I covered my pond with a fairly stiff plastic net this winter. Had to keep it tight around the edges so the little birds can't get in and not find their way out again. A persistent heron kept trying and almost got his feet caught up in it and finally gave up. I'm going to leave the net there until the willow has leafed out and the lily pads have grown. Never heard of or witnessed crows after the fish.
I am in Chile at the momen I have seen the Southern Lapwing (Vanellus Chilensis),the tifted tit tyrant (Anairetes paraulus), the Chimango Caracara (Milvago chimango) and the plain mantled-tit spinetail
Yup, they're back. They chased all the other birds away last week and they are building the nest today.
They're back also, That time of year innit? The "Wood Ducks", they've been coming every year for a while now. They are sneaky and fly from tree to tree until they reach the food. They are really skittish, so I had to be sneaky too. Colourful critters aren't they?
on a Phoenix roebelenii palm frond in the back of our house, there is a bird's nest about the size of a demitasse cup with two ivory colored eggs. the eggs are a bit larger than my little fingernail. i believe the nest to be that of a hummingbird, but we don't often see hummingbirds around here. the strange thing about the nest is that it doesn't appear to be made of normal nest materials. it is roughly the color of the pineapple in my avatar and it looks like it was made of a uniformly grainy substance like tiny grains of sand that have been stuck together with some sort of adhesive. i can take a picture of the nest, but i don't know how to post it to this website. i am averse to most internet forms of public storage, like photobucket, but maybe i'm just paranoid. anybody interested in seeing a photo of the nest, maybe you can cajole me into loosening up my perverse notion that posting a picture on the internet will result in some dire nonsense + tell me where to do it. btw, i haven't touched the nest or disturbed it in any fashion other than to look into it. it's just below eye level.
you can now upload your photos directly onto BS with the upload a file button next to post reply. a general word about nests and chicks: birds have little if any sense of smell (though their eyesight is extremely sharp, and can distinguish colors we can't even see, much like dogs can hear frequencies we can't) so if the bird doesn't see you fooling with their nursery it will never be the wiser. i've never seen a hummingbird nest but here's a great pic: and here's a wealth of amazing information. http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com/nest.php
every morning since the middle of last week there's been a white wagtail on the ground right in front of our office door, almost like he's waiting for me, then he flies to the same spot on the roof, and from there to a perch on a polled plane tree - a creature of habit! the signification of the english common name wagtail is evident as soon as you observe one: they wag their tails vigorously and almost constantly when on the ground. it is an exact equivalent of the latin name motacilla. wagtails are called bergeronnettes in french, and i long assumed that had to do with berges (riverbanks) because though they're not waterbirds by any means they never get too far from streams or rivers. i've never seen a single one in our neighborhood or in the parc de parilly (which has great birding) but i've seen several different species in the parc de gerland. i overlooked the obvious relation to bergeron (shepherd) which comes from their other big affection for animal herds, or rather the insects that accompany them. but there are two other old nicknames for these birds : lavandières (washerwomen) which shows that though i was mistaken about berges, my idea was not too stupid, and hochequeue, which signifies... wagtail. another attraction they have is for the rooves of large heated buildings... like factories. that's why i see so many here. though they are semi-migratory, this habit saves most of them a trip. as for species within the genus, the whole family has been turned on its head by the new phylogenetic classification, and the white wagtail is particularly paraphyletic, with so many different subspecies real or imagined that it will take a long time to get to the bottom of it all. but in the traditional classification there was already a curiosity that struck me: the british Motacilla alba was the pied wagtail, (alba you probably know means white) and the white wagtail was considered the continental subspecies M. alba alba... whiter than white in other words. which doesn't explain why the french call it a grey wagtail... not why what the british call a grey wagtail is yellow and olive. it all goes to show that one needn't be crazy to birdwatch... but it helps.
OK Now i am not posting from my phone or iPod. Here are the birds I saw: Rufous-collared Sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis) Black-chinned Siskin (Sporagra barbata) Long-winged Harrier (Circus buffoni) Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis)
Do some animals, even some birds, name their offspring??? http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2...dren-and-those-names-like-ours-stick-for-life Karl Berg has constructed a bunch of parrot nests on a Venezuelan ranch, and he's got mini-cams in those nests recording everything these little birds do. As you'll hear, they peep a lot. "Most people say, 'Well, all those calls are just noise,' " Karl told Virginia Morell, but "I think they're having conversations." Berg has listened to so many parrots in so many nests for so long, he has been able to identify that weeks after birth, these little birds begin to use very specific peeps to identify themselves to others. Not only that, they learn the peeping "names" of their parents, brothers, sisters, and use them in conversation, as in, "Peep-duh-dee-Peep, is that you?" Where Does a Name Come From? But who names these parrots? Does nature give each little chick a preprogrammed set of peeps? Are the names hard-wired in? Or could they be learned? "One possibility," Berg tells Virginia, "is that the parents are naming their chicks, like we name our kids." Whaaaat???? Come on, that can't be ... but watch this video (narrated by Cornell's Mark Dantzker), and you'll see how Karl Berg did an experiment that strongly suggests that parrot moms and dads choose their baby's names! {video in link} Virginia Morell's book reveals that humans and parrots aren't the only ones. Dolphins have particular clicks and whistles that are names, names that, like us, they use in casual, even possibly conspiratorial conversations. ("Hey, Frank, let's steal that hot dolphin lady from Gary and Mark.") Gradually — very gradually — scientists are learning to decode the conversations of very different animals, critters that live lives rich with plots, plans, quarrels, schemes, romance, appetites, and one day we will be able to follow the action, and even — just think about this — burst in on the conversation and call a parrot, a dolphin, a horse by its "true" name. How amazing would that be! Zoology would become like watching the Bravo channel — instead of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, it will be The Scheming Parrots of Venezuela. . . .
even the cornell people's comments on animal behavior are guilty of it to some extent, as they find no other way of ennobling animal discourse than anthropomorphizing it. in any case, all this is known, or better, felt by anyone with a hint of perspicacity, always has been, and not merely since the greeks: it is one of the constants found in the wisdom of all the peoples we term primitive and whose lore we took the trouble to record before exterminating them. in fact it is only hubris which makes us feel open-minded by saying animals are nearly our equals - in actual fact they are only different from... or superior to us...
A similar point is made in this movie... Mainly because Mark Bittner made the same point in his book...
i just spent 11 days in chicago of which 6 on an urban farm in garfield park; the first morning there i had the thrill of seeing the first northern cardinals i have ever seen in my life. amazing a bird so beautiful can be so common.
You know it is spring when the Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula) and the Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) return.
Coincidentally, I actually got swooped at by one of these this morning (and Monday as well). This isn't my picture, but I thought we'd complete the MLB trifecta:
They are a bit shorter and stubbier here, and not as aggressive as the ones that would dive bomb me when I was in college.. When I lived in Louisiana, the blue jays were thriving to the point where they almost lived in flocks, which seems to go against their nature. They were especially loud and raucous and obnoxious then. A friend of mine was going through a divorce so I decided to go see how he was doing. I got to his place and he's underneath a tree of squawking jays with a BB gun. He aims, pulls the trigger, and a bird falls to the ground. There are at least five other birds on the ground, and he has over a dozen others in a small kitchen garbage bag. The noise is still deafening. He shoots a couple more and I talk him into going to get some exercise and then maybe a beer or eight. I'm not sure if the bird shooting was due to the noise (which was irritating) the divorce (likewise) or a combination thereof.
Our pair from last year are back. I looked in the bushes the other day while working outside and saw a pretty large woodpecker.
I saw a couple bluejays combine to chase off a hawk once. I seriously thought at least one was going to be dinner, but they succeeded.
We'd just had an amazing hail fall, I thought a plane was about to land... on the roof. As it turned to rain I saw this little guy through the window on a plant under the eaves. That hail must have seemed like someone tossing baseballs at him. Then this guy wanted to get a-head in life and chose this for a seat..... The white streaks are showing how far rain falls in 1/640th of a sec. This guy got over it enough later to get aggressive in his posture, red means "Stay away"
Fun aren't they? We used to watch the morning hawk and Jay show. The Hawk would come into the tree and watch the bird feeder and the jay's would move in for their fun. 2 or 3 would go to ground right under the hawk and one would always go and sit right next to him and tell the hawk what he thought of his mother. Then the games would start. The hawk would dive on the grounded jays and always looked like he had one but they were just to quick. Then the aerial dog fights would start. "Look out blue jay leader, he's on your 6" You just knew the jay was a gonner and suddenly, the jay was on the hawks 6. Then a jay would feel 'peckish" and break off for a snack while the others carried on. Then the hawk, with tongue hanging out would depart in disgust...Only to try again the next day. Always a good show.
Sorry about the blurry image. Here's the latest on the birds. One of them seems to have flown off, I hope. This guy is left. I fed them with a eye dropper on Sunday. Had one sitting on my finger. He pissed and crapped on my hand. The nerve of some birds.