Tweets,
I put out a weekly phone message of local bird sightings and recently I
have been asked two questions that I have no answer for. I told the
questioner that I would throw them out to Tweeters.
The first: How necessary is it for birds to get grit at a time like this
when we on the North Olympic are under a thick snow blanket? Incidentally
there is very little road sanding or salting done here. The questioner who
grew up in eastern WA and had been a hunter said that sportsmen' s groups who
fed the game birds after the season felt supplying grit was very important in
the winter as the birds would gradually eliminate the grit which was
necessary to grind the vegetable material and he wondered if the same was
true for song birds.
The second: The same person has a very large Big Leaf Maple in his yard
with much moss [lichens perhaps]. Today a bushel of it was on the ground and
he presumed that it had been ripped down by birds looking for food under it.
He suspects it may have been chickadees. Does anyone know which animal tears
down moss or lichen?
Bob Norton, Joyce, WA (near Port Angeles)
norton360 at aol.com