Weekend Bird Notes

It’s a long President’s Day weekend for us, and mostly this weekend
has been all about nature.  Frankly, many of our days revolve
around what’s going on in the backyard, but this weekend the natural
world has really taken center stage.  For one thing, the robins are
back.  In three winters this is the earliest I’ve seen them. 
We saw nine on Valentine’s Day, and yesterday, Katydid counted
twenty-three eating the old crabapples from the tree in the
sideyard.  I have a feeling there were more like thirty or forty,
but twenty-three was the best count we could get.  They even came
up to the house and ate from the seed block, which they usually do not
do, but we had quite a bit of snow and ice cover yesterday, and the
ground is frozen.  I guess they’ll take what they can get.

This weekend also happens to be the Great Backyard Bird Count. 
Last night Katydid and I entered our count of the day (it was a busy
counting day, happily) and spent some time fiddling with the data.  The robin map
seems to confirm my unscientific observation that the robins are back
earlier this year.  If you go back through earlier years, you’ll
see that the big flocks of robins appear mainly in the South.  But
this year New Yorkers and New Englanders are reporting groups of 15 or
more.  Do they know something we don’t know?  Or is it just
that with all the ice we’ve had lately, the food sources they use deep
in the woods are inaccessible?

According to Mr. G, the naturalist at the arboretum who leads all the
activities in which the kids participate (most recently, a Winter
Ecology walk on Saturday), robins don’t actually leave these cold
places.  Instead they mass together in large flocks in the woods
and only come out in the spring.  Apparently there are reports from
Green Co., New York (in the Catskills, I believe) of a flock of 5,000 robins.  How they counted them, I have no idea. 

Here’s the list from our busy bird count day:

• 23 robins
• 4 downy woodpeckers (2 male, 2 female)
• 1 red-bellied woodpecker
• 1 pilleated woodpecker (!)
• 4 chickadees
• 2 white-throated sparrows
• 4 juncos
• 4 starlings
• 1 white-breasted nuthatch
• 2 crows

We saw the pilleated woodpecker by chance, just as we were pulling
into the driveway after Mass.  Andy saw something big and black
flap through the woods.  We have a lot of crows around here, but
this black thing was streaked with white.  Then it clung to a tree
and showed its red head.  I didn’t have my camera with me, but last year I did.  I wonder if it’s the same bird?

Our usual cast of birds has been much smaller and more
reliable.  We don’t have too many feeders, and the only ones that
are routinely visited in the winter are the seed block and a suet feeder
which hangs over it.  Both are in the warmest, snow-free corner of
our L-shaped house, which also happens to be right outside our large
dining room window.  I recently bought a hanging feeder for black
oil sunflower seeds on a tip from Dawn,
but we haven’t had a chance to hang it yet.  I set it out on the
patio table anyway.  The chickadees and squirrels have found it,
but it is my dearest wish to attract a cardinal. 

Here’s a chickadee, one of our steadfast winter companions:

Photo credit: Katydid

We also see a pair of downy woodpeckers at the suet feeder:

Photo credit: Katydid

This morning it’s 50 degrees and half our snow melted overnight.  The squirrels have taken over the seed block:

I suppose I am also feeding the mice, but you know… if the mice have food to eat outside, maybe they won’t feel the need to come inside.

And besides, I like juncos, which are primarily ground-feeding birds :

 

Photo credit: Katydid