Just took a sparrow right outside my window.. She had been perching in the cherry tree, then swooped down and took it from deep inside the forsythia with a little scrambling on her part, then dropped down another two feet to the ground. I love being able to watch this sort of show with my slippers on and a cup of tea. she’s standing on her prey now, in the snow, and looking around to see if she’s being watched. Two cardinals and the remaining sparrows are in the bush behind her, waiting for her to finish her meal so they can get back to theirs. Ah, she took it up into the spruce now. I hope she sticks around and maybe nests here in the spring.
And now back to your regularly scheduled program. . .
When I was young my family used to make occasional trips from southern Utah to Salt Lake City. About half-way along the trip we’d pass through a long stretch in an agricultural area–miles and miles. We always watched for the large hawks that sat on telephone poles about half a mile apart through this part of the country. My mother always pointed them out - their territory apparently so evenly spaced. We noticed over the years, however, that they started slowly disappearing. Still don’t know why.
A few years later I happened to move to that area of the state. One day I was making a several mile drive with a woman who’d been born and raised in the area. I mentioned to her that you never saw the hawks any more. She said, “What hawks?” She’d never noticed them. I was so surprised because to us they were so obvious. Maybe nobody ever pointed them out to her.
The natural world was so important and interesting to my mother and she was always pointing out wildlife, a cloud, or a mountain shape…I’m glad for that. Thanks for the post and for bringing back that memory, Tyghress!
The reason many hawks and birds in general disappeared for so long was DDT. The little birds, the insect eaters, got poisoned so that they laid soft shelled eggs that didn’t hatch. The hawks ate the toxic birds and in turn their numbers dropped drastically. Little birds weren’t quite as noticeable as the bigger ones. Since then, of course, Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, and these sort of pesticides aren’t being pumped into the environment quite as much (beware, Bush and his cronies are on the move and we may yet again be headed for a toxic wasteland) and populations have rebounded drastically since the 60’s. The peregrines and eagles especially.
The redtail hawks hang out on telephone poles here…I got a call back in the summer (I work in an avian veterinary hospital and we deal with a lot of wildlife) and went to rescue a juvenile redtail that had taken up sentry position on a suburban playgym. It was a gorgeous bird, but oddly passive. Died shortly after I got it, probably West Nile.
I love watching raptors, whenever and wherever I happen to see them. Today I was driving home from the store and a young red-tail swooped RIGHT in front of my car (I barely missed him!) and landed on a branch next to the road. Gorgeous creature! One of the things I love about living here is the raptors…red tails, Cooper hawks, sharped-shinned hawks, American kestrels (and once, when I was very lucky, a great horned owl, right by the road!).
I remember watching an episode of “Jeff Corwin” on Animal Planet once. Jeff was watching a cheetah run down its prey, and he said quite frankly that he was torn. On the one hand, he hated to see the death of the beautiful antelope, but on the other, he loved being privileged to see the cheetah do what it does better, and more beautifully, than any other creature on earth. I thrill to the hawk’s stoop even while I tremble for the mouse.
Friday, coming back from an outing for “official” stuff of life, we were coming up to the high and twisting hill near our home when we saw a bald eagle… not 50 yds from the black-top road, lift from the relics of the corn field and settle in a large tree nearby. We have them by the river, but seeing them this close to home is something special.
I went cross country skiing yesterday on Peebles Island, right where the Mohawk River empties into the Hudson. Just before I crossed the bridge onto the island, I spotted a Bald Eagle sitting high up in a large Cottonwood tree. After years of absence, these gorgeous birds are making a slow but steady comeback here in upstate NY.
I see blue jays, cardinals (redbirds), european starlings, english sparrows, various corvids, pigeons, doves, and robins just about every day of the year.
Once in a while I notice titmice, owls, hawks, or woodpeckers. They kind of stay to themselves, though. One tends to hear them more than see them.
Of course the ducks live in the river.
And the woodcocks and turkeys dwell out back.
And during warmer months we have goldfinches and hummingbirds, and the blue herons briefly join the ducks in the river.
Birds = pretty.
It’s a strange situation with the robins, though. I’d say 90% of them leave for winter, but a few oddballs hang around through spring. It would be interesting to know if the same individuals stay every year or if they ‘rotate’ with who stays and why.
Robins and a few other birds (such as bluebirds and mockingbirds) are what ornithologists call “partial migrants.” Some of them go south for the winter and some stay behind. Even in northern Vermont you can find robins in midwinter, and in southern Vermont you can find bluebirds in January and February, usually in the apple orchards.
I don’t know about robins, but with mockingbirds there isn’t a consistent pattern among individuals (I did an undergraduate thesis on mockingbirds and followed a population of them for a couple of years). Some individuals will normally stay year-round, but they might migrate during winters when there isn’t a good winter food supply (mostly berries and multiflora rose hips). I suspect it’s the same with robins…there might be a few individuals that always stay behind in winter, but the others will be there one winter and not the next.
Very interesting, especially Brad and Cran’s observations about migrants.
The humble Sparrow used to be the qunitissential town bird in London, but in the last five years they’ve become rare, and nobody quite knows why. My parents’ garden bird feeder is more often visited by Ring Necked Parakeets than sparrows.
Other common visitors - Goldfinches, Greenfinches, Wood Pigeon, Starlings, Blue Tits, Great Tits.
I see Blue Tits often in my own yard, and Blackbirds. There are two Jays living nearby (not the same bird as a Blue Jay I think),
On my first trip to England, I remember writing a postcard back to a friend in the States saying that I’d seen lots of Great Tits during my vacation. When I got back home, he asked me about that and was very disappointed to learn that I was talking about a little bird.
LOL! I know a great many people here who would love to send you back some of the English Sparrows we now have ooodles of.
We have seen similar migratory exceptions… Robins among them. One year the gold finches even had an overwintering.
Here in this part of the MidWestern US, we have a very wide variety.
On our very own place, we have resident hawks within a mile radius of us, including Red Tail, Harrrier, Night Hawk, Perigrens, and Kestrals. Those are just the ones I’ve seen. Seems like a lot for one area, but they don’t seem to have trouble with it. I even had a lone Rough Legged sighting last year. And then my Eagle sighting was less than two mile from my home. Interestingly, the same field I saw him in was filled with gulls a month or so ago.
We have Red Headed, Downey, and Red Bellied Woodpeckers. Cat Birds, Brown Thrashers and Mockingbirds, which all have the imitative calls.
We have a constant population of Blue Jays, Mourning Doves, Quail, Sparrows, Tit Mouse, Chickadee, Brown Creeper, Nuthatch, Cardinal, and more.
We have seasonal finches, mostly Goldfinch and Rosey Finch.
We have some White Throated Sparrows, and more. It is such a joy to find the time to sit and watch them. In the warmer weather, I like to go out early in the morning and sip coffee and listen… sometimes I offer them whistle tunes, hoping they won’t take offense.
We also have a very rarely seen, though apparently common flying resident… the “flying” squirrel. I was amazed to learn that we weren’t imagining things, and that they are actually native.
Oh, and another oddity we enjoy… from a distance… there is a herd of feral emu in the area.
There’s a bird refuge on the shores of the Great Salt Lake about 30 minutes north of my house. My daughter and I usually make several trips a year to check out what’s in the area. Pelicans, herons, egrets, and little water birds are plentiful (the coots are favorites). It’s in the path of a swan migration route, but we’ve never been lucky enough to see them.
An oddball resident is “Pink Floyd” - a flamingo who escaped from a local aviary and has been returning to the Great Salt Lake for years and years. There is a group committed to introducing other flamingoes to the lake as companions for Floyd, but there are all kinds of hoops to jump through for something like that, and it will probably never happen. Here’s a picture of Floyd and a little info on him: http://www.utahbirds.org/featarts/2004/UtahsPinkFloyd.htm
My personal backyard favorites are the black-capped chickadees. Their chirp is the most cheerful sound ever. Goldfinches are a close second.
This thread reminds me of something that really made me laugh when I first came across it.
A very popular song much loved by an older generation of English people is called " There’ll be Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover". It dates ,I believe ,from the war years and was written by an American who did not know that Bluebirds are an American species and have never been seen in England…
We’ve had occaision to rescue several birds over the years. The robin fledged successfully and stuck around for a while. I think that certain ones would be more likely to bond than others. I have always wished to befriend a raven. We have loads of huge black birds in the area. I don’t know if they are just big blackbirds or other. They are smart.
I’ve always wished I lived closer to a wildlife rehab place. The closest one to me is about 200 miles away. Traditionally, if we found an injured animal, we shot it.
Lately, as long as I can tell that the case isn’t too bad (i.e., a broken wing and not its guts hanging out) I try to nurse it myself. The vets won’t take wild animals for some reason, even if I offer to pay for the recovery.
Crows are technically illegal to keep, but in most parts of the country, nobody is in charge of going to people’s houses and seeing if they have crows.
I’ve known a couple people who had crows (and other corvids) for pets, and they could talk a bit…
In Salinas, it seems that some Anna’s hummingbirds migrate, while others just hang around all year. There are flowers (pineapple sage, Mexican sage, honeysuckle, Cape honeysuckle) available for them straight through the winter–and feeders, too. (Hummingbirds are very territorial, and fignt like crazy. They only seem to “hum” when they are being threatening.) I have lots of pictures of them at http://www4.pbase.com/darwinian/hummers
Hmmm… We watched a tussle between a huge preying mantis and a humming bird on our porch a couple of years back… the next day the hummer feeder had tiny grey feathers all over it, and we never saw either of them again… don’t know who won.
We’ve seen the matis stalk hummers several times, but that was the first ‘hand to hand’ combat. (shivers)
It is apparently a fairly common scene in the real world. It was certainly sureal watching a bug attack a bird… wheweeee…
