Feeding the Birds

A week after the last snowstorm, just as everything had about melted except for the snow mounded by the plow at the curb and the top of the driveway, we were hit with over a foot of snow. We avoided most of the ice. 

The people we pay managed to make the driveway usable for our all-wheel-drive Subaru when I had to go to a longstanding medical appointment the next day. They also cleared our front walk. That left the rear walk to my husband (MH) and me, after which we dug a trench to the feeder poles. (The feeders had been inside during the Sunday storm.)

The curved blade of this shovel is 12 inches long.
(Margo D. Beller)

Remembering how, during another foot+ snowstorm 12 years ago this month, the desperate squirrels had used the ice-covered snow as a platform to jump over the baffle to the feeders, we cleared space around the poles this time and hoped it would be enough.

It wasn't.

Our snowstorm has been followed by a period of intense cold where daytime temperatures have not gotten much above 20 degrees F and the overnight temperatures have been in the single digits, with windchill in negative numbers. In the immediate aftermath of the storm there was little in the way of bird movement. Nor were there deer or other animal tracks. (Except for those digging out their driveways after the town plow cleared the street, you didn't see much in the way of people either.)

The back path we shoveled. (Margo D. Beller)

There was too much snow in my usual areas for me to do any birding, though I noted what birds I heard or saw while running errands or putting the house feeder back outside each morning. (With the bears in their dens, two feeders that deer can't reach to tip out seeds are left outside for now.) 

Two days later I saw the first junco on the flood wall and the first squirrel climbing down a yard tree. Since then three types of woodpecker and, once, a red-breasted nuthatch have come to the suet. A female cardinal sat on one side of the house feeder while her mate sat on the other side. Jays swooped in, as did house finches. Things seemed to be getting back to "normal" again.

The prolonged intense cold has frozen rivers and lakes. Any bit of open water
will draw land and water birds. But the paths are too snowy to
look for these birds. (Margo D. Beller)

Then, four days after the storm, I happened to look out the kitchen window and saw a squirrel on the long, "squirrel-proof" seed feeder. I ran out on my enclosed porch to rap on the window and scare it off. 

This may seem cruel but I am fanatical when it comes to keeping pests like squirrels and deer out of my yard and away from the feeders. The seed is to keep the cardinals, titmice, chickadees and other yard birds alive. 

From 2014. The feeder on the left is the one that had
the squirrel on it this year. This pole was later destroyed by a bear.
The other feeder pictured is currently inside. (Margo D. Beller)

That's why within an hour I was out with my shovel, digging a wider area around the two feeder poles to make it harder for the squirrels to jump. Luckily for me the snow was still soft enough under a thin crust for me to move quickly and with a minimum of strain. Since then I have seen no squirrels on feeders but I have seen at least three UNDER feeders to get the seeds dropped by the sloppy juncos, house finches and occasional house sparrow. So don't worry about the squirrels.

Winter is a harsh season. In this area what birds don't head south for warmer weather have to find food where they can. At Great Swamp recently I was able to see large groups that included seven types of sparrows foraging at the side of the road on what ground had been churned up by the plow. Winter birds have to find seeds and other food in that ground to stay alive. They also fluff their feathers for insulation, shiver to generate heat, shelter in trees or shrubs and, most important, store food for later use.

This is the replacement feeder pole. It may be hard to see the wider
area dug around it, but it has kept the squirrels at bay.
(Margo D. Beller)

So in a small part of the universe - my yard - I am trying to help the birds. Yes, I have a motive - I want to be able to see them, especially when I can't leave the house. Winter is a harsh season for me, too.

However, I know that little by little the snow will eventually melt. I am looking forward to a few days this week when the temperature rises above freezing during the day. I want to go back to my usual birding places, secure in the knowledge I won't slip and fall in snow. At some point the whiteness and ice everywhere will be a distant memory when the trees leaf out, the flowers bloom again, the insects appear and all the birds - migrant and yard - get to eat.

Until then, I feed birds, not squirrels.

Meals on the Wing

Dogwood, with reddening leaves and berries. (Margo D. Beller)

At this time of year, if I want locally grown fruit I can go to a farmstand and buy peaches, plums and apples. I could also go to a supermarket at all times of the year.  

Birds don't have that option. As they head south to their winter areas they need to find food where they can. That can mean stopping at a bird feeder or scouring trees and shrubs for insects, seeds or, my focus here, fruits.

I have plants I bought specifically to provide fruit for the birds, either during migration or into the winter. One such plant is a dogwood tree, which has lovely pink flowers in spring. Its leaves are among the first to go into fall coloring. It has provided many red fruits for the taking.

In my yard and beyond there is a smorgasbord of food Nature has set out for migrating birds that will sustain them on their journey. In my previous post I showed some of the plants that provide nectar and seeds for the birds in return for pollination or spreading the seeds. However, here I focus on plants that provide fruit the bird (or squirrel) eats, digests and expels, another way of perpetuating the species.

Here are a few of the many fruiting plants I've seen in my travels (I took these photos):

There are over 150 different types of viburnums that flower in spring and fruit in fall. I see them in the woods and along stream beds. This one, an arrowwood viburnum, I planted in my yard. For the first three years I kept it surrounded by fencing but it made it hard for MH to mow around it and on windy days the fencing would be blown on the plant. Worse, no bird went for the berries. This year I didn't put up fencing, which made MH happy as well as the deer, which snacked on the leaves they could reach as fast as they could grow. (I never see viburnum browsed in the wild.) Luckily, the plant grew tall and the deer could not reach the flowers or these berries at the top, which I hope will feed the birds.

Many of the plants in my backyard were either put in by previous owners of my house (such as the apple tree) or sprang up in areas and left alone. I've see privet in many a yard. Its flowers have a sickly sweet orange smell (its other name is mock orange) but the hedge grows tall and thick and is very good for privacy. Imagine my surprise when I discovered several privet plants along my backyard border fence (widely separated, unfortunately). These are privet fruits that will go blue-black when ripe.

Wild grape vine (like poison ivy or Virginia creeper, which also provide birds with fruit) will take over if allowed to spread. This one, not in my yard, has foliage that looks like fig leaves but there are others whose foliage looks like a spade. The berries ripen from green to blue and are very popular with sparrows, from what I've seen in my travels.

Multiflora rose is considered an invasive species and I am continually pulling up plants that take root in areas where I don't want them. However, there are many areas where I leave them alone because the white roses, unlike modern hybrids, smell wonderful and the robins, catbirds and occasional mockingbird enjoy the rosehips. Left alone the thorny plants can grow to be very tall and will then grab onto the nearest plant to continue its ascent. This photograph, from a recent hike, was taken from below the rosehips.

Unlike the cultivated strawberries you can buy in the grocery store, wild strawberries are smaller and not as sweet. They are also available for me to pick in autumn as well as spring. I am finding wild strawberries all over the yard (we don't spray pesticides or weed killer) but, unlike the equally spreading ground ivy, I leave the plants alone because I enjoy the fruit as much as the birds. 

Watching for Hummingbirds

This post is based on one that originally ran on May 29, 2013, on the blog of New Jersey Audubon's Scherman Hoffman sanctuary. The NJA blog was significantly overhauled since then and the archives were deleted. However, I was able to keep a copy so this can again see the light of day.

I hear like you see — like that hummingbird outside that window, for instance.
– Ray Charles

This morning (Sunday) a Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovered over the feeder briefly, then flew into the nearby apple tree. It did not return while I sat on my porch with my binoculars.

Another year's backyard hummer. (Margo D. Beller)

For my yard, this is typical. Every year the hummingbirds visit infrequently in late spring, then more regularly in late June into July when the female, which does all the work feeding the young, stops for a sip of sugar water so she has the energy to find insects to feed her chicks. 

When I hang the seed feeders, I know a host of different birds will come to eat all year long. But the sugar water feeder is meant for only one type of bird that visits over the summer, and the food can go bad quickly in the heat. I have a pole in a shady area but I can't see the feeder from the kitchen, unlike the seed feeder poles. 

My brother-in-law, noted below, has no trouble drawing these tiny colorful birds to his feeders. But even he has been known to complain about the "waste" of having to dump nearly full feeders when the sugar water has gone bad:

It is dusk in New Hampshire. It is raining and unusually cold for late May and I am sitting on my brother-in-law’s wide, covered porch.

As it darkens, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird comes to one of the two feeders hung from a support for the grape vines. It perches and takes a long drink of the sugar water that will help keep it alive over the expected cold night.

A second, slightly larger hummer arrives. Despite two feeders being out, this one chases the other away because this is what hummingbirds do, they battle each other for food and territory. These little birds are tough. The first one leaves and the second takes a long drink, then perches for a while until it gets almost too dark to see. Then it flies off to roost in a nearby sheltering willow.

(Margo D. Beller)

I am always taken aback when a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, looking more like a bug than bird, flits by me. They are fascinating to watch, the only bird that can fly backwards, bright green back, long bill and, if a mature male, a deep, red throat. John J. Audubon referred to the Ruby-throat as the “glittering fragment of the rainbow.”

Hummingbirds are so small - they weigh the same as a penny - and so colorful. In the U.S. they have interesting names including Broad-billed, Broad-tailed, Anna’s, Allen’s, Calliope and Magnificent. But in New Jersey, the hummingbird you’ll see 99% of the time is the Ruby-throated. Go walk in the woods wearing a red hat or bandana and you might draw one to you, checking out what kind of flower you are.

People love to watch hummingbirds. They put out red feeders with sugar water (1 part sugar to 4 parts water) to feed them. They plant flowers for them – preferably those that are red and/or trumpet-shaped (yellow jewelweed is a favorite, if you happen to have a stream or river along your property). They make documentaries about them. There’s even websites to track the Ruby-throat’s northbound migration.

One year I was in New Jersey’s Great Swamp, crossing a bridge over a brook, when I was buzzed by a hummer that flew to a tiny nest made of lichen and spider webs at the tip of a thin branch hanging over the water, a good defense against predators. This was a female: Once the male has done his part, he’s gone, frequently heading south as early as July, leaving the female to build the nest and raise the brood alone.

New Jersey Audubon’s Scherman Hoffman sanctuary has a feeder attached to the bookstore window so those inside get a close view of the feeding bird. It is nice to be inside, perhaps talking to sanctuary director Mike Anderson or one of the volunteers, and suddenly have a brilliantly colored male hummer appear out of nowhere. Very little deters a hungry hummingbird, as the ones I saw in New Hampshire reminded me.

When I see a hummer at a feeder, its whirring wings beating thousands of times a second, I appreciate the great lengths it has gone - and the dangers it has faced - to make it here from central and South America.

In his book “The Big Year,” Mark Obmascik gives a harrowing account of northbound migration over the Gulf of Mexico, from the point of view of a female Ruby-throat. Like all birds the hummer eats and eats and eats, then takes off and flies nonstop over the water, burning fat supplies as she goes until she can get to land to eat and rest. Many don’t make it. The one in the book does. Read it and I guarantee the next time you look at a hummingbird you will be awed.

If you want to attract hummingbirds you can create a garden with the right type of flowers. Trumpet Vine is a hummer favorite, and so are other native plants including Beard Tongue, Wild Bergamont and Bleeding Heart. If you have a wet garden, there’s Fire Pink and Cardinal Flower and its blue cousin Lobelia.

The nice thing about these flowers is that besides hummers you will also draw butterflies – another long-distance migrant that is tougher than it appears. These plants evolved along with native birds, insects and wildlife. Putting these in your garden is like buying heirloom tomatoes with their strange colors and textures and juicy taste instead of the bland orange tomatoes used for fast-food sandwiches. Natives are just more interesting, and so are the birds and insects they attract.

Hummer at a friend's feeder (Margo D. Beller)

Here is Audubon on hummingbirds and native flowers:

No sooner has the returning sun again introduced the vernal season, and caused millions of plants to expand their leaves and blossoms to his genial beams, than the little Humming-bird is seen advancing on fairy wings, carefully visiting every opening flower-cup, and, like a curious florist, removing from each the injurious insects that otherwise would ere long cause their beauteous petals to droop and decay... Its long delicate bill enters the cup of the flower, and the protruded double-tubed tongue, delicately sensible, and imbued with a glutinous saliva, touches each insect in succession, and draws it from its lurking place, to be instantly swallowed. All this is done in a moment, and the bird, as it leaves the flower, sips so small a portion of its liquid honey, that the theft, we may suppose, is looked upon with a grateful feeling by the flower, which is thus kindly relieved from the attacks of her destroyers.

Makes you want to go native and plant a few Fire Pinks, doesn’t it?

I get a grateful feeling about hummingbirds, too.