Hello, tweets.

Having some of the inclinations of a mad scientist, I often
experiment with the local avifauna. It seemed to me that Varied
Thrushes were interested when I threw peanuts out for the Steller's
Jays, so today I waited until there were no jays around and pitched a
peanut out toward one of the thrushes. Instead of running away, it
ran toward it, stopped and pecked at it a few times. I couldn't
imagine what was going through its mind, perhaps something like at #$%
^&. Then I shelled another peanut, stripped off the brown seed coat,
and threw out a nice white half-peanut. The thrush immediately ran to
that, picked it up, ran a few feet farther away from me and started
pecking at it. It didn't do the greatest job, but it finally pecked
it into little pieces and ate them all. I was surprised that it
wouldn't just swallow the whole thing, certainly smaller in diameter
than some of the fruits they eat.

I then threw another one to it, and it recognized that as something
worthwhile immediately and picked it up and ran. Meanwhile, a towhee
had run out, grabbed the unshelled peanut, and taken it back in the
shrubbery to work on it. Both of these species are seed-eaters, so
both presumably recognize a peanut as something seedlike. Varied
Thrushes are said to eat a lot of acorns, and I don't know how they
manage to get those down.

Meanwhile, a female Townsend's Warbler was feeding in the grass right
under the window. This was the second time in two days we had seen
that bird feeding on the ground, perhaps because of the wind and
generally bad weather.

Try the peanut experiment yourself!
-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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