One of the things about inclement weather is that a lot more birds
come to your feeders. Always suffering from nature-deficit disorder,
I find the yard at least a partial substitute for not getting out in
the field more.

I've been watching Spotted Towhees, of which I think we have two
pairs coming into the yard. They are versatile birds. This morning I
watched one jump into the air, fluttering its wings, to snatch a
cotoneaster berry from above it. I don't know why it didn't just
sidle farther down the branch to where the berries were hanging in
profusion. At this moment, it's back in the bush, and a robin that
has taken up residence there just chased it away. Robins seem to grab
a bunch of berries in rapid sequence, then perch absolutely still for
a while, presumably digesting like crazy, then start in on the
berries again. Starlings have invaded the premises since the snow
began, and it's amazing how rapidly and how much they can eat, both
seeds and suet. As they often eat fruit, I'm surprised they don't
seem interested in the cotoneasters. Starlings commonly come into our
yard in the summer (when they are breeding around here; few are in
our wooded neighborhood in winter), to eat the suet, so their suet-
feeding isn't restricted to winter, as an earlier post mentioned.

This or another towhee has learned to come out from under the laurel
hedge and watch where I throw a peanut, then run out and grab it and
take it back in shelter. I crush the shell sufficiently that the
towhee can open it with ease to get the nuts from within. I'm also
feeding a male Varied Thrush in the same way. The thrush hammers on
the broken shell until it opens and a nut pops out, then it runs off
with that, I guess to avoid any potential squirrel or jay that comes
by. It hammers the nut too, until it breaks into a few pieces which
it swallows. Then it goes back and does it again. The Steller's Jays,
crafty consumers all, prefer to check out every newly thrown peanut,
no matter how many are already on the ground, so I have to feed the
towhee and thrush when they're not around.

Finally, what is probably the same towhee has tried to feed from the
suet feeder, but it fails there. The juncos and Song Sparrows can do
it fairly easily, but the towhee so far hasn't got the hang of
hanging. I suspect when I refill the feeder so the towhee can perch
on top of it and peck downward rather than hanging from the side, it
would succeed.

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20081219/da86c9d0/attachment.htm