.  And he was surrounded by snow.

The following week, another big snowstorm.

The little goldfinch in snow over its head.  Thank goodness the bird sits atop the snow.

And don't forget the ice storms.

A very cold perch.

This year's winter has been a record-breaking winter for snowfall.  Actually, for a lack of snow.  We have had less snow than any other winter.  In some areas the apple trees are about to blossom.  If we don't get some more seasonal weather they will flower and a freeze could do extensive damage much as it did three years ago.

When we lived in suburban Milwaukee, the meteorologists back-tracked on their inaccurate predictions by saying our proximity to Lake Michigan made forecasting more difficult.  Here in the mountains we hear much the same, except that here the mountains are to blame for the wrong predictions.

I have very much enjoyed the mild winter.  I do wish for the sake of the flowers and fruit trees that the season had been more normal.  But since you can't do anything about the weather, I pushed my guilt aside and thoroughly enjoyed the sunny days and milder temperatures.  The mild winter in no way reduces my anticipation of spring.  Oh!  Spring in the mountains is a lovely awakening.

Obese Bird

We are having rain and strong winds around here.  That is not a good thing for autumn color.  Hopefully it will stop soon and sunshine will brighten up the mountains again.

Remember the very homely Cardinal?  (here)  The bird continued to follow the parents long after he was able to feed himself.  We often saw him at the feeder alone, stuffing his beak.  If either parent came by, he would hop to them and beg for more food.  I am sorry to report that he has joined the legions of the obese.  He is not fluffing up his feathers like a sick bird.  He is alert, has no problem swallowing, no problem flying, and shows no sign of illness.

Maybe not quite so homely, but really really large.

 He still has a rather goofy look that makes him easy to identify.

 This shot of the feeder compares the large cardinal to the chickadee.  Note how the feeder is leaning under the cardinal's weight.  I assure you he has no idea the chickadee is there.  If he did, he would chase it away immediately.

The cardinal is often the first bird to the feeders when we put them out in the morning.  And he and his parents are almost always the last ones to grab a bite before we bring them in.

Get the Water Where You Can, I Suppose

We have a birdbath mounted on our deck railing.  The birds need water, and we are delighted to see all the different birds coming there to drink, winter and summer.  We change the water several times a day in this hot weather so the water is always fresh.

A goldfinch at the water.

The other day, I saw a little chickadee getting water from the ant trap of the hummingbird feeder.  It had rained and the ant trap was full of water.  I have no idea why the chickadee chose the feeder rather than the birdbath.

 I think this is a juvenile who is just learning how to make it on its own.

Much to my surprise, a little titmouse did the very same thing just minutes later.

Sweet little titmouse.

I looked up from my book and saw a little goldfinch getting water from the same hummingbird feeder.  I was able to pick up my camera and get a few shots.



Upside down goldfinch. 

Amazing!

There was one great moment that I missed with the camera.  A hummingbird dive-bombed the goldfinch.  The goldfinch gave in immediately and I didn't get a photograph.  But I laughed out loud at the little fighter.  The hummingbird did not go to the feeder, but he wasn't about to allow the bigger birds to take it over.  I have no idea why three different birds would choose the water in the ant trap over the fresh water in the birdbath not three feet away.  I got up and checked to see if there were any seeds or insects in the trap.  Nope, there was nothing but water.  You figure.

A Bird Visitor as Well

Our visitors last week spent a great deal of time watching our birds.  Many of our common birds are not seen in Wisconsin.  A frequent question from our guests was, "what kind of bird is that?"  They were especially thrilled to see the Pileated Woodpeckers swooping to the suet.  They had never seen a Tufted Titmouse.  At one point they asked, "What kind of bird is pale gray with brown streaks?"  I wondered what they could be seeing.

Finally I saw her for myself.  A gorgeous leucistic female Purple Finch!!!  Her body was white with light brown markings.  What a sight!

She seemed quite attractive to one of our male Purple Finches who started feeding her sunflower seeds.

Note the difference between the "normal" female on the left and the leucistic one in the middle.  The male has just fed her a seed.  You can see a glimpse of a male cardinal in back of the feeder.

She has been around now for several days, often sighted near one of the males.  Here's hoping they decide to nest here.  I would dearly love to see the offspring.

And so March Madness went out with a fizzle rather than a bang.  The final game was the worst game of the entire tournament.  Our favored Butler University team play as poorly as we have seen.  Even victorious UConn did not bring their "A" game to the floor that night.  Maryland coach (at the time) Lefty Drisell once said of his team, "Tonight they couldn't stand on the beach and hit the ocean."  That applied to Butler on Monday night.  What a shame that a team normally so good could perform so badly.

Too often we get so caught up in the NCAA Tournament that we forget that most of these players are teenagers.  No doubt the game was even more painful for them.  They felt they let themselves down and let their team down.  They felt they let their coach down, and their families and friends.

I think this photograph (taken from the Internet) best describes how the Butler team felt on that awful night.

But the sun came up on Tuesday and life goes on.  A hard lesson in the lives of these talented young men.

Hang'em Up and Start Watching

The are already on the move and will soon be in an area near you.  The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are migrating!!!  I love the anticipation and follow the map report regularly.  Perhaps because we are so near an escarpment, the hummingbirds are reported to our north, to our east, and to our west before we see them here.  I mix the nectar and put out the feeders weeks before I actually see a hummingbird, but I don't want to miss that first one.

So they are coming.  Follow the map and get your feeders out as they approach your area.  The map is a self-reporting one, so if you are the first in your area to see a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, you can click on the map and report the sighting.  Now that's something to brag to the neighbors about!

You can find the map here

And before too long, this is what you will see as your reward.  I can't wait!

Oh, don't you just love spring?

That's Not What I Wanted

When I was a child, my mother taught me to receive gifts gracefully.  "Never let anyone know it's not what you wanted," she reminded me.  On many Christmas mornings, I have been glad the giver of some of the gifts was absent.  While I would never say, "That's not what I wanted," I must admit to having thought, "What on earth were they thinking?"

This Christmas brought a gift to our county.  Many of our friends and neighbors were delighted.  The snow began to fall Christmas morning and kept falling all day.  While others marveled at a white Christmas, I was screaming all day, "THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED!!!"  The snow continued to fall.  I cringed whenever anyone said, "Isn't it lovely?"

Our daughter was at the Chicago airport getting ready to board the plane.  Realizing we would not be able to get to out to pick her up, we made reservations for her at a hotel near the Asheville airport.  Just as her flight began to board, the Asheville airport closed and her flight was canceled.  At the end of the day, she returned to Milwaukee and made reservations to come down three days later.

Our son and his wife had wanted to return to their home the day after Christmas but the snow kept them here for a while longer.  So...the one who wanted to come could not get here and the ones already here could not get out.

The snowfall was widespread and EVERY SINGLE county in North Carolina (all one hundred of them) received at least some snow during the storm.

I'm happy to report that our son made it home and our daughter made it here and we did have some wonderful times with them, even if they did not make it the same time.

The birds appreciated the feeders and were active all day.

A cardinal sits in a nearby tree.

A Downy Woodpecker waits for the suet feeder.

A wren and a titmouse share the sunflower seeds.

I must admit, I did not enjoy the snow at all.  We moved here to get away from the snow.  We had one of the coldest Decembers on record capped with the heavy snow at the end of the month.  I do hope it's not a sign of things to come.  That's definitely not what I wanted.

I hope all of you had a good holiday and got exactly what you wanted.  Somehow, I don't think this little goldfinch wanted this much snow either.

It WAS the Bird I thought.

The bird I saw last week was exactly what I thought it was.  The first Rose-breasted Grosbeak in the fall migration.  These birds do not nest here, so we see them only during migration.  The males always arrive first.  After a week or so, the females arrive and the males stay around a few more days.  Then the males leave and the females remain a week or two longer.  Then it's over for the season.

While he is a beautiful bird, his fall plumage is not quite as striking as his spring color.

One of the birds came to the feeder.  At first I thought it might be a female.

But when he flew into the trees I saw the faint reddish coloring on his chest.

Another male has joined the group.

He is waiting for me to go inside so he can fly to the feeders.

What a beauty!

The fall migration is such a wonderful time of the year.  We will enjoy these grosbeaks for a few weeks and then we will look forward to our next migrating friends.

Still Another Unusual Deck Visitor

You're not going to believe this. I hardly believe it myself. Strange as it may seem, we had another relatively rare warbler visit us. We are the very fringe of its range and it is rarely seen around here.

I was out on the deck and I saw him land on the birdfeeder pole. "Is that what I think it is? Oh, please turn around so I can be sure."

The bird turned and almost glared at me. No doubt about it. He is a Black-throated Blue Warbler. Right there in front of me. And staring right at me.

He hopped onto the deck railing, revealing his beautiful markings. The Black-throated Blues that live in the Appalachians are darker than those who reside in the New England states and Canada.

I sat there enthralled as I watched him flitter from place to place.

I willed my camera to click more silently. He was clearly aware of my presence and looked up every time I took a photograph. I was so afraid he was going to take off at any moment.

One of his prominent markings is the white patch at the base of his wing. Some refer to this as a "pocket hankerchief" and I wouldn't disagree.

This little goldfinch seems to be wondering what kind of strange bird this might be and what he's doing at the feeder.

The Black-throated Blue does eat seeds, but they rarely come to birdfeeders. He can't seem to figure out exactly how to get the seed.

Finally, he decided he'd be better off looking for insects in the woods and he flew away. But not before he captured my heart. Imagine my good fortune at having seen four (count them) FOUR unusual warblers visiting our deck...the Blue-winged, the Black and White, the Worm-eating, and now a Black-throated Blue. What a treat.

Sometimes We Do Share

We live in the woods. Squirrels live in the woods. We feed the birds. Squirrels like the same food. So it's a constant struggle trying to outwit the squirrels, who by the way, have plenty of nuts and berries around.

We have a variety of birdfeeders offering different kinds of seeds and suet. The squirrels have shown little interest in trying to get at the feeder with cracked sunflower seeds so we have not used a baffle to protect it. At any given time, there are several different types of birds at the stations. We almost always see nuthatches, chickadees, titmice and goldfinches when we look out at this feeder. They seem to have no problem sharing.


In fact, we have had some rather unusual visitors to this particular feeder. Here a female Pileated Woodpecker and a female Eastern Towhee are feeding. A bit strange for the woodpecker to go for the seeds at a feeder clearly not well-designed for woodpeckers. And the towhee is usually a ground feeder. But they shared nonetheless.

I mentioned that squirrels have not been particularly interested in this feeder. Well, that was true until this week. And, wouldn't you know? One of the beady-eyed monsters was determined to try some of this seed.

Well, we can put a stop to that. One of my husband's PVC pipe and duct tape baffles now surrounds the pole. When the squirrel tries to climb, the pipe swivels. Not especially pretty, but quite effective. (This is the second generation homemade baffle, by the way. There's always a method for a man to improve any invention using PVC pipe and duct tape.) Since the birdfeeders hang from the upper deck at the back of the house looks aren't terribly important.

In all our years of feeding birds, this is the only truly squirrel-proof feeder we have found. It has a spring tension that shuts off the food at a given weight. We have had others with springs that shut down with the weight of large birds (doves) and squirrels. But in each of those, the squirrel would eventually learn to hang from his hind leg and scoop the seeds without tripping the spring. The current feeder is longer than the squirrel so he can't do that little trick. Well, unless we have a basketball playing squirrel who towers above all the others. So far we have had only normal-sized rascals. This particular feeder is made by Wild Birds Unlimited and is called the WBU Eliminator. (Oh, if it REALLY eliminated the squirrels I would pay a fortune for it.) But it does eliminate the squirrel feeding.

It is almost blasphemous to hate squirrels in Transylvania County. We have white squirrels here and Brevard promotes them as big tourist draws. (Guess the scenery, waterfalls, and national forests aren't enough.) You name any type of tacky souvenir you can imagine. Yep, we've got that with a white squirrel on it.

We occasionally see them in our forest and I don't like them any better than the gray ones. I just call them the beady-eyed white devils.

Not Sharing at All

Several people wondered why Lucy was looking so morose in Friday's post. Simple. I was out in the yard and she was left inside. She stood at the window watching me the entire time I was photographing our aggressive little hummingbirds.

Here are a few of the shots. You might need to click to enlarge.

Hummer number one is sitting cautiously at the feeder.


Hummer number two flies in.

Chasing number one backward.

Number two sits at the feeder just as cautiously.

In an instant they are at it again.

Hummer number three joins in the fracas.

Number two hovers over the feeder, sitting but not sipping and ready for more battle.

Which comes soon enough.

The birds chase each other continuously. Often they bump into each other and temporarily drop toward the ground. They whirl straight up, they dive down, and they chase each other all over the yard. Number two clings to the feeder like a chickadee, trying to defend the space.

The same scenario is playing out at the backyard feeder as well. At a given moment, I can stand in the kitchen watching the fight out front and turn to watch another one on the deck in back. I can assure you the birds are getting some nectar. I've had to fill all three feeders every day. Why can't they share the table like Jayne's birds do?