I'm No Expert

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

 -- U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 

Among my friends I am the bird expert. Some even refer to me as the "Bird Lady" (including my husband). When they see a bird they don't recognize they call or send me an email about it. My response is usually the same. If they don't tell me what color or size the bird is I ask about it. Then I get more specific. Where were you when you saw it? What was the bird doing? Was it on the ground or in a tree or flying? Did it make a sound? What did it sound like? Was it bigger than a robin or smaller?

Downy woodpecker, smaller than a hairy, with
dainty bill. (Margo D. Beller)

From the answers I get I run through my head whether I've seen or heard anything similar. If I recognize it from my many, many years of bird watching, I respond with the answer. If not, I start looking in my various field guides, including those by David Allen Sibley (birds of the entire U.S., with his excellent drawings), Richard Crossley (birds of the eastern U.S., with his pictures where he has juxtaposed dozens of shots on a background of habitat) or, if I'm really stumped, Roger Tory Peterson's guide to eastern birds (the 1947 edition; there are many newer editions, but the 1947 is considered by birders to be the best of them). There are others I can consult but these three are the ones I use first.

Then I provide the answer to my friends and continue my reputation as the resident bird expert.

But, truth be told, there is a great deal I still don't know or understand. I know just enough about bird anatomy to get by. MH and I go out in the field and every so often I see a bird I don't recognize, or hear an unfamiliar call. I quickly note the field markings in my notebook, or create a kind of schematic diagram of the call. Then, once home, I pull out the field guides and/or start listening to the CDs of bird songs. And yet, there are times I still can't identify the bird.

I still don't know what this bird is, tho' it may be an immature starling.
I saw it at a grassland park in NJ. (Margo D. Beller)

I do know why birds migrate (to find food and/or a mate and form a nest to create young), although I don't know why certain birds, when finished breeding in the arctic tundra, fly farther south for the winter than others (including the red knot and the blackpoll warbler). Or why the white-throated sparrow only flies as far south as my yard for the winter.

I have much improved my identification skills over the years, but it took me a decade to see a bird on my house feeder and know whether it is a male house finch (red head, weak chin, a common feeder bird) or a male purple finch (raspberry-colored head, slightly larger, purple "eyebrow," an uncommon feeder bird). It helps if a female is nearby because the brownish female purple finch has a bold white eyebrow. The female house finch doesn't.

Female purple finch with her distinctive
eyebrow. (Margo D. Beller)

It also took a very long time - longer than one would think for an "expert" - to know the difference between a downy woodpecker and a hairy woodpecker. The hairy is obviously larger but if one is making its way up a tree that isn't immediately apparent.

You could look at the white outer tail feathers and see if there are spots (downy) or not (hairy), which to me are not that easy to see, even with binoculars. Their calls are similar, tho the hairy's call seems to me slightly higher in pitch and a bit more throaty. (That took a while to learn, too.) A downy would fly to the suet feeder and its bill would seem longer and I'd wonder if it was a hairy. But then a hairy would come to the suet and I'd know it by its size and a bill as long as its head. Eventually that bill, and the bird's size against the feeder, helped me learn the difference.

Still, there are some things that are beyond me.

For instance, how do the birds determine who goes first at the feeder? I understand why something small like a titmouse would take off if a much larger (and ferocious) jay swooped in, but why would one titmice fly to the top of the feeder and wait for another to take a seed before hopping down and taking its own? 

Male junco, one of Deborah Whittaker's
favorite subjects. (Margo D. Beller)

That leads to another question: How do birds tell each other apart? How does the titmouse at the feeder know when another titmouse approaching the feeder is not from its family group and thus chases it away? More important, how does one titmouse know another titmouse is of the opposite sex? There is nothing to tell a male titmouse from a female titmouse, from my perspective (the same is true of other birds including their cousin the blackcapped chickadees and the house wrens that visit the nest box every year). They are the same color, the same shape, the same size. And yet they must know or else we wouldn't have titmice every year.

I recently read a book, "The Secret Perfume of Birds: Uncovering the Science of Avian Scent" (by Deborah J. Whittaker) that provided some answers. From her experiments (particularly with the common winter visitor to my yard, the junco) she learned birds give off chemical signals that influence choices on mates, where to build a nest, when to fight and when to fly off. Her research found those chemicals are produced by bacteria that manufacture scents in the oil that birds stroke on their feathers when preening, or cleaning dirt out of their feathers. 

Titmouse. I have no idea if this is a male
or a female. (Margo D. Beller)

Whittaker spent years doing experiments to find this out. This was not something she could learn by sitting on her back porch watching the feeder birds, wondering about all sorts of things as I do.

Still, I am considered the "expert," even after I tell my friends they can find their answers themselves by searching on the internet or in a field guide (we frequently give pocket-sized guides as gifts). It is easier to just ask me.

I don't know if I should consider that a sign of respect or laziness. At least we still keep in touch. 

Feeding Time

Cardinal hogging the house feeder (Margo D. Beller)

Most mornings lately I have gone outside with the bird feeders around 7am when it is light but the sun hasn't risen high yet. Usually a male cardinal is sitting in the apple tree. When I prop open the screened door it starts to cheep to its mate, who cheeps back. It has figured out that when I open the door I will soon be out with the feeders - the suet on my right arm, the caged feeder in my right hand, the house feeder in my left. I go out and hang the house feeder on the first pole I pass, then walk to the other one and hang a feeder on each hook.

I go inside for the water cooler. By now the cardinal is on the house feeder but it flies off at my approach. I hang the water cooler on the pear tree and then walk back around the corner of the screened porch and close the door. Sometimes I stand outside and listen to the birds. Usually I hear white-breasted nuthatches and titmice nearby so I know they'll soon be at the feeder.

Titmouse at water cooler (Margo D. Beller)

Other times I go on the porch and sit in my corner and watch the feeders.

As usual, the first birds were able to somehow communicate that food was available. But once all those birds start coming, it is interesting to see what gets to feed first and what forces them away from the feeder.

One reason I have two seed feeders out is the more open house feeder will accommodate two larger birds, one on each side. The caged feeder allows smaller birds to come into the protective cage (the cage is to protect the feeder from squirrels but I have seen small birds protected from predators), perch and eat. Chicadees and titmice will come, take a seed and leave. House finches will perch and keep eating until something, or someone, prompts them to leave.

A cardinal will sit at the house feeder and, like the smaller finches, eat until it is sated or spooked off. When a house finch or sparrow attempts to sit next to it, the cardinal will force it away. But if a comparably large bird, say a jay or a redbelly woodpecker, flies at the feeder, the cardinal departs. Jays and woodpeckers will sit a while but not as long as the thicker-billed cardinal or finch. When the big birds leave, the smaller ones can grab a bite.

Hummingbird feeder with many portals (Margo D. Beller)

Within the group, there is a pecking order. A male house finch will come to the house feeder. It might allow its mate to sit next to him but if another male house finch approaches it will fight it off if it is not the alpha bird but it will leave if the approaching bird is the alpha bird. The top bird always gets to eat. The same is true for other birds. One particularly snowy winter we had four pairs of cardinals coming to the feeder. The alpha pair always ate. If another cardinal was in the vicinity, the male would fly at it to force it away. Later, one of the others would come eat only to have the alpha male chase it off.

The only other thing I've ever seen that forces a cardinal off the feeder is if it is besieged by a lot of smaller birds that will harass it until it leaves

I don't know if this fighting would be avoided if I had many more feeders of different types out. Unfortunately, I don't have many feeders and all but one are not designed to accommodate a large bird like a cardinal.

Hummingbirds have a pecking order, too. When I had two females coming to the feeder in 2016 the more dominant one would always chase off the other. When a male showed up the alpha female would battle it, too, sometimes winning but sometimes flying off. Mind you, the sugar water feeder has several portals so they all could've fed at the same time and even brought over friends. But that's now how the bird brain operates.

Redbelly dominating the house feeder (Margo D. Beller)

The suet feeder draws woodpeckers. If the small downy is on the feeder and sees the larger hairy or redbelliy woodpecker approaching, it leaves fast. If a female downy is on the feeder and a male downy approaches, she's out of there, even if it's her mate. If two male downys are interested in the feeder, the alpha will chase the beta off, feed and then fly off, allowing the beta to eat - presuming the alpha male doesn't chase it off just because it can.

How is it determined which male or pair is the alpha and which isn't? That's another mystery better left to others to figure out.