FOAM LAKE BIRDING
No. 146
We are home
and managed to dodge all the bad weather on the way back. On the birding front the trip back produced
only one event of note. We ran across,
literally, two small flocks of wild turkeys.
In the first instance the flock was crossing the road in no particular
hurry and had traffic stopped for a brief moment. In the second instance a similar sized flock
was feeding alongside the road. Both groups
seemed to be very road wise unlike domestic fowl.
We arrived
in Foam Lake in 22C temperatures only to wake up
next morning to colder temperatures and rain followed by snow the day after
that. I cannot say that I enjoyed the
bad weather but the backyard birding is usually very good during stormy weather
especially if feeders are present. Birds
that are normally secretive and distant will come to feeders in harsh weather
conditions. Hunger is a powerful
motivator. However, once conditions
improved the uncommon backyard birds were gone.
During the
Saturday of the snowfall we had a higher concentration than usual of our
regular visitors such as the Juncos, House Sparrows and Purple Finches. A pair of Fox Sparrows, uncommon at best and
secretive if present, were out in the open feeding on the ground on seeds scattered by birds
from the feeders above. They were joined
by an American Tree Sparrow which seldom comes to towns and was never recorded
in our yard previously. Perhaps the most
surprising of all was a pair of crows feeding on the same seeds that the Fox
and Tree Sparrows were. This was a first
for us. I know that I am in the minority
with this opinion but I simply like crows.
Their arrival every year signals the end of winter and the coming of
spring - a nice thing. Finally, we felt
sorry for the Robins so my wife tossed out a handful of raisins on the snow for
them to eat. They found them but it was
comical watching them struggle with the raisins. Instead of picking up the raisins in their
bills and simply eating them, they tried pecking at them for some reason. The result was that the raisin was driven a
little into the snow. On the next peck
it would sink even deeper and so on until the Robin had its head well into the
snow still chasing the raisin. In
between pecks it would withdraw its head and vigorously spit out the snow that
had loaded up its bill. Eventually the
raisin would be retrieved after which the robin would fly into a nearby tree
and eat it. On that day the birds did
provide us with some amusement.
Both of
this week's pictures were taken during the snow storm so they are not as bright
as I would have liked but they are acceptably clear. The flock of ground feeders include Juncos,
House Sparrows and Purple Finches. The
two crows simply looked cute.
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