FOAM LAKE
BIRDING
No. 186
Our feeders
are up and our winter birds are slowly showing up. Permanent residents like the Downy and Hairy
Woodpeckers and Red Breasted Nuthatches are at our feeders almost daily. We still have two juncos that have not yet migrated south. They appear to like it here so perhaps they
will stay over winter which they commonly do.
Even a magpie came in and checked things out but did not appear to like
what he saw and left. The only truly
winter bird we have seen to date is the Northern Shrike.
When the
shrike flew into our yard all the small birds scattered and vanished. However, a lone Eurasian Collared Dove just
kept feeding on the ground completely ignoring the shrike. The shrike was persistent and kept
"buzzing" the dove but the dove appeared unconcerned. Eventually, the dove seemed to get tired of
the harassment and flew off into the ash tree quickly followed by the shrike in
hot pursuit. The dove put up with a
little more harassment then flew off out of my sight, again with the shrike in
hot pursuit. Since this incident a pair
of Eurasian Collared Doves has been in our yard daily so it appears that not
much damage was caused by the shrike.
Other than
the Northern Shrike no other winter birds like the Pine Grosbeaks nor Redpolls
have arrived. So. there is still
something to look forward to.
This week's
picture is a bit of a repeat with a pair of Eurasian Collared Doves resting on
our arbour. (In fact, they have just
flown past my window and landed on the power line in the back lane.) They were actually sleeping on the arbour but
by the time I got my camera set up the female woke up and started
preening. A short time later the male
did the same. I decided to show the
doves again because they looked so cute and because the picture provided proof
that the shrike did not have dove for dinner.
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