Forum Birdwatching 2012

[The Shrike]

Do you see any positive traits for Little Auk?

I see its apparent size, shape, and plumage all positive for Little Auk. Lighting, angle, and individual variation can make a single image difficult call with 100% certainty. For example, I can't guarantee that there isn't a white partial eye ring or "eye arc" on this bird; I can only say that I don't see one. At the same time, I am not convinced there is any white on the bill because I'm not seeing anything so clearly that I can say for sure it's a marking on the bill or a play of the light.

The bird's posture is less typical for a Little Auk, but they do stretch their necks from time to time and assume a very different shape than we usually see. The one thing that doesn't change, however, is bill shape. Our perception is really just a function of its angle to the camera. In this case, what I see is sufficient to convince me that the bill is not the blunt-tipped "Roman nose" of a Razorbill; it is, instead, a dead-ringer for Little Auk bill shape on some of the photos to which I had linked.

If this bird lacked a bill altogether, I'd still lean heavily toward Little Auk. The bill shape, however, clinches it for me.

 

[The Shrike]

[qimg]http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/561598_4813741872059_1734681889_n.jpg[/qimg]​

Fantastic photo for illustrating identification tips for Sharpies and Coops!

In this case, it's in the classic adult plumage that is pretty much identical between the two species. This bird even has a conspicuously dark cap that is often very noticeable on a Coop but less so on a Sharpie. Check out the rounded tail tip, too. That's a classic point of separation between the two species that would indicate Cooper's Hawk - and in this case lead the identifier astray!

This bird is indeed a Sharp-shinned Hawk, and one look no further than its tiny tarsi! The legs on this bird are somewhere between toothpick- and chopstick-thin; those on a Coop would be more like #2 pencil-thick. Note as well that the head, while dark-capped, is relatively small and rounded. Coops have a slight crest toward the back that, even when not raised, can make the head look a bit "blocky" or squared-off. This bird has a small, rounded head - almost like a pigeon with a hawk's beak. It's a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I just bought a bird seed feeder. Winter coming on. Feed da boidies, save the planet etc.
It has been a traumatic experience.

I remember when feeding birds involved a handful of breadcrumbs and some bits of bacon rind, scattered on the ground.

No longer.

The shop had three types of feeder- seed , nut and fat ball, (plus various combinations). Some of them were reinforced steel, squirrel-proof* Faraday cages with running water, real slate roofs and cable television.
Prices from £3.99 to an eye-watering £33.99!
* Hah! There are nuclear bunkers with squirrels.When Man first lands on Mars there will be bastard squirrels.

Bird seed now comes in 25 kilogramme bags! Guaranteed free of marijuana, which "Swoop" wasn't back in the 1970s. They had pallets of the stuff. Peanuts by the metric tonne. Fat balls to make the eyes of the harem eunuchs of the Grand Turk water.

When did feeding garden birds become a major catering industry?

So I got a cheap affair and a bucket of birdseed. A bucket. Are these American migrants or something? We feed HORSES out of buckets in this country.

I filled the device. It seats four, with feeding holes near the base and mid way up.
Why doesn't the seed fall out of the holes part way up? *Turns feeder upside down to inspect * Oh. That's why.

I hung the device in the garden and hadn't made it to the door when the first customers arrived. Did the shop text them or something?
In approx 3 hours, 112 tits of various types, 4 Greenfinches , 2 chaffinches and the entire Scottish Sparrow Air Force demolished approximately 1 kg of seeds. These are birds? Christ protect us from Pterodactyls. The little buggers are like airborne piranhas!
I'm scared to go out the back now in case they eat me.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Your instincts are correct - that's a Red-tailed Hawk!

And you are also right about the lamp-post.

 

[dasmiller]

I just bought a bird seed feeder. Winter coming on. Feed da boidies, save the planet etc.
It has been a traumatic experience.

I remember when feeding birds involved a handful of breadcrumbs and some bits of bacon rind, scattered on the ground.

No longer.

The shop had three types of feeder- seed , nut and fat ball, (plus various combinations). Some of them were reinforced steel, squirrel-proof* Faraday cages with running water, real slate roofs and cable television.
Prices from £3.99 to an eye-watering £33.99!
* Hah! There are nuclear bunkers with squirrels.When Man first lands on Mars there will be bastard squirrels.

Bird seed now comes in 25 kilogramme bags! Guaranteed free of marijuana, which "Swoop" wasn't back in the 1970s. They had pallets of the stuff. Peanuts by the metric tonne. Fat balls to make the eyes of the harem eunuchs of the Grand Turk water.

When did feeding garden birds become a major catering industry?

So I got a cheap affair and a bucket of birdseed. A bucket. Are these American migrants or something? We feed HORSES out of buckets in this country.

I filled the device. It seats four, with feeding holes near the base and mid way up.
Why doesn't the seed fall out of the holes part way up? *Turns feeder upside down to inspect * Oh. That's why.

I hung the device in the garden and hadn't made it to the door when the first customers arrived. Did the shop text them or something?
In approx 3 hours, 112 tits of various types, 4 Greenfinches , 2 chaffinches and the entire Scottish Sparrow Air Force demolished approximately 1 kg of seeds. These are birds? Christ protect us from Pterodactyls. The little buggers are like airborne piranhas!
I'm scared to go out the back now in case they eat me.

lol great post . . . and I feel your pain.

 

[joobie]

i would put a feeder out, but my jackass neighbor leaves her cats out all the time. i feel like i'd just be padding their diets with birds. i had a birdbath but i took that down too.

 

[The Shrike]

Ah, the birds know the risks. If you really want birds in your backyard (and you're not a PETA type), go ahead and feed them with the understanding that sure, the cats will eventually grab one or two. You can always take steps to discourage the cats, like a well placed squirt with the garden hose. It won't stop them, but it might make them think twice about camping out around your feeders.

I don't feed birds because I think the birds need food. I feed birds for the entirely selfish reason that I want to see them in my backyard.

 

[GeeMack]

I just bought a bird seed feeder. Winter coming on. Feed da boidies, save the planet etc.
It has been a traumatic experience.

I remember when feeding birds involved a handful of breadcrumbs and some bits of bacon rind, scattered on the ground.

No longer.

The shop had three types of feeder- seed , nut and fat ball, (plus various combinations). Some of them were reinforced steel, squirrel-proof* Faraday cages with running water, real slate roofs and cable television.
Prices from £3.99 to an eye-watering £33.99!
* Hah! There are nuclear bunkers with squirrels. When Man first lands on Mars there will be bastard squirrels.

Bird seed now comes in 25 kilogramme bags! Guaranteed free of marijuana, which "Swoop" wasn't back in the 1970s. They had pallets of the stuff. Peanuts by the metric tonne. Fat balls to make the eyes of the harem eunuchs of the Grand Turk water.

When did feeding garden birds become a major catering industry?

So I got a cheap affair and a bucket of birdseed. A bucket. Are these American migrants or something? We feed HORSES out of buckets in this country.

I filled the device. It seats four, with feeding holes near the base and mid way up.
Why doesn't the seed fall out of the holes part way up? *Turns feeder upside down to inspect * Oh. That's why.

I hung the device in the garden and hadn't made it to the door when the first customers arrived. Did the shop text them or something?
In approx 3 hours, 112 tits of various types, 4 Greenfinches , 2 chaffinches and the entire Scottish Sparrow Air Force demolished approximately 1 kg of seeds. These are birds? Christ protect us from Pterodactyls. The little buggers are like airborne piranhas!
I'm scared to go out the back now in case they eat me.

To feed birds on a budget, start with a two-seater and only fill it part way. The birds have to take turns with a two holer, but I've never heard one complain. And if you fill it only part way, the birds have to stop when it's gone. But don't worry, they'll come back when you refill it. When they find a source of free easy food they remember where it is. Also when you do fill it, do it at the time of day that allows you to enjoy watching them. Like The Shrike said, the birds don't so much need us for food. We feed them for our pleasure.

 

[Soapy Sam]

To feed birds on a budget, start with a two-seater and only fill it part way. The birds have to take turns with a two holer, but I've never heard one complain. And if you fill it only part way, the birds have to stop when it's gone. But don't worry, they'll come back when you refill it. When they find a source of free easy food they remember where it is. Also when you do fill it, do it at the time of day that allows you to enjoy watching them. Like The Shrike said, the birds don't so much need us for food. We feed them for our pleasure.

What amazed me was that they found it literally within seconds of me hanging it up. Looks like they can empty it completely once a day. This is in mild weather , too, with lots of berries and insects still around.

I do wonder whether, given the apparent size of the bird feeding industry, we are actually changing the behaviour of the common garden birds. Are we in stage one of domestication?

 

[Soapy Sam]

i would put a feeder out, but my jackass neighbor leaves her cats out all the time. i feel like i'd just be padding their diets with birds. i had a birdbath but i took that down too.

Well, this is the plus. A bird feeder is like having your own goat staked out back to attract the tigers. Just sit back with the window open, a mug of coffee and the .22 and wait for the big game to show up!

 

[dasmiller]

i would put a feeder out, but my jackass neighbor leaves her cats out all the time. i feel like i'd just be padding their diets with birds.

Think of it as a combination birdfeeder/catfeeder.

 

[bruto]

Unfortunately where we are it's a bearfeeder. Somewhere in the internet I imagine one can find a link for how our governor found this out the hard way, running out to save his bird feeder while forgetting to don any clothes....

 

[GeeMack]

What amazed me was that they found it literally within seconds of me hanging it up. Looks like they can empty it completely once a day. This is in mild weather , too, with lots of berries and insects still around.

Yep. We don't hang suet in the summer, but it seems whenever we decide to first put it out in the late fall, the Downy Woodpeckers show up in no more than a couple hours. Same thing in the spring with the Hummingbirds. Hang the feeder, wait an hour or two, voila! Apparently they're tuned in to something that brings them in when we make the food available.

I do wonder whether, given the apparent size of the bird feeding industry, we are actually changing the behaviour of the common garden birds. Are we in stage one of domestication?

There actually is some support for that conjecture. From Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Tufted Titmouse page on their All About Birds web site...

Tufted Titmice are common, their populations seem to be growing, and the species has been expanding its range northward over the last half-century. Possible reasons for the range expansion include a warming climate, reversion of farmlands to forests, and the growing popularity of backyard bird feeders.

And this White-Breasted Nuthatch was a daily visitor to our yard for over three years...

​

 

[Soapy Sam]

What amazed me was that they found it literally within seconds of me hanging it up. Looks like they can empty it completely once a day. This is in mild weather , too, with lots of berries and insects still around.

Yep. We don't hang suet in the summer, but it seems whenever we decide to first put it out in the late fall, the Downy Woodpeckers show up in no more than a couple hours. Same thing in the spring with the Hummingbirds. Hang the feeder, wait an hour or two, voila! Apparently they're tuned in to something that brings them in when we make the food available.

My sister (a fanatical bird feeder) commented that once birds know a food source has been in a place, they habitually check it. She may be right. We moved into this house in April 2011. There was a twin hook for a feeder in the garden, but last winter was mild and we never used it- but it's still there, so that's where I hung the feeder.

Is it possible birds which last used it maybe 2 years ago have been scoping it out ever since? Seems improbable, but they were amazingly fast- we are literally talking about seconds from hanging till the first arrival.

 

[dasmiller]

Is it possible birds which last used it maybe 2 years ago have been scoping it out ever since?

That seems very plausible to me. A lot of trees have edible fruit for only a few days every year; I suspect that once a place has been identified as an occasional source of food, a bird will check it periodically* rather than try to understand how various food sources respond to annual cycles.

A hungry airborne bird can check out a lot of territory very quickly. Smaller birds would be very motivated to find a new batch of food first, because if the food supply is limited, they're likely to be bullied away by bigger birds or squirrels.

When I first started feeding the birds several years ago, it took a while (a day or so, I think) before the feeder was noticed. Now, however . . . I put some seed out yesterday, for the first time in 6 months. Within minutes, there was a crowd. The neighborhood birds know that sometimes there's food in my yard, and they have long memories.

*It wouldn't surprise me a bit if "periodically" in this context meant several times per day.

 

[Duffy Moon]

I found an unhappy-looking pile of feathers around the base of one of my feeders yesterday.
I think accipiter nisus must have come a-calling.

The sparrowhawk uses the feeder - which is on a pole - as a convenient plucking post.

 

[Soapy Sam]

That seems very plausible to me. A lot of trees have edible fruit for only a few days every year; I suspect that once a place has been identified as an occasional source of food, a bird will check it periodically* rather than try to understand how various food sources respond to annual cycles.

Good point. I didn't think of that.

 

[The Shrike]

Aldo Leopold wrote that while chopping wood at his cabin in Wisconsin, the chickadees would come to pull grubs out of the split wood while he was stacking it. I keep chopping wood but have never experienced this.

 

[joobie]

had some wonderful heron sightings today, but not much time to set up a decent picture:


great blue heron (ardea herodias) taking off by philside92, on Flickr

 

[GeeMack]

Aldo Leopold wrote that while chopping wood at his cabin in Wisconsin, the chickadees would come to pull grubs out of the split wood while he was stacking it. I keep chopping wood but have never experienced this.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit. They are resourceful little creatures. Chickadees, Titmice, and Nuthatches can be especially curious and brave. I have another White-Breasted Nuthatch who notices when I am out filling feeders. Just a couple days ago he worked up the nerve to come to my hand for the first time. The Chickadees bounce around the branches up in a tree watching. I fully expect some of them will eventually come to my hand, too.

We notice swallows flying low over large grassy areas and fields while they're being mowed. Apparently the mowing is stirring up bugs, and the birds are taking advantage. Freight barges run up and down the Illinois River here in Central Illinois. Ring-Billed Gulls follow the barges because they churn the water bringing the little fish up to the surface. That makes the Shad easy pickin' for the Gulls.