Birders Unite

[Sir William Marcus]

Congrats on your new arrivals Escarlata. They are defientely a joy to watch.

Here are a couple of our little visitors. Sorry the photo quality isn't the best. I Had to zoom in through a window.

[Sir William Marcus]

The upside down gang

[Lady Christina de Pond]

sir william those are some lovely humming birds. I've had some pretty close encounters with our humming birds they zoom around so fast one brushed my ear the other week with the tip of it's wing and I've looked up to have one inches from my face studing me. I can't begin to tell you how much sugar they have went thru this year.

[PurpleDragon]

We occasionally have hummingbirds all over the place here at work.  There are a number of crepe myrtal trees on the grounds.  The problem is the windows are "mirrored" and they will occasionally slam into the windows going after the trees they see reflected there. Sadly, some of them do not make it, but on one occasion, I was seated in a chair, heard the thump and felt something hit my shoulder. I looked and what do I see?  I saw a humming bird that had hit the window and stunned itself laying on my should with his wings spread out.  I reached up and picked him up and had him perched on my finger for about 2 minutes while he got his bearings back.  I walked him over to the grassy area and let him go, he flew off, then came back and landed on my shoulder for a second and took off again toward the trees.  It was almost as if he came back to say "Thank You" for helping him.

[Sir William Marcus]

The problem is the windows are "mirrored" and they will occasionally slam into the windows going after the trees they see reflected there. Sadly, some of them do not make it

A quick fix to that problem

http://www.absolutebirdcontrol.com/windowalert.htm

[Escarlata]

My feathered friends are not happy right now. With the *humph* "Hurricane" preparation, we brought in all the feeders. The birds keep landing on the platform looking for food. I saw one of the juvenile male cardinals lean down and taste the aluminum yesterday.

Hopefully the storm will be gone in a couple of days and we can get some feed back out to them. In the meantime, I have a bunch of wet pissed off birds looking at me all day.

[Lady Christina de Pond]

lol yeah if you let our humming birds run out of sugar water they will let you know about it.  I was bringing one feeder back outside after filling it up and one came zipping up and was inches from me when he realizes that i'm the big human thing that keeps feeding them and he zooms off and sits in the yellow bell bush until i hang up the feeder.  and then my wrotten cat decided he wanted to harash them and was on the back stoop just watching

[Escarlata]

Thought that we might not see any of the little birds for a while after this mornings visitor. Leinad looked out the window to find a Merlin sitting in the tangerine tree. I knew we had several hawks around but had never seen one get this close to the house. It hopped from branch to branch through the tree, then took off. It didn't take the little ones long though, a female cardinal is at the feeder now, though she is looking around more than eating.

[Sir William Marcus]

We have a Cooper Hawk that visits our feeders

[Sir William Marcus]

Surviving Winter, the Bird Way

Just as we rely on coats, hats and mittens to keep us warm in the face of winter's icy grip, birds employ a number of methods to survive the adversity of winter. And you can help!

Food is the most essential element, providing birds with the energy, stamina and nutrition they need. To stay warm, birds will expend energy very quickly, some losing up to 10% of their body weight on extremely cold nights. An ample supply of high-calorie foods such as black oil sunflower, insects and suet is crucial to a bird's survival.

We can play a vital role, as feeding the birds becomes critical when extremely cold conditions occur. At these times, a supply of food can mean the difference between life and death for a bird.

Most birds will adjust their feathers to create air pockets that will help them keep warm. You will often notice the birds look fatter or "puffed up" during cold weather. This is because the birds are fluffing up their feathers; the more air space, the better the insulation.

Staying warm is not all about food and feathers though. Some birds perch on one leg at a time, drawing the free leg to their breast for warmth. Most birds will shiver for short term adjustments to the cold. Shivering converts muscular energy into heat for the short term, but the energy must be replenished shortly thereafter.

While birds are equipped to withstand most winter weather, survival can be made easier by providing food, a heated, open source of water and protection from the elements with natural plant cover or a roosting box.

Remember,  high-energy foods will help your birds brave the cold snap!

[Escarlata]

Sir William, I can't keep the finch feeder full this week, they're going through it so fast. The suet and flax seed lasts a little longer but not much. At least here in Florida, we've not had a freeze yet so water has stayed readily available.

[Sir William Marcus]

Sounds like your doing a great job Escarlata!

Are your finch feeders being invaded by house finches & sparrows?  Because they can empty feeders in no time.  I personally like to cater to goldfinches and a good way to do that is with a "upside down feeder" from Perky Pet Products.

http://www.ablackhorse.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=713

Goldfinches can feed upside down where others can't and in turn save you a boatload of seed from invasive visitors like, dirty ole house finches & house sparrows.

Something to think about

[Blue66669]

Too bad that bats don't count as birds, cause thems, mosquitoes, and giant roaches are the only thing that we have flying around in my neighborhood...

*damn tree roaches, they scare the peewaddlin out of me*

[Sir William Marcus]

Hey Blue,
A lot of people attract bats to their yards.  We have two bat houses ourselves here at the fortress to help control the mosquito population during the summer months.  They're really neat.

http://www.batconservation.org/content/Bathouseimportance.html

[Escarlata]

Aye, the small feeder does get invaded by the sparrows, but usually only if the seed I scatter on the ground for them has been used up. The other thing that plagues our feeders are the doves. Not so bad now that we rearranged things a little, removing places for them to take up roost.

The house finches I don't mind as we only have one pair. The titmice and black-cap chickadees are the most frequent visitors to the small feeder but I've had three new breeds show up this week. First were the Winter Wrens, then a pair of Grey Catbirds, and yesterday a pair of Ruby-Crowned Kinglets.

I've tried the upside feeders here and they've set full for weeks on end, no one visiting. I've only seen two gold finches in the 5 years that I've watched the feeders.

By the way, I love the What Bird search engine for determining who's visiting the feeders. That's how I figured out what the different kinds are. It's so easy to plug in the different things you can see. If you select "Icons" at the bottom of the search results list, it'll show you pictures beside the names. Much easier to figure out who you're seeing.

Oh, and if anyone has trouble with squirrels invading your feeders, try the flax seed. The birds all enjoy it but we've only had one squirrel show up since we started feeding flax and he didn't stay long.