I sat down with my morning coffee to watch the feeder for awhile, since it
was raining and I was too lazy to actually go outside yet, and I hoped it
would drizzle out. Today there were three chipmunks amid the birds at the
feeder. The Chipmunks acted skittish, running in from the cover of the
shrubbery, grabbing seeds then dashing out of sight. I was puzzling over why
they were acting so shy when one came out and was confronted by a male
Towhee. The Towhee flew a short hop over to the where the chipmunk was,
landed right in front of it, maybe 4-5 inches, what seemed to me to be well
inside the personal space of the mammal. Then the towhee flared out its tail
so the white tail edges showed. The chipmunk leapt for the bushes. This was
repeated four more times over the space of about half an hour. Then the
Chipmunks had a break through. There were two of them out at once, with a
third just under the cover of a nearby bush when the Towhee did its
intimidation play. The furthest away chipmunk then ran in the direction of
the Towhee, from about 3 feet away and behind the bird. When the chipmunk
got within a foot or so, the Towhee then flew up into the shrubs and did not
return, at least for the next ten minutes which is as long as I watched. The
Chipmunks then seemed more aggressive, moving to the prime spot, directly
under the feeder and not skittering away except once when a Stellars Jay
landed between all three of them, scattering them in all directions.

I began to wonder how much of this kind of territorial give and take for an
obvious food resource goes on. An interesting morning, fills the day full
of questions. Which birds are most successful and why? Does having more
feeders out change the situation? How much of what I see is determined by
some kind of invisible competition I don't see or understand? Do birds take
turns? What happens when a dominant bird gets full? Do birds include the
feeder in their breeding territory? What happens if the feeder runs dry? So
many questions. So little time.

Note: because of problems with my internet http mail server I am not
currently getting tweeters email, I can post to it and read from the web
summaries.
Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com



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