Foam Lake Birding No. 178

FOAM LAKE BIRDING

No. 178

            Although we are experiencing our longest lasting heat wave this year there are sure signs that fall is underway.  Some trees are starting to shed their leaves and the goldenrod and fall asters are in full bloom.  I always have mixed feelings at this time of year.  Seeing crops being swathed brings back memories of the feelings of excitement at the thought of being rewarded for a hard summer's work.  However, with a new school year just around the corner the excitement was somewhat muted.  Not only did we have to attend school each and every day but upon getting home we had to unload the grain trucks and trailers that had been filled during the day.  As there were no hydraulics this meant a lot of hard shoveling.  Still, it was a fun time and the closest I come to it now is the picking of cherries and apples in our yard.  Not quite the same thing. 

            On the birding front geese are starting to flock and many of the fall warblers that have nested in the Boreal Forest are in town.  As of this writing I have seen the Palm, Tennessee, Orange Crowned, Yellow Rumped (Myrtle), Wilson's and Blackpoll Warblers.  Although the males are quite distinct and easy to identify in the spring they moult into very drab colours for the winter and look much like the females.  Even the differences between species is not very significant.  For those birders who like challenges identifying fall warblers will provide just that.  Binoculars, bird books and sharp eyes are essential. 

            We did have the pleasant surprise of seeing a Blue Headed Vireo in our chokecherries picking at gnats.  The bird is not a rarity by any means but it is uncommon especially in town and can be seen only in the spring and fall.  One day our feeder was visited by a mother House Finch with her four youngsters.  Now House Finches are common but evidence of them nesting locally is a first for me.  Our fall flowers have attracted juvenile Ruby Throated Hummingbirds that are preparing themselves for their winter migration to Central America.  This year they seem to be more numerous than usual and frequently there are two or three birds at the flowers at any one time.  Nice. 

            This week's photo is of an unexpected event - at least for me.  We have one male Flicker that actually eats chokecherries.  I managed to get a good shot of him feasting on said chokecherries. 

Foam Lake Birding No. 133

FOAM LAKE BIRDING


No. 133

With the recent onset of winter the late fall birding doldrums are over. There are few winter birds as such, but many of the permanent residents that breed away from the proximity of man are back in town. Since the snowfall our backyard has seen a lot of activity with the arrival of Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Ravens, Magpies, Chickadees, Blue Jays, the ubiquitous House Sparrow and a lone Northern Flicker. We are now waiting for some more of our usual visitors like the White and Red Breasted Nuthatches. Two winter birds, the Northern Shrikes and Pine Grosbeaks are already here. With a little luck we might even see several more irruptive species such as Bohemian Waxwings, Redpolls and Evening Grosbeaks.

Of the birds listed above two are somewhat unexpected as they usually migrate a little bit to the south of us. The flicker is only one of two local woodpeckers that migrate at all and it goes just south of the Canadian border. Of all the years that I have been watching birds I have never seen a flicker in the winter until two years ago at our daughter's place in Saskatoon. It was at her feeders at Christmas time with the temperature at -35C.

Another bird that I have seen only once before in the winter is the Blue Jay (see Article No. 98). According to the range maps in the bird books the Blue Jay migrates just out of the Boreal forest and should be a permanent resident here. However, the jay seems to behave much like the House Finch (see Article No. 7) and does go somewhere a little more pleasant with larger urban centres being the preferred choice.

Even more to our surprise, four juvenile Cedar Waxwings spent one day in our yard last week. Although they do not migrate very far south, I have never seen a Cedar Waxwing this late in the year. Perhaps there are a few more surprises awaiting us.

Coincidentally, as we were enjoying the Blue Jay in our yard this past week, we happened to watch a half hour TV sitcom whose theme centred around a jay that landed on the window ledge of the actors' apartment and refused to leave. Comedy aside, the jay was referred to as a Blue Jay when in fact it was a Mexican species, the Magpie Jay (see Article No. 42). I then recalled watching a TV show several decades ago about a duck that needed help. I do not remember much about it except the "duck", when finally shown, turned out to be a Canada Goose. If there is any point to all this it would be to be careful about what you hear and see on TV.

This week's pictures are of a Blue Jay and Northern flicker eating peanuts at a peanut feeder in our backyard. Both birds also helped themselves to black oil seeds with the jay hauling off mouthfuls to store somewhere for future use.

Foam Lake Birding No. 71

FOAM LAKE BIRDING
No. 71
I have covered a variety of bird feeders and feedstock in the last several articles. Hopefully, this information helps readers to attract more birds and more species of birds to their yards. There is one more article on the “back burner”, as it were, covering nectar and fruit eating birds, but it will have to wait until spring.
In this article, summer resident and transient birds that over-winter will be covered. What gave me the idea to deal with this subject is that I have seen three such species this winter alone, whereas, I have only seen one example before – a pair of Brewers Blackbirds spent the winter at our place on the farm in the early 1960s. The birds alluded to above are: the Northern Flicker (yellow shafted form). Dark Eyed Junco (slate coloured form) and Pine Siskins. None of these birds are highly migratory, so their being here is not that great a surprise, but a surprise nonetheless.
One of the great wonders and mysteries of nature is the annual migration of birds. An even greater mystery is why the odd migratory bird does not migrate – something it is born to do. In most cases these deviants perish before spring arrives. Contrary to the widely held belief that these birds freeze to death, they in fact most often starve to death. Seed eaters, such as juncos and siskins do quite well, but insect eaters almost never survive a Saskatchewan winter, and the ones that do have to change diets and be lucky.
From time to time, robins are reported being seen in the winter, but seldom after January. Even though their diet of fruit may have kept them alive well into the winter, but in the end that is not enough. They simply starve. Reports of small flocks of robins in late February and early March are cases of mistaken identity. In these cases what people think are robins are actually Pine Grosbeaks that have moved down from the north. To the casual observer a robin sized bird with lots of red on it seems to be a robin (what else could it be?) and is reported as such. One has to keep in mind that robins that try to over-winter usually come in ones and sometimes in twos, but never in flocks. Finally, no birds return “too” early in the spring only to face starvation. Some insect eaters, such as robins, do return somewhat early only because they can survive several weeks, if necessary, on fruit that has stayed on trees over the winter.
Another problem faced by over-wintering birds is dehydration. Most birds (and livestock for that matter) will not eat snow and require water, and therefore, over-wintering birds that do manage to avoid starvation face death from dehydration. This, in fact, is why the efforts of fish and game organizations in releasing pheasants into the wild locally, in the hopes of establishing a permanent population, have largely failed. The winters must be such that temperatures rise above freezing from time to time creating water puddles that birds can drink from. The weather that we have had the last couple of weeks would have done just that, but it cannot be counted on from year to year. This year over-wintering birds would have been in luck – at least for the time being.
This week I have included two photos of over-wintering birds. One is of Pine Siskins feeding on the ground in our back yard; the other photo is of a flicker and some House Finches feeding on the ground in our daughter’s yard in Saskatoon on Christmas day when temperatures were in the -30C range. I have not seen flickers nor juncos in our yard, but the siskins are still here, so be on the lookout for them.