The Birds in Winter

It is fortuitous that at the same time when the polar vortex is once again upon us, leaving us with temperatures in the teens (F) despite abundant sunshine, I am reading a book about feeding birds and how this activity went from only in winter to all year. I learned of "The Birds at My Table: Why We Feed Wild Birds and Why It Matters" by Darryl Jones thanks to Cornell's Lab of Ornithology, which also recently published a pdf on "Winter Bird Feeding."

Winter feeder (Margo D. Beller)

I have written much over the years in this blog on birds, feeding them and the harshness of winter (type "seed" into the search box in the upper left corner and you'll see them). As the pdf puts it, "If you feed birds, you’re in good company. Birding is one of North America’s favorite pastimes. A 2011 report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that more than 50 million Americans provide food for wild birds."

The report then goes on to remind us all of the importance of helping the birds, what kinds of feeders help which birds the most, feeder placement and the best types of seed and suet to provide, among other considerations. Jones, meanwhile, tries to figure out why we feed wild birds and how the practice of feeding them in winter expanded to all year.

He writes: "The reality is that while wild bird feeding may be a massive enterprise with a global reach, the focus and interest of most individual feeders [the people, not the food implement] is on their own private garden. All those issues and worries may be of provound interest, but unless they affect us directly, they may seem a bit too vague or remote. On the other hand, most feeders are pleased to share their experiences or queries..." Facebook alone has many pages set up by birders in specific regions such as New Jersey and nationwide such as the American Birding Association's reports of rarities across the country.

Watnong Brook, thawing (Margo D. Beller)

But let's go back to bird feeding.

One of my friends puts out seed, suet and peanuts all year. She enjoys watching "her" birds from her bedroom during summer mornings when she is getting ready for work. She puts out liquid for hummingbirds every year, the feeder strategically placed near a pot of bee balm, a known hummer attractant. She used to feed squirrels, too, until they started hitting her bird feeders, including the hummingbird feeder.

I put out seed in fall, when the migrants are moving through, until early spring. In cold times I also put out suet. In midwinter I feel sure no bears will take down my feeders. Otherwise, I take all the feeders in at night. When I see the first reports of hummingbirds in New Jersey, usually after I am no longer putting out seed and suet, I put out sugar water for them. Except for the hummer feeder, which is on a shepherd's crook behind deer netting, the two feeder poles have baffles to keep the squirrels from climbing to the feeders.

My attitude is, when summer comes there are more than enough food sources for the birds and if I want to see them I can leave home for areas where they have been known to show up or have been reported. By late spring it is time to start working in the garden and I am tired of the continual feeding of birds I'd rather not see such as house sparrows. Hummers are another matter: They are hard to find in the wild unless in a garden with a lot of the blooming plants they frequent. Since deer have been known to eat these types of blooms, I don't grow them and provide sugar water instead.

Feeders in winter, before the birds started coming (Margo D. Beller)

Which way is "correct"? Both, depending on the person involved. Some people want to attract or help birds all the time, some want to help during dire conditions, such as the current polar vortex, and leave the birds to fend for themselves and their young during warmer periods. I've been feeding birds for over a decade and am not about to stop even if my feeders bring birds as well as those that feed on them. (Hawks have to eat, too, though I'd prefer it be elsewhere.)

One of the things Jones looks at is whether all this bird feeding is helping or hurting birds. His conclusion is "feeding almost always changes things," but not always in the way we expect. I see many more house finches than titmice nowadays. Cardinals and chickadees must come early to the feeders before the jays arrive and scare them off.

There's more than enough food for all in my yard, but I do wish more people in my neighborhood would join me in this relatively inexpensive bit of conservation that is easy to do and very important.

Feed the birds.

Cold Truths

Only a maniac would be outside on a day when the polar vortex is in town and the air temperature is 3 degrees F but the wind makes it feel like minus 17. We did not get the inches of snow predicted and the sun came out long enough to melt the slush but the bitter, killing cold and wind arrived, just as the weather people said it would.

I am not a maniac, at least not where cold is concerned. I could not even bring out the garbage, much less go looking for birds out in the field.

My favorite winter bird picture. Our snow is gone but the cold remains.
(Margo D. Beller)

Instead, I look out the window.

I have been leaving the feeders out for the past week, sure the bears would be finally hibernating. Today I am sure they are because that is what I feel like doing, too. I have fleece over my pajamas, top and bottom, ready to go back to bed at a moment's notice. First, I go to my sunny office, open the curtains for more warmth than what my hard-working furnace is providing and listen to Bach.

From there I hear cardinals outside, perhaps poking around the hedges behind the deer netting for what they can scare up. I have no doubt they have also been at the house feeder. When I looked out earlier I saw a titmouse fly in. It was all puffed up to keep warm air under its feathers the way you or I would put on many layers to keep our body heat trapped inside. When I put out seed it is the type that has a high fat content to provide energy and thus warmth. Suet has an even higher fat content because suet is rendered fat.

In the past I might've gone out.
Not today. (Margo D. Beller)

It is the coldest day I've experienced in years. It makes me anxious: Will the furnace keep working? Will I be warm enough? Why do I feel the deep need to go outside and get out of the house when I know being outside could literally mean death?

There's an advantage to being a "bird brain" and not having the capacity to worry over the whys and wherefores. You eat and find shelter from the wind and hungry predators or you die. It's as basic as that. When I watch the birds in the bitter cold I feel sorry. I think of homeless human beings and those who are forced by circumstance to have to go out on a day like this and work to make a living and I feel pity for them and anger at the weather, the government officials who can't or won't do the things necessary to make the world better, the state of our world itself. Mostly, I just feel frustrated.

I continue to listen to Bach to stay calm. I see the bare tree branches blowing around, glad we did not lose power so the furnace can keep going. I allow the sun rays to hit me in the eyes because the light and warmth make me feel better. Not even a turkey vulture is flying around now looking for its carrion meal. I think of the last time I fell outdoors, slow to get up. On a day like this that carrion could be me.

Another single-digit cold night is expected but tomorrow is predicted to be "warmer," in the upper 20s. It could be worse, I guess. For now, to use a phrase that has become all too prevalent in a mainly negative way, I shelter in place.

Free Day

Thanks to computers and the Internet, we know about storms days before they strike. This isn't always a good thing. It meant that MH, former Boy Scout, was anxious to get in food supplies days in advance. It meant I cooked enough food so I could have things that only needed to be warmed on the stove top in case we lost power. It meant taking money out to pay the plow guy. In my case it also meant being angry about the inadequacies of this house and of me.

After a relatively snow-free winter, we learned of a snowstorm that would hit last night. We were expecting the worst - six inches of snow followed by an inch of ice and then a drop of 30+ degrees to freeze it all.

I am older now and not enamored of being in the road show of "Frozen." There's a reason why Florida is known as God's waiting room - no shoveling although you do have those pesky hurricanes every summer.

Jan. 20, 2019, pre-plow guy (Margo D. Beller)

But here I am in New Jersey. I woke and looked out the front window and saw it was not as bad as predicted and the town plow had already been through. What was 3 inches of snow last night - the totals had been lessened as we got closer and closer to the actual event - was now 2 inches or so of slush. I went downstairs and opened the back door to push some of it with my shovel. Heavy, as expected. I thought of our 38-foot driveway, mandated by town code, and I thought of MH and me pushing this heavy stuff with our assorted ailments.

I called our plow guy. He seemed surprised to hear from me. But he knew, as I do, that the forecast is for the temperature to fall from a relatively balmy 40 degrees F to about 6 overnight. It will be enough for MH to push stuff off our walkways and for me to check on the feeders I left outside overnight. (I am now certain any self-respecting bear is safely resting in a cave. In effect, that will be what I do for the better part of today and tomorrow.)

Before the storm, MH and I had done as much as we could while we still had power. So today is a free day, free in a sense that my usual Sunday chores are done and, once the shoveling part is done, I can use the day for myself. Were I a younger, more foolish person, I'd be out in the field with my binoculars. I know there are many who are outside now, whether with binoculars or skis. Instead, I will be writing and reading or watching the feeder birds.

They have been coming at a rapid clip. I will smooth a path through the slush to the feeders, clear the slush off them and then withdraw. At least in my yard, they will be fed during the freeze. I remind myself that even if we lose power for a day or so because of frozen tree limbs falling on the power lines, we will survive. The birds, meanwhile, aren't free to relax and must hunt for what food they can find.

Bird Eat Bird

One of the handy books I keep on my shelves of birding guides is "Birds at Your Feeder: A Guide to Feeding Habits, Behavior, Distribution, and Abundance." It was one of the first books I bought when I got interested in birding.

It gives species accounts for dozens of birds that are likely to come to feeders including northern cardinals, white-breasted nuthatches and white-throated sparrows along with birds I'm not likely to see in New Jersey such as black-billed magpies and pyrrhuloxia. Want to know what kind of seed will attract a goldfinch? This guide will tell you.

Immature Cooper's hawk that missed a meal.
(Margo D. Beller)

This is what it says for sharp-shinned hawks, the first species in the book:

Favorite feeder foods: Mourning dove. blue jay, European starling, dark-eyed junco, pine siskin, house finch, house sparrow.

Infrequent choices: 21 additional prey species, similar in size to those listed above.

Or as MH likes to say, "What's a sharpy's favorite food? Birds at your feeder."

Yes, it's a bird eat bird world out there, particularly in winter when birds must flock to feeders for food when they can't find berries or bugs. They become more visible and so do the predators that eat birds to survive.

This morning I came out with the feeders to find a dusting of snow on the patio and the lawn. I sat on the enclosed porch in my coat to await the male cardinal that always seems to know when I have put out food. He came, taking a seed and then chasing away the white-throated sparrow on the baffle below it. Aside from these birds there was very little activity as the snow continued falling lightly. Two titmice came to grab seeds and fly to the pear tree to eat.

Then, as I looked ahead, something large and brown came up from the ground to the roof of the porch where I sat. A mourning dove? Then why is the titmouse suddenly giving its high-pitched alarm call? I soon saw the answer when the sharp-shinned hawk flew from the roof to a nearby branch. Juvenile accipiters (including the larger Cooper's and northern goshawk) are brown but become gray as they mature. This one was a juvenile - brown and empty taloned. I have seen sharpys fly close to the ground to pick off a meal so this one must have flown into my yard low and, for whatever reason, flown up to the roof where it could be seen by other birds and avoided.

Immature redtail hawk observed in my backyard. (Margo D. Beller)

Eventually, the sharpy flew off to the trees on the next street but then passed over my yard on the way to the woods on the edge of the community garden behind the houses across the street. Not long after, the jays began hitting the feeder and the titmice, house sparrows and house finches came to eat, not be eaten.

In time, the juvenile will learn it must become a better hunter if it wants to survive the winter. Accipiters are built for speed and agility. Their wings are such they can fly between trees, which larger hawks such as a redtail can't do. I have chased sharpys out of my hedge. I have been buzzed by sharpys while in the woods. In my yard alone I have seen an adult literally pick a junco out of the trees, crushing the life out of it with a nauseating pop. I caught one sharpy after it had grabbed a chickadee, which it took into a neighbor's shrub to finish. Catching a big, plump bird such as a mourning dove will feed a crow-sized female sharpy very well (female hawks of all types are always larger than the males).

Mature sharpy finishing off a mourning dove in the backyard.
(Margo D. Beller)

No raptors will turn down a bird meal if it can't catch anything else. Great horned owls will eat the much smaller screech owl. Turkey vultures have been known to push young birds from a nest to kill and eat them (which is why you will often see crows and other birds attacking vultures that get too close). Both northern and loggerhead shrikes have the nasty habit of killing smaller birds and impaling them on a branch to snack on later. (The shrike is known as the "butcher bird" for this reason.)

I know, all birds have to eat, even the ones that feed on the birds at my feeder. I get that. Still, not in my yard. This is why when a raptor appears in my yard trees I stand outside near the feeders, to study it while protecting the feeder birds. The raptor eventually flies off to look for its meal elsewhere.

Duck, Duck, Goose

At this time of year, when migration is done and most of the land birds I find in my travels are the same as those I can find in my backyard, I want to go where I can see something different. That usually means ducks and, to a lesser extent, geese.

Mallards and a male wood duck (Margo D. Beller)

So on this windy New Year's Day I took an afternoon walk not far from my home. There were 50 cars at the dog park, which means there were at least 50 people and 50 dogs, likely more of each. I have no dog and so kept walking along the road to the local pond.

In the pond, not bothered by the wind blowing patterns across the water, were Canada geese, some mallards, a couple of black ducks and what to my un-binoculared eyes looked like a male gadwall. These are all ducks of a type known as dabblers because they don't dive for food, merely put their heads under water or skim food off the surface. (Geese do that, too.) Usually I find a wood duck pair here but not on this day.

Besides dabblers there are the diving ducks that go under water to find their food. Common dabblers include ruddy ducks, buffleheads and three types of mergansers, among many others. For these, I need to go to bigger, deeper ponds.

Canada geese with a visiting pink-footed goose. (RE Berg-Andersson)

These ducks are short-distance migrants, finding New Jersey warm enough for them to winter in after a breeding season in the northern tundra. Various sparrows, finches, woodpeckers and jays are among the land birds I find in the trees and bushes on my walks while vultures and assorted hawks are aloft.

That's why for something a bit different, birders head to the ponds, inlets and sea coast to look for ducks, geese and other winter birds that arrive after the rails, egrets and most other shore birds have departed. (The exception is the great blue heron, which stays around all year and will frequently pop up from a close-by corner of a marsh and scare you with its size and gutteral "QUARK!" call.)

It was during the winter that a pink-footed goose was found in a small park pond not far from my accountant's office. It was also in winter someone found several northern lapwings, a plover usually found in Eurasia but visiting a farm in central NJ. (Luckily, they hung around for weeks so we could visit and not be overwhelmed by the large crowd of birders that came before us.) In recent years, several sandhill cranes have visited one of the few remaining Somerset County corn fields after the corn was harvested, searching for dropped kernels. These stately birds are always a treat to watch.

Brant geese (RE Berg-Andersson)

It was during our first-ever trip to Cape May, NJ, that MH and I found over a dozen types of ducks, most of them new at that point for us, including blue-wing teal, northern pintail and the more common black duck, mallard and gadwall we've come to know very well.

There were also American wigeons and green-wing teals. Over the years we've seen all three types of mergansers (common, redbreasted and hooded) and a vast assortment of sea ducks including three types of scoters (surf, black and white-winged), common eiders, long-tailed ducks, two types of loons (common and red-throated), cormorants (double-crested and great), harlequin ducks and the striking-looking canvasback.

One of my favorite winter ducks, the harlequin. (RE Berg-Andersson)

Meanwhile, Canada geese are everywhere there's water as well as on any golf course or office park with enough short grass to feed them. This time of year a search along sheltered coasts will bring smaller brant geese while larger marshes and fields will host snow geese, which are white with a pinkish bill.

Unless the waters freeze, these ducks and geese will be around New Jersey all winter. If a freeze comes, they head south for warmer places. Then we all hunker down and wait for spring to return.