Woods Lake - Oct 28, 2012 With snow falling overnight and this morning, Chickadees (Phoecile atricapillus) and Red-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta Canadensis) gathered where they have been fed in years past. As we stepped out the 2nd floor door to snap the picture of the early snow, chickadees and nuthatches fluttered around. A handful of sunflower seed hearts (officially No. 2 Coarse sunflower seeds) with few shells turned into 76 landings on the hand in 9 minutes—up to 14 in a minute. They were hungry. It was about 5 PM, and the sun was close to going down. It’s good to see them back. It’s not so much that they know us, we believe, as that they would land on the hand or hat of anyone who stood in that spot on the deck. They recognize a human with a hand extended. If we walk down the driveway to get the mail, they will follow.
The year, when we used mealworms as a spring treat, a red-breasted nuthatch would come for mealworms anywhere we stood and bring them to their nestlings. We walked in the direction the nuthatch flew with each mealworm until we saw the nuthatch disappear into its hole in a tree about 20 feet up. The same nuthatch would fly in the door and across a room to a person with an outstretched hand holding a few mealworms.
Other birds that quickly adapted to taking food were Pine Siskins (Carduelis pinus) , American Goldfinches (Carduelis tristis), Common Redpolls (Carduelis flammea), Hoary Redpolls (Carduelis hornemanni), and a (one time) Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens).
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) will extend their feet and sit on a finger if you slowly put your finger up underneath a hummingbird hovering at a feeder. We learned that some years ago, when there was an early spring (almost like this year) that made the flowers bloom early and fade early. With still a couple weeks to go before fall migration, the flowers and nectar hummingbirds rely on were scarce. About 50 hummingbirds, rather than the usual half dozen, competed at the feeders. They also competed with hornets that were unusually numerous that year. We were partial to the hummingbirds, so we brought the feeders inside and left most of the windows open in a room. The hummingbirds quickly learned to fly in and out the open windows. Hornets that flew in were distracted to a red dish of sugar water at the base of a closed window where they got trapped (and killed) flying against the glass to get back out. The hummingbirds got used to us and flew around us like we weren’t there.
This turned out to be an office catch-up day. We’ll visit Lily when this early snow melts and we won’t leave tracks to her den.
We’re thinking about those of you in the path of super-storm Sandy and hope everything turns out okay.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center