*** Update below ***
I’d like to pause from the wonderful squirrel adventures to start catching us up to date. I still have much to share on the squirrel front. But since I’ve clearly not mustered up the storytelling juju to complete that story right now, and since much has happened since then, I’d like to sidestep for a bit and share some smaller adventures.
This was my first year signed up with Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project Feederwatch. With Feederwatch, you basically put out some bird food, and count the birds who show up, then tell them about it. So you need three things to participate: 1. Bird feed and 2. Time to watch for birds to feed, 3. The ability to count small, fluttering numbers of birds.
Well, the spot where I work offers, coincidentally, a nice view of my back stairs — the only spot where I can actually tempt birds with food — so as soon as I heard Feederwatch, I signed myself up.
I had tried, over the years, to tempt birds to my corner of the world, with limited and short-lived success. Hummingbirds came and went. And the vocal and hilarious western scrubjays were regular visitors for a while, calling us awake on weekends when I was late to provide more sunflower seeds. But I am in an exposed spot above the local trees and shrubs, so every time I went away, I had trouble luring them back.
Feederwatch inspired me to try anew. I got a feeder for niger seed — a tiny seed much loved by songbirds. And I mixed some pumpkin seed and millet with the sunflower seeds. I put them out every day and I waited. Six to eight hours a day, working at my computer and glancing out the window. Nothing…. nothing…. nothing….
Then finally… success!
My lovely chickadees:
Jabbering finches:
I wish I could see/hear/smell what they do — clearly there are times when they’re super nervous and times when they chirp and eat without a care. Here they are watching for hawks (which we have!):
A moment later, it’s all clear and even the chickadee joins in…
At one point, a new bird showed up. What was it?
I thumbed through my books and What Bird looking for an almost-robin-sized brown bird with reddish underparts and a little mohawk on the male (not pictured), but I couldn’t figure it out. Finally a friend at the SPCA helped me out. She’s a California Towhee!
(They’re very common, but I think I have always mistaken from a distances as robins.)
But I still have a mystery bird…
Who is striped like a finch, eats like a finch, but grows considerably bigger? When he’s around alone, I think he’s just a healthy finch, but around company, it’s clear he’s something else. Any ideas?
***UPDATE****UPDATE****UPDATE****UPDATE***
In browsing through a random bird book at the library, I stumbled across a photo of my mystery bird — a Fox Sparrow!
According to Cornell University’s All About Birds website, the Fox Sparrow is…
“A large, boldly striped sparrow of scrubby boreal forest and mountain chaparral, the Fox Sparrow is most familiar as a migrant or wintering bird. Its vigorous ‘double-scratching,’ kicking backward in ground litter with both feet to uncover food, often draws attention to its presence under a bird feeder.” (– which it did!)
Funnily, the What-Bird website calls him a “large, chubby sparrow….” and points out that the upper mandible is dark and the lower is yellow. And I thought he had just hurt himself!
FYI, Mr. Fox has four different forms across the country (that some think are different species — I assume battles wage on this point). Here’s what Cornell says about the western form:
“The large-billed form has a gray back, reddish wings and tail, and a very thick bill. It breeds from central Oregon southward through California, and winters in California.”
That thick bill threw several of us off, but now we know who you are, Mr. Fox… Come scratch by my feeder anytime, you big fat kook!
To read for yourself, go here and enjoy: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Fox_Sparrow/id
Also: http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/145/behavior/Fox_Sparrow.aspx
Thanks for playing, Stacy!
I’m guessing a grosbeak?