Happy 2014!

Happy New Year, Everyone!  And, what better way to start a year than a post about my favourite little birds - Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus)

Who hasn't held out a handful of sunflower seeds, hoping a friendly, curious little chickadee will momentarily perch on a finger while taking a seed?  Or, smiled on hearing the familiar chickadee-dee?  (I suppose the non-nature lover types haven't, but those people aren't likely to be here reading anyway).

As familiar one is with this perky little bird, All About Birds has some Cool Facts, you might not know.  

- The Black-Capped Chickadee hides seeds and other food items to eat later. Each item is placed in a different spot and the chickadee can remember thousands of hiding places.

- Every autumn Black-capped Chickadees allow brain neurons containing old information to die, replacing them with new neurons so they can adapt to changes in their social flocks and environment even with their tiny brains.  

(It is quite probable that I, too, have allowed my brain neurons to die en masse, yet don't seem to have replaced them.  I do not recall much of anything useful anymore and don't adapt as easily to change as I used to.  I certainly wouldn't remember where I stashed any great number seeds.  Oh, to be a 'tiny-brained' chickadee!).

- Chickadee calls are complex and language-like, communicating information on identity and recognition of other flocks as well as predator alarms and contact calls. The more dee notes in a chickadee-dee-dee call, the higher the threat level.

- Winter flocks with chickadees serving as the nucleus contain mated chickadee pairs and non-breeders, but generally not the offspring of the adult pairs within that flock. Other species that associate with chickadee flocks include nuthatches, woodpeckers, kinglets, creepers, warblers and vireos. (No warblers or vireos in winter here in the Canadian prairies - not for long, anyway.)

- Even when temperatures are far below zero (F), chickadees virtually always sleep in their own individual cavities. In rotten wood, they can excavate nesting and roosting holes entirely on their own.

- Most birds that associate with chickadee flocks respond to chickadee alarm calls, even when their own species doesn’t have a similar alarm call.

Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion is just about my favourite birding book and constant reference tome.  BUT, I must take issue with Mr. Dunne in regard to his comments about Black-capped Chickadees.  He describes them as: portly and robust.  All right, that's fair enough.  However, when comparing them with the Carolina Chickadee he says:

 "Black-capped is a larger, more contrasting, more disheveled-looking chickadee than Carolina"

and 

"Black-capped looks like a scruffy ruffian of a chickadee; Carolina looks like a nice, well-groomed, well-bred chickadee"

Oh, puh-leese.  Those Southern Belle Chicks wouldn't last a minute Up Here.  Pfffttttt!



Information sources:

All About Birds
Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion

Common Redpolls - Smart Birds

I have a lack of redpolls!  The past couple of days, the 100+ Common Redpolls (Carduelis flammea) that wintered in my neighbourhood have gone. There are only 2-3 around my yard now.

Actually with this never-ending Winter of 2013, they have lingered here longer than usual, giving us nice looks at the very bright rosy-red breeding plumage.

 
Pete Dunne calls them the Catkin Finch and says this northern finch loves birch catkins - simply loves them.  I don't have birch.  I toss out seeds in the winter.  That works, too.



Quoting P. Dunne once again, he describes the CORE as a "streaky, stubby, effervescent pip-squeak of a finch with a small red beret and a black goatee."

These birds are smaller than House Finches.  They are a little bigger than a Pine Siskin, with which the less showy female redpoll can be confused (until one sees the jaunty red cap).
 
 
These personable little birds are arctic and subarctic breeders.  All About Birds provides us with this little cool fact:

Common Redpolls can survive temperatures of –65 degrees Fahrenheit. A study in Alaska found redpolls put on about 31% more plumage by weight in November than they did in July.   During winter, some Common Redpolls tunnel into the snow to stay warm during the night. Tunnels may be more than a foot long and 4 inches under the insulating snow.

I’ve never seen evidence of this, but then we don’t get quite as cold as –65F....close but not quite....at that temp, I’d probably be a little busy tunnelling into the snow myself to notice what birds are digging along side of me. 



Another fun fact:   Animals behaviourists commonly test an animal’s intelligence by seeing if it can pull in a string to get at a hanging piece of food. (I’m not making this up). Common Redpolls pass this test with no trouble. They’ve also been seen shaking the seeds out of birch catkins, then dropping to the ground to pick them up from the snow surface.

And: Redpolls have throat pouches for temporarily storing seeds. They may fill their pouches with seeds quickly then fly away to swallow the seeds in a more protected, warmer spot.

 
The fun facts with these birds never end.....here's yet another one:

Redpolls breed in all the the lands that ring the Arctic Ocean. A few banding records have shown that some Common Redpolls are incredibly wide ranging. Among them, a bird banded in Michigan was recovered in Siberia; others in Alaska have been recovered in the eastern US, and a redpoll banded in Belgium was found two years later in China.

Info sources:

All About Birds
Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion 

This Female Green-winged Teal

shouldn't be here - at least, not in the Winter.  She should be down in the southern states. 

At first I thought she was wounded as she would just hop out of the water (at the sewer lagoons*) when I drove by.  However, one day she rose up with the Mallards.   Who knows why a few birds miss the last migration bus leaving late Fall, but there are always a few, especially around areas which have year-round open water (such as here).

This little duck - and Green-winged Teals (Anas crecca) are tiny at 14" in length, wing-span 23" - was easily spotted among the mammoth Mallards (length 23", wing-span 35").

Of course, the bright green wing patch (speculum) made for a quick identification.

Green-winged Teals prefer shallow ponds and mudflats so it isn't surprising this one would be at the lagoons.

* Sewer lagoons are great places to look for birds, especially shorebirds during migrations.  No, not the nicest smelling places at times, but hey, it is our own waste by-products, after all.

More info on Green-winged Teals at
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/green-winged_teal/id/ac

One Mourning Dove in the Snow

Mourning Dove  Zenaida macroura

I think this is one of the doves that was too young to fly south when the rest of the Mourning Doves left, about a month ago. 

If so, it and its sibling live across the street in my neighbour Marian's spruce. 

Ever since the little birds left the nest, they have come over to sit close to her when she works in her yard and garden.  

Blue Jay - Again

Blue Jay  Cyanocitta cristata

Cool Facts from All About Birds

• Thousands of Blue Jays migrate in flocks along the Great Lakes and Atlantic coasts, but much about their migration remains a mystery. Some are present throughout winter in all parts of their range. Young jays may be more likely to migrate than adults, but many adults also migrate. Some individual jays migrate south one year, stay north the next winter, and then migrate south again the next year. No one has worked out why they migrate when they do.
• Blue Jays are known to take and eat eggs and nestlings of other birds, but we don’t know how common this is. In an extensive study of Blue Jay feeding habits, only 1% of jays had evidence of eggs or birds in their stomachs. Most of their diet was composed of insects and nuts.
• The Blue Jay frequently mimics the calls of hawks, especially the Red-shouldered Hawk. These calls may provide information to other jays that a hawk is around, or may be used to deceive other species into believing a hawk is present.
• Tool use has never been reported for wild Blue Jays, but captive Blue Jays used strips of newspaper to rake in food pellets from outside their cages.
• Blue Jays lower their crests when they are feeding peacefully with family and flock members or tending to nestlings.
• At feeders in Florida, Red-headed Woodpeckers, Florida Scrub-Jays, Common Grackles, and gray squirrels strongly dominate Blue Jays, often preventing them from obtaining food.
• The pigment in Blue Jay feathers is melanin, which is brown. The blue color is caused by scattering light through modified cells on the surface of the feather barbs.
• The black bridle across the face, nape, and throat varies extensively and may help Blue Jays recognize one another.
• The oldest known wild, banded Blue Jay lived to be at least 17 years 6 months old.

Pine Siskins

 Pine Siskins  Carduelis pinus

As you can see, we got some snow - not much, and the sun is trying to shine through the clouds.  C'mon, Sun!   Freezing rain overnight is likely making things pretty exciting out on the roads.  However, I don't have anywhere I need to be, so I'm sitting here in my sun room watching the Pine Siskins. 

This is another boreal nester that comes South for the Winter.  These little birds especially love thistle (niger) seeds.