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Birds The more I have watched birds (these are town or seaside birds) the more aware I become of the amount of free time these little critters seem to have. On my way to work I walk past a bush full of sparrows - constant twittering from the bush. I check at lunchtime - still twittering. Going home - still twittering. I lurk for a while - they aren't twittering because I'm there - the twittering is what they do.

The most obviously industrious birds are what we in the UK call 'Trotty Wagtails' - small black and white birds that look like they're clockwork - they spend all day scouring the pavements for (apparently) nothing. In the evening there is a tree in the town centre full of these little birds all twittering away - I don't know when they start or finish but they certainly have a substantial amount of time to spend twittering.

Seagulls (my seagulls - another story) that I watch from my window spend at least half the day watching the sea (as do I). In fairness a gull can go and catch a fish and once it''s done that it can do whatever it likes for the rest of the day.

The gulls I have watched - the male gets bored with feeding the chicks after a few days (too much like hard work) leaving the female to feed the brood on her own. My avatar is of one chick hatched four days before the other. You can almost see them growing. The chicks aren't uncritical - on one occasion I saw them reject what mum had brought for them - she ate it herself.

The first chick left the nest at the first opportunity - born to fly and looking forward to it from the moment of hatching. The second (Junior B) was more problematic - preferring to walk rather than fly. IF I could understand seagull I am quite sure I would have seen a phase of "You will eat this [huge fish] NOW,". "You will practice flying NOW.". "Today you will fly off this roof.". For the next few weeks we saw mum teaching Junior B how to beg for scraps from tourists (cute and polite).

Starlings - everybody has starlings - another time.

(May 30, 2018 12:08 AM)confused2 Wrote: [ -> ]. . . On my way to work I walk past a bush full of sparrows - constant twittering from the bush. I check at lunchtime - still twittering. Going home - still twittering. I lurk for a while - they aren't twittering because I'm there - the twittering is what they do.

Curious and a bit extraordinary that the house sparrow is declared to be in decline in the UK (at one time didn't feel that was possible anywhere). Would a be cause for celebration across the plastic-waste pool, but it's an invasive species there.

Quote:The most obviously industrious birds are what we in the UK call 'Trotty Wagtails' - small black and white birds that look like they're clockwork In the evening there is a tree in the town centre full of these little birds all twittering away - I don't know when they start or finish but they certainly have a substantial amount of time to spend twittering.

The pied wagtail seems to have acquired countless colloquial names. Apparently Alaska is the only place where the genus ever touches the New World -- usually the White Wagtail and occasionally the Eastern Yellow Wagtail.

Quote:[...] - they spend all day scouring the pavements for (apparently) nothing. [...] Starlings - everybody has starlings - another time. [...]

A variety of birds are claimed to routinely hang-out on the large parking lots of Walmart, searching for often near-invisible customer scraps. As illustrated in this video here (which looks staged to me). But starlings / grackles are usually what a passerby glimpses dominating -- the quantity illustrated in this video is probably rare or seasonal, though.

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(May 30, 2018 04:05 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]A variety of birds are claimed to routinely hang-out on the large parking lots of Walmart, searching for often near-invisible customer scraps. As illustrated in this video here (which looks staged to me).

We have a woodpecker who pecks on the rain gutter of our apt bldg every day. It is loud and sounds like a machine gun going off. This morning he started at about 6 AM. I have gone thru about 10 different scenarios in my mind of how to kill that bastard. But he is too high to reach. Birds. Forget about it!

Them's city birds. Gutters, asphalt and shopping carts provide a natural setting for the urban fowl. The country birds I observe won't even touch bread crumbs or French fries. Must admit that I have no idea what city birds peck at on paved roads. I've gone and looked, saw nothing and nearly got run over. 

I have had 4 species of woodpecker visit my feeders. One has learned to take a sunflower seed, stick it in the crack of a wooden post close by and then hammer it until it's opened. I live next to the Niagara River and because it is on the migratory path of many birds it is not unusual to see a bird you've never seen before, every now and then.

(May 30, 2018 07:47 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]Them's city birds. Gutters, asphalt and shopping carts provide a natural setting for the urban fowl. The country birds I observe won't even touch bread crumbs or French fries. Must admit that I have no idea what city birds peck at on paved roads. I've gone and looked, saw nothing and nearly got run over.

Same here, often, when I tried to find out what the heck the blackbirds were so crazy about in a parking lot. But I'm still convinced it was mostly bits of snacks (peanuts, crumbs, raisins, etc) that the customers were unintentionally dropping.

Quote:I have had 4 species of woodpecker visit my feeders. One has learned to take a sunflower seed, stick it in the crack of a wooden post close by and then hammer it until it's opened.

Now that you mention it, I do remember red-bellied woodpeckers eventually doing that whenever the suet feeders became empty or weren't put out for some reason. Unlike the jays, they weren't as mean or scary to the other birds despite also being larger.

Years ago my grandparents (for awhile) bought a brand of dog food that looked like oily nuggets of compacted Frito-Lay corn chips blended with another (separate) component that resembled a darker version of egg pellets. The woodpeckers from the woods (and even an audacious crow) were crazy about the yellow nugget bits, gobbling up anything that the dogs left behind. It wasn't until as kids we started making homemade bird suet (largely corn meal mixed with lard) that I grokked the resemblance between the two and why the carnivorous canted birds were so passionate about the golden (dog-food) nuggets.

Quote:I live next to the Niagara River and because it is on the migratory path of many birds it is not unusual to see a bird you've never seen before, every now and then.

Only had feeders out during the cold months, so usually just visits from chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, cardinals, juncos, buntings, and occasional goldfinches during their dull-colored period; and rarely a house finch during the winter. Cedar waxwings, too, but they were there for the hackberries and cedar berries rather than the feeders. Robins would gather and travel in flocks through the woods during winter, but never seemed interested in anything lawns sported until springtime returned. Wrens would also visit the suet feeders.

Never bothered with a surrounding cage or something to keep the larger, aggressive jays away from feeders. But similar to a snake and racoon barrier for bluebird houses attached to metal poles, did put a similar contraption under the separate sunflower and millet feeders to obstruct the squirrels trying to climb up the poles. (Had to maintain an empty perimeter to prevent them from jumping from nearby, elevated objects, too.) Seeds fell to the ground, so only hoggish motivations for their trying to reach the source.

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Quote:Seeds fell to the ground, so only hoggish motivations for their trying to reach the source. 

I let the squirrels take what they need because they spill more on the ground and for the birds it's much easier to pick off ground than pull from feeder openings. Doves especially love it. Witnessed many mating rituals, fledglings and nest builders over the years. Oh, and raptors on the hunt. I wonder how many birds were built from the food provided and I constantly wonder how much of the energy required to fly does a seed contain?

During the murmurating season the local starlings line up on the cables holding up the promenade lights. Each bird is exactly one wingspan from the next so late arrivals have to join from one end or the other. Every once in a while a bird will decide it hasn't got quite enough space so it will take a step (say) to the left - forcing every bird to its left to take a step to the left. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that a certain amount of mischief isn't involved as these adjustments are (sometimes) repeatedly caused by the same bird. If the bird to the right of the mischievous bird judges the gap is too big it will take a step to the left causing all the birds to the right to take a step to the left - so closing up the gap. It does seem "stop messing about" is also passed along the line. It may be that the birds on the promenade are trainees as individual birds (or small groups) often link up with the flock while it is in (amazing) formation flying mode.

A superior observer would probably be able to identify the cue or leader that signals 'take off now' - I am not a superior observer. Maybe next time.

(May 30, 2018 11:05 PM)confused2 Wrote: [ -> ]During the murmurating season the local starlings line up on the cables holding up the promenade lights. Each bird is exactly one wingspan from the next so late arrivals have to join from one end or the other. Every once in a while a bird will decide it hasn't got quite enough space so it will take a step (say) to the left - forcing every bird to its left to take a step to the left.  It is difficult to escape the conclusion that a certain amount of mischief isn't involved as these adjustments are (sometimes) repeatedly caused by the same bird. If the bird to the right of the mischievous bird judges the gap is too big it will take a step to the left causing all the birds to the right to take a step to the left - so closing up the gap. It does seem "stop messing about" is also passed along the line. It may be that the birds on the promenade are trainees as individual birds (or small groups) often link up with the flock while it is in (amazing) formation flying mode.

A superior observer would probably be able to identify the cue or leader that signals 'take off now' - I am not a superior observer. Maybe next time.

I’m surrounded by vineyards.  I love watching them.  

Flocking behavior (wikipedia.org)

(May 30, 2018 10:27 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:Seeds fell to the ground, so only hoggish motivations for their trying to reach the source. 

I let the squirrels take what they need because they spill more on the ground and for the birds it's much easier to pick off ground than pull from feeder openings. Doves especially love it.

These squirrels had an entire oak and hickory woodland to collect and store acorns and nuts for the winter. They really were wealthy moochers edging out the birds rather than desperate cases.

Particularly wanted to keep the rodents away from the sunflower feeder. In addition to mounting a predator / squirrel baffle on the pole, even put a wooden platform immediately under the feeder to prevent as few seeds as possible from reaching the ground. Sunflower seed cost more and the chickadee, titmouse, nuthatch and so forth exclusively depended upon it (along with even more expensive suet, if available). Sources claim that chickadees eat millet, but I never saw the black-capped ones do anything but completely ignore grain, no matter how bad the weather was.

Just like northern cardinals or redbirds, the squirrels could get along perfectly fine with cheaper millet/milo minus gobbling up the oily seed intended for those other birds. (Not that it mattered that cardinals could and did visit both feeders. And this purely pertained to merely assisting their survival during the winter -- not all the additional nutrients and energy they needed when reproducing and fighting in warm weather.)

When multiple squirrels started obstructing all the ports of the grain feeder from the redbirds as well as hogging what fell to the ground, that's when we mounted a squirrel guard under it, too. As well as another wooden platform (plenty of millet and milo would still roll off for the rodents). When doves, purple finches, and house finches showed up in late winter or early spring, they'd fly up to the platform with the redbirds when the squirrels were dominating the situation on the ground. Seems like I vaguely remember the juncos occasionally doing that as well (easy to forget those little characters hanging around because they did usually like the ground more).

Quote:Witnessed many mating rituals, fledglings and nest builders over the years. Oh, and raptors on the hunt. I wonder how many birds were built from the food provided and I constantly wonder how much of the energy required to fly does a seed contain?

Not sure about the energy, but even a few seeds seemed to give them quite a boost in blizzards, ice storms, and general horrid / frigid cold.

Though the territorial claims of same species birds would have prevented a large amount of traffic, wish we had kept the feeders going through warm and hot weather to see what events they might attract (especially the goldfinches when the male plumage finally did turn bright yellow).

Back then, I hated cowbirds for laying in cardinal nests; and the latter couple usually being too dumb to notice they were feeding an alien at the expense of their own young. Squeaky wheels get the grease, and a baby cowbird is a lot louder when it's hungry.

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