Late Winter Catch-up

It's been a brutal winter, and here it is the fourth week of March and we're still getting snow and well-below-normal temperatures. Here are a few of the photos I've taken from inside my house recently. The squirrels have been showing great gymnastic ability. The deep snow makes the squirrel baffles less effective, but I don't begrudge them the sustenance. They still work pretty hard for it.

I love it when the light hits the red spot on the back of a male downy or hairy woodpecker's head. This is a downy on our suet log -- note the tiny, pencil-point beak. So cute.

I like this final shot of a female cardinal, which shows how they turn seeds into an up-and-down orientation to crack the shells. And I rarely get this nice a few of a bird's eye. As always, click on the photo for a larger view.

Spring is getting here, even though it doesn't feel very springy. Recent phenology notes:

• We started seeing a robin on our (snow-covered) lawn about two weeks ago. A few nights ago, friends on social media were reporting large flocks of them in treetops and on the ground. Some robins do stay year-round, but they suddenly seem to be more prominent.
• Red-winged blackbirds were trilling in the trees by the Cannon River yesterday.
• My friend Mary of the My Northern Garden blog reported seeing a great blue heron in flight near the wetlands off the east end of Jefferson Parkway.
• A few days ago I saw a crow on Woodley Street with nesting material in its beak
• Birder Dave Bartkey of Faribault reported an osprey flying overhead, north of Faribault, which he said was by far his earliest date for this species.

There is hope! Hang in there. 

Red-bellied Woodpecker at Suet Feeder

A red-bellied woodpecker, always one of my favorite sights, visited our suet log feeder last weekend. You can tell this one is a male because the red cap extends all the way down to its bill in front. You can see a glimpse of his long tongue in the second photo. This feeder is popular with woodpeckers and chickadees.

Avian Pox

Last week a friend and I noticed a lone house finch staying quietly on the ground outside my front door when we walked outside. We stopped to watch it, and after a couple of attempts it managed to fly to a perch on the nearby tube feeder. I expected to see the crusted-over eyes of House Finch eye disease, mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, since we have occasionally seen birds with this debilitating condition, as I wrote about in 2010. However, this bird's eyes were not crusted-over or weepy, but one was greatly overshadowed by a warty-looking bump and there was another bump on its beak. (Now that I look at the 2010 photos, I can see a bump on that bird's beak too, which I didn't notice at the time.)

I consulted my ornithologist friend Dan Tallman, who pointed me to information about avian pox, sometimes abbreviated AVP. This is a disease that affects a wide range of both commercial poultry and wild birds. Warty growths appear on non-feathered areas of affected birds; there is also a variant that affects the mucous membranes and causes breathing problems. It's caused by a virus that can be spread by mosquitoes, by direct transmission between birds, and by contaminated surfaces like feeders. (More info: AVP and conjunctivitis in birds at feeders | Pox from a commercial fowl science perspective)

We've taken down the tube and hopper feeders the finches tend to use, to minimize the risk of transmission between birds at the feeders, and will sanitize them before putting them back up. It's a good practice to clean and sanitize (using a solution of nine parts water to one part bleach) bird feeders every couple of weeks, and if signs of illness are present, more often. Let them dry thoroughly before refilling. (More info: Tips on feeder maintenance)

Youngsters at the Feeders

This week has been marked by a delightful series of visits of young blue jays, orioles, downy woodpeckers and house finches to our feeders. Sometimes their first-year plumage identifies them (the palest orange tinge of the juvenile female oriole, or the red patch on top of the downy woodpecker's head), but for most there is also a clean, fresh look about them and sometimes a charming cluelessness. And sometimes their sheer numbers are the tip-off. The blue jays that used to come one or two at a time now often arrive as a family of five, and the house finches mob the hopper feeder in a constant battle for the best spots.

Young blue jay eating suet

Juvenile female Baltimore oriole on hummingbird feeder

Downy woodpecker - juvenile has red on top of head

Pileated Woodpecker at Our Suet Log

A wish came true this week, as twice we have seen a pileated woodpecker at the suet log that hangs from the maple tree in front of our house -- and today I was able to grab my camera and capture the moment. The first time, last Sunday, I posted on Facebook about the impact of the sighting: "Freaking amazing - first-ever sighting of a pileated woodpecker at our house a few minutes ago, feeding from a log-style suet feeder. Our jaws were down around our knees."

This is a huge woodpecker, nearly the size of a crow. I've only seen a pileated a handful of times before, and until now not anywhere near this close. When seen in flight from below, it shows large areas of white bordered with black. In February I wrote about one I'd seen flying in our neighborhood, and included someone else's terrific YouTube video that shows the striking black and white wings in flight.

It's a female, incidentally. The red cap on a male extends down in front all the way to the top of the bill, and males also have a red "mustache" where the female has a black marking at the side of the bill. Biologist and bird-bander Dan Tallman captured, literally, a male pileated woodpecker in his banding net a few miles from here recently and has a great photo of it here. Actually, it turned out that he had recaptured it; it bore a band showing he had banded it in 2010.

For size contrast, see below on this same suet log a red-bellied woodpecker, which at roughly the size of an American robin is a good-sized bird in its own right. At 9 inches in length compared to the pileated's 15.7 to 19.3 inches, it is only about half the length of the pileated and weighs only a quarter as much.

By the way, pileated can be pronounced either with a long or short initial I: py-lee-ated or pill-ee-ated, though the long-I pronunciation is listed first in both the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary. The word essentially means with a crest, or cap.

We are thrilled that we now seem to be familiar territory for this impressive bird and that we can add the pileated woodpecker to our "yard bird" list.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak - Immature Male

Late Thursday afternoon a male rose-breasted grosbeak was feeding from a caged feeder designed to exclude larger birds such as itself. It was quite successful in reaching its head through the cage to retrieve spilled sunflower chips from the bottom.

After I took the photos and did some research, I realized that this is an immature male in its first breeding season. When in full breeding plumage, a mature male's head will be fully black, the rose color will deepen, and the brownish streaks will disappear, leaving the bird with its stunning black, white and rose-red coloring.

What a beautiful bird.

On this date in 2011, I posted a photo of a male and female (shown below) on one of our other feeders. You can see how the immature male in the photos above is like a blend of the female and the mature male shown below.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak pair (2011)

May Snow (Crazy! Enough!)

This was the scene through my living room window at about 7 a.m. yesterday. The official snowfall in Northfield was 6.8 inches.

Here are some of our daffodils, which had just struggled into bud during the warmth of the past week. On Sunday it hit 81 F.!

In this return to winter, I've noticed starlings (above, in tree) coming to eat from our suet feeders, which I don't remember ever happening before. I cropped the photo to show the leaf buds which are finally swelling.

I've read on the MNBird listserv that Baltimore orioles have been sighted in the region, so despite the snow I put grape jelly in the oriole feeder and hung it up this morning. Hummingbirds often arrive around now, as well. 

With very few insects, little spring growth, virtually no flowers yet, and last year's seeds and berries pretty well picked over, birds and other animals are facing a tough situation. Continue to put out a variety of high-quality bird foods (small and larger seeds, nuts, suet, jelly, even hummingbird nectar) to help at least some of them get through this.

Facebook birders were abuzz yesterday over Greg and Linda Munson's photo, shared by the Zumbro Valley Audubon Society (based south of here, where they got even more snow) of a Canada goose faithfully incubating her eggs while chin-deep in the snow. 

Much of the snow melted yesterday, but it is snowing again this morning. That is supposed to turn to rain, and we should be back into the 60s and low 70s in another two or three days. Hang in there, birds and people.

Winter in April and Juncos Galore (with video)

The weather has been on our minds and in our face in Minnesota this week. Just ask this squirrel.

Much-needed rain followed by sleet, snow and more snow have dragged weather more typical of early March into mid-April, and most people are pretty sick of it. There's another weather advisory out for more snow, sleet and freezing rain for tonight and tomorrow morning, and temperatures will remain below normal for some days to come. Sigh.

It's been hard on the animals and birds, as well. We've had plenty of views of robins in the snow, and rabbits came to feed on seed we'd put out by our front steps yesterday.

People in Minnesota have also been commenting on the huge numbers of dark-eyed juncos seen in the last few days. At our house in Northfield, throughout most of the winter we tend to see just a few juncos at a time -- typically just three or four, though occasionally more (we would have more, I'm sure, if we routinely scattered seed on the ground) -- but suddenly this week we were seeing first a dozen, then two dozen, then 30+ at a time.

Below is a short video clip of juncos I took yesterday feeding on seed we scattered for them under our hanging feeders. And yes, that is the juncos you hear in the video. They sound like a video game with "pyew, pyew" shooting noises, don't they? While this was going on, twice as many juncos were feeding under some of our other feeders. We have also seen them trying to eat from the hanging feeders, which -- being ground-feeding birds -- they don't generally do. I previously wrote about the dark-eyed junco in December 2012.

Northfield-based bird bander Dan Tallman reported on Tuesday that he banded 197 juncos this week, including several of the lighter "Oregon race" which are not often seen here. In an earlier post he offers a quick tutorial on the differences between the Oregon junco and our familiar "slate-colored" junco.

Central Minnesota nature blogger Richard of "At the Water" commented on seeing large numbers of juncos this week as well.

We were at Minnesota's annual Bluebird Expo here in Northfield today, and the well-known Minnesota phenologist (one who observes and studies seasonal patterns of animals and plant life) Jim Gilbert, one of the featured speakers, remarked on the large numbers of juncos. Many in the audience raised their hands to indicate that they too had been noticing flocks of juncos in the past few days. In conversation with him later, I asked him if he has seen juncos flocking in such huge numbers in previous years. He said that he has not, and he speculated that the cold front associated with the wet and then wintry weather that hit us this week may have had a "fall-out" effect on migrating birds. When the weather improves, it's likely they will be gone again very quickly.

Speaking of bluebirds, a few have been reported in the state in the past few days. By this time last year (which was truly exceptional), many bluebirds had already nested and laid eggs. This year they face a cold, rather miserable start to their breeding season.

Snowy Afternoon with Woodpecker

A downy woodpecker visited our suet log during the heaviest of Sunday's snow. I liked the image.

Birds with Their Mouths Full

The title of this blog post captures the theme of today's post about birds seen at our feeders last weekend.

As I noted in a recent post about the dark-eyed junco, juncos most often eat on the ground and aren't commonly seen at our hanging feeders. Last weekend I happened to capture this junco's visit to a snow-covered fruit-and-seed block. At this angle the bird appears to be straddling that cage and the nearby wreath-style feeder we use for peanuts in the shell. A sunflower seed is in its beak.

The lighting's not great on this photo of a white-breasted nuthatch, but I liked the face-on position and the half-peanut in its beak.

Here's a male cardinal with a sunflower seed.

It's interesting to watch the different ways birds get seeds and nuts out of their shells. Birds with heavier beaks that are suited to the task, like cardinals and finches, will hold the seed in their beak, manipulate it with the tongue to get it in just the right position to crack the shell between their upper and lower mandible, and then eject the shell halves while retaining the seed. Other birds, like the black-capped chickadee, will hold the seed between their feet and crack the shell by pecking at it until they can get the seed out. And nuthatches get their name from their habit of tucking a nut into a crevice in the bark of a tree and then hacking, or "hatching," it out.

I found a kid-friendly website that does a nice job of showing the various beak adaptations and corresponding eating styles, as well as a lot of other information about bird physiology and behavior: Project Beak (the link shows the "cracking" beak of cardinals, sparrows, grosbeaks and finches; there is a dropdown menu from Beaks on the side menu to see other beak styles). They also have a nifty Build a Bird feature, where you can select different styles of wings, heads, feet and habitats to put together a proper bird or one of your own invention. Here's mine:

Good Weekend for Woodpeckers

This weekend we saw a lot of woodpecker action at our suet feeders and in the big maple tree out front. Our new suet log is popular. We'd had a smaller one the last couple of winters, but it got chewed so much that one of the holes was completely open on one side. This one is much thicker and should be useful much longer.

Red-bellied Woodpecker - male

The first sighting that made me grab my camera was the red-bellied woodpecker (above) - always a beautiful and welcome sight for its large size and dramatic markings. This is a male; the female also has red on her head, but it doesn't extend all the way over the top of the head as it does here. (You can see a female I spotted a couple of months ago here.) This bird stayed around for a long time, visiting the suet occasionally but mainly spending time on an upright dead branch, or "snag," in the upper portion of the maple tree (below).

Red-bellied Woodpecker in tree

Look closely (click on any of the photos to see them larger) and you can see the signs of larvae leaving wormy trails across the wood. That's what the woodpeckers are after.

Let me put in a good word here for leaving dead branches, and even dead trees, in place, where it is safe to do so. In our world of tidy gardens, pristine lawns, and formal landscapes, dead branches or trees are often considered unsightly, and removed. This practice has reduced habitat for cavity-nesting birds, including woodpeckers as well as birds that make use of old woodpecker holes, like bluebirds. One of my resolutions this year is to learn more, and blog more, about gardening with wildlife in mind, sometimes called ecosystem landscaping. Shelter, water, native plants, a variety of natural food sources, and varied nesting habitat are important elements of bird-friendly gardens. If you think about the benefits provided by a dead branch or tree, you may consider it a beautiful part of your landscape. (Note, however, that increased woodpecker activity at an ash tree may be a sign of emerald ash borer infestation.)

Hole in tree -- made by whom? 

The photo above shows a large hole in a good-sized branch of the tree, located much lower than the snag shown above. We first noticed this hole after the leaves dropped this past fall. I'd estimate the hole is three or more inches high. I've tried to keep an eye on it this winter. It's not being used for nesting, of course, at this time of year, but it might certainly be used as a sheltered roosting spot, possibly by smaller birds than the one that excavated it. The only bird I've seen approach it and look in was a white-breasted nuthatch, for which the hole is a huge entry point. During the breeding season, leaves block our view of this branch, so I don't know if we'll learn whose nesting hole it is, although the the two larger woodpeckers we occasionally see here, the red-bellied and the hairy, would seem reasonable guesses given the size of the hole. We've never seen a pileated woodpecker here.


Hairy Woodpecker - female

Speaking of the hairy woodpecker, one showed up this morning. Hairy woodpeckers are about the same size as the red-bellieds, though they apparently have more size variability. They are very similar in appearance to the noticeably smaller and more commonly seen downy woodpecker.

This female (it has no red spot on the head) hairy woodpecker hung around for a while today, so I took advantage of the opportunity to look for clues that quickly tell a watcher that a bird is a hairy woodpecker rather than a downy, since size can be deceiving from a distance. The beak size is a standard distinguishing point -- the downy's beak is small and stubby, less than half as long as the bird's head is deep (from the base of the beak to the back of the head). The hairy's beak is markedly longer -- almost as long as the depth of the head. (The angle of the photos above and below don't show the beak's full length.)

Also, it's my impression that downy woodpeckers move like small birds, with quick, darting movements, while the hairy woodpecker moves in a bit more stately fashion, like the larger bird it is. You'd readily describe a downy woodpecker as "cute," while a hairy woodpecker is a bit more formidable looking. Also, the tail seems to me to give the impression of greater prominence in the hairy. The Cornell Lab describes hairies as having "a somewhat soldierly look, with their erect, straight-backed posture on tree trunks and their cleanly striped heads."

Hairy Woodpecker - female

The suet log is a good point of reference for size. In the two photos above, you can see that the hairy woodpecker covers just about the distance from the top of one suet plug to the top of the one directly below it, a distance which is about four suet-plug diameters in height. In comparison, the downy, below, covers only about three suet plugs in height.


Downy Woodpecker - female

Except for a brief spell a few weeks ago, when we suddenly had a drop-off in birds visiting our feeders, a pair of downy woodpeckers have been regulars at our feeding stations for months. Below are a couple of close views I got of the male downy yesterday at a hopper-style feeder that has suet cages on the sides. He rested on the ledge, then approached the suet from the side. More commonly he and his mate fly directly to the suet cages -- usually, of course, the one we can't see from inside the house.

Downy Woodpecker - male

My friend Dan Tallman has pointed out that while downy woodpeckers tend to have black spots in the white outer tailfeathers, the hairy's outer tailfeathers are unspotted. Note a hint of a black spot on the outer white tailfeather, immediately above, in comparison to the all-white outer tailfeathers of the hairy woodpecker in the two photos earlier in this post. A better view of the tail (and beak) of the hairy can be seen in this post from August 2011, when a hairy visited the tube feeder right outside one of our windows.

Downy Woodpecker - male

It was definitely exciting to get good views of all three of these woodpeckers this weekend. There were even a few times when I could see all three at once. Now I know where to look for the red-bellied woodpecker at the snag near the top of the tree, perhaps I will notice him there more often.

Ring (of Pine Siskins) Around the Rosie

I recently happened to capture this nice threesome of pine siskins encircling our Nyjer (niger) seed feeder. As you can see, the birds were concentrated in the bottom few inches of the feeder because we had let the seed supply run low. When the feeder is full, they tend to arrange themselves more vertically.

In the photo immediately above, you can see (especially if you click on the photo to see it larger) a bit of the yellow feathers on the wings on the bird on the right. A better view of this distinctive splash of yellow can be seen in the photo below, taken in December 2010.

I have written about pine siskins in several earlier posts, collected here.

Life Seen Upside-Down - Happy New Year!

I thank my birding/blogging/Facebook friend Ruthie, of Nature Knitter, for the opportunity to take these photos of a white-breasted nuthatch on her distinctive ball-shaped feeder (a gift, I understand, from another birding/blogging/Facebook friend, Lynne, of Hasty Brook), as seen from Ruthie's dining room on New Year's Day. We were celebrating the birthday of her bubbly, personality-filled dog Holly the Pibble, who could win over a legion of pit bull detractors.

An unusual perspective on a habitually upside-down bird

Thanks to the seemingly dozens of feeding stations visible from Ruthie's windows, I kicked off 2013 with fabulous views of 13 kinds of birds (white-breasted nuthatch, red-breasted nuthatch, house finch, black-capped chickadee, dark-eyed junco, house sparrow, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, northern cardinal and blue jay) in addition to the crows, pigeons, wild turkeys and hawks I'd seen from the highway.

A more normal view of one of my favorite birds

I do love white-breasted nuthatches, as well as their smaller red-breasted cousins. We have both a male and a female very regularly at our peanut feeder at home this year. Last year at about this time I wrote that we had really just started to see the female (assuming it is the same pair), though the male had been a frequent visitor, and that I hoped she'd get more comfortable visiting our feeders. It seems she has.

Female white-breasted nuthatch (Jan. 2011)

I have some more recent photos of the female, but none I like as well as this shot of her soaking up some rays, or maybe just resting and conserving energy, on a very cold but sunny day last January.

This year, may you have interesting encounters with natural places and wild beings. Notice what you see. And, if you like, show someone, or tell someone about it (me, if you like -- in comments here, or email me at penelopedia @ gmail . com. I would love to hear your stories.)

“Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.” 

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dark-eyed Junco

I write today to celebrate the junco. Dark-eyed juncos are members of the sparrow family that are seen only in the colder months here in southern Minnesota and in much of the middle part of the U.S. For this reason they are sometimes called snowbirds. They breed in Canada and Alaska, as well as in year-round territories in northern parts of the Great Lakes states (including northeastern Minnesota), the West and the Northeast.

The junco's pale pink beak is a key identifier, as is the strong contrast between the dark gray or brown top and the white belly. Males and females are similar, though the females' color is more muted. There are regional variations in coloration -- so much so that until the 1980s they were treated as several distinct species. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology notes:

A field guide is the best place to look for complete illustration of ranges and plumages, but in general there are two widespread forms of the Dark-eyed Junco: “slate-colored” junco of the eastern United States and most of Canada, which is smooth gray above; and “Oregon” junco, found across much of the western U.S., with a dark hood, warm brown back and rufous flanks.

Juncos eat seeds and insects and usually feed on the ground, as is typical for sparrows, and so they don't often come to our feeders, though they are often to be seen foraging underneath them. They are regular visitors to our yard, though typically not in large numbers.

Yesterday morning we got a few inches of new snow from the edge of the big storm that shut down Iowa and other midwestern states. The snow covered the typical seed litter under our feeders, and while I was at home at lunchtime, I saw a junco trying to get a peanut from our peanut feeder. That's not a sight I've ever seen before. So I swept away the snow from a section of our front walk and put out some seed on the ground for the juncos.

They are cute little birds, and we're always happy to see them.

24 Pine Siskins!

This weekend Project Feederwatch got started for the season (it runs November to April), and there has been plenty to see. A cold, wet front came through last night, taking us from a record-breaking high of 69 F (official Twin Cities temperature; several sources showed it to be even warmer than that here in Northfield) yesterday afternoon to the upper 50s at midnight to the upper 20s currently. Perhaps as a result of this change in the weather, there was a great deal of activity at our feeders today -- but actually we've had plenty of activity anyway, recently.

However, today there was one noteworthy appearance. In addition to house finches, chickadees, a downy woodpecker, blue jays, dark eyed juncos, and both white-breasted and red-breasted nuthatches, we've had quite an invasion of pine siskins. These are small, streaky finches that are cold-season-only birds for us here in southern Minnesota when they are here at all -- depending on the availability of their preferred seed crops, they may be present in large numbers one winter and barely seen another winter. 

We'd been seeing a couple occasionally for several weeks and then a few days ago Dave counted 14 while I was at work. Today we had at least 24 at the house. I saw many, many in the big maple tree out front (the staging area from which many of our visiting birds approach our feeders), then went over to the small window from which I can take a close look at the feeders they prefer, and at that point (no longer being able to see if some were still in the tree) I counted a dozen on the ground, seven in the caged feeder and five on the sock feeder.

In the photo below, one goldfinch in winter plumage keeps company with four pine siskins. Goldfinches and pine siskins are very similar in size and body style, with small, sharp beaks, but the goldfinches have a clear breast (nicely displayed below) while the siskins are heavily streaked all over.

Goldfinch (center left) and pine siskins

In our four years of feeding birds at this location, and two prior years of keeping nearly weekly count of what we see during Project Feederwatch, this was by far the largest number of one species we've seen at a single time. I think 14 house finches was the highest count we've had before.

Seven (visible) pine siskins

It's been many weeks since my last post here. As I was looking back to see what photos I had taken since the end of summer, I came across this shot of goldfinches at the sock feeder in mid-September. These males were looking a little patchy as they were changing from their brilliant lemon-yellow summer plumage to their more sedate winter plumage (as seen in the top photo above).

Moulting goldfinches in mid-September

Our summer birds have mostly left us by now, and I wonder what kind of winter we have ahead of us. We've had nearly nine months of no winter, since our amazing early warm spell last March (nine months of no winter may be normal many places, but not in Minnesota!), and the winter that came before that was exceptionally mild. I feel ready for the "indoor season" to begin. But I know it's not indoor season for the birds that stay, and they've got hardships ahead. We'll keep our feeders full to help them see it through.