A Flood of Finches

These days, when I step out the back door to the deck, it sounds like I have entered the aviary at the National Zoo. A deafening racket of bird song greets me; non-stop twitters, zips, whistles, and other notes strung together to make a cacophony of sound that would make Stravinsky proud!  The finches have arrived! 

It seems three convergent flocks of finches have just discovered my thistle feeders that had previously been ignored, to the point that I thought I had been sold stale seed.  Perhaps I had just put them out too soon, but now, in an example of “be careful what you wish for”, I have oak trees full of finches and their close relatives. 

The American Goldfinch is here for the winter, in drabber garb but entertaining still in their dipping “pot-a-to-chip” flight and twittery ways.  I used to tell my walking ladies that they could always remember the calls of goldfinch if they would just remember that they “talk” constantly, hardly stopping to draw breath, not unlike their fearless guide who operates pretty much the same way! 

But now, I am in the Hill Country of TX which is the eastern part of the range of the Lesser Goldfinch, who it may be pointed out, is only Lesser by about a ¼ to ½ inch in size, but are no means “lesser” in sound production.  Eh gad!  They seem like the American Goldfinch on speed!   Sounds tumble out of them like crazy!  A “song” that incorporates songs of other birds but comes out so fast that I could never hope to catch whether that part was from the Ash Throated Flycatcher (whose song I wouldn’t recognize anyways!) or a Verdin (ditto on not knowing that either), or a scrub jay, which I would know.  They are said to mimic those birds and then some but I surely will need more practice before I can pick them out.

The males are strikingly handsome, with black that covers their head and backs when they are in breeding plumage.  I won’t get to see the brilliant yellow of the American Goldfinch for it will head north before breeding season but I may get lucky and have the Lesser nest in my yard for they are year round residents here.  They, like other finches, love thistle and anything in the sunflower family to include dandelions and I have plenty of both.  We are lucky to have a natural gas line that runs behind the property providing just the weedy kind of cover so many birds like, and host plants for so many of the butterflies that are constantly cruising about.

But even louder than these high-speed, singing goldfinches are the Pine Siskins who often play a “birds of a feather flock together” scenario with the finches.  They are streaky birds that you might mistake for a sparrow, but to look at its slightly curved bill and the yellow that the males sport on their wings marks them out as Siskins.  And their call is also nonstop with the added interspersing of a  “Ziiiiiiiipppppp” that has been likened to a piece of paper ripping slowly.  It was an unfamiliar sound to me and the amazing thing was that, although it sounded like there were huge numbers of them in the trees, it took me the longest time to actually “see” one.  They favor the tops of trees, so although I could catch motion in the leaves, and practically needed ear protection to stand under them, I just couldn’t get a clear look.  Until of course, they too discovered the thistle feeder and now I can see them eye-to-eye whenever I want.

I mentioned I put this under the “be careful what you wish for” category because once they DO discover the thistle, they can’t get enough of it, and if you have priced thistle lately, you know that you can either afford to feed the birds, or feed yourself.  But we can tighten our belts for awhile for the Americans will be headed north soon, and the Pine Siskins are said to be erratic in their movements; now you see them now you don’t.   I don’t remember any being here last winter, and yet this year, here they are, so, enjoy the moment. 

The Lesser Goldfinches are here year round so maybe I will get to watch their courting, high-speed chases through the trees and the sweet touching of bills, soft coos,  and offering of seed to each other that lets you know “finch love” is in the air.

Well, I pointed out that the way to remember all these finches was that they “talked too much”, rather like I am doing right now!  I have carried on long enough and will now let you return to the bird sounds in your own back yard that are perhaps ramping up no matter where you live.  Chickadees in the north are probably already making their “fee-bee” calls as they set up breeding territory and cardinals are waking you with their “cheer cheers” and oh, my missed Song sparrows, are ready to spill out their often repeated calls.  Even if a blizzard is in your weekend forecast again, know that winter is on a downhill slide and all the birds know it.

A Bird in the Hand....

….is easier to identify than a bird in the bush!  A few weeks ago, I mentioned how difficult it was to correctly ID the flocks of sparrows that would fly up, unnoticed from the ground, as soon as I approached the bird feeder.  Even with 20 or so flying up in my face, I couldn’t get a single good look before they melted into the Ashe Junipers.  Chock them up as sparrows and leave it at that but then, I had an opportunity to go to a demonstration of bird banding at the local state park.   Now, with the bird literally in my hand, I could actually see all those field marks that before I had just read about.

First, a word in defense of sparrows, “Oh, its just a sparrow, don’t bother trying to ID it, just call it a LBB (little brown bird) and move on.” Or, many of us equate “sparrows” with the noisy House Sparrow that was introduced from Europe and has taken over every tree in every Wal-Mart parking lot and perhaps your hedgerow too.   I wrote a blog about resorting to withholding food from the other birds to get rid of the House Sparrow population I had acquired, which by the way, in time, did finally work.

Our native sparrows are in a different family altogether and are really lovely little songbirds.  I loved hearing the “Old Sam, Peabody, Peabody” of the White Throated Sparrow on the Cape, and the series of dry chips that the Chipping Sparrow repeated again and again in the spring and the interesting fact that my Song Sparrow had a different dialect than perhaps your Song Sparrow.  Ah, but now I am in Texas and singing sparrows will be but a memory for I am in their wintering grounds here and they save their best melodies for the dating games to come up North in the spring.  

However, this bird banding experience was perfect for showing me up close what I should look for.  I had seen flocks of sparrows explode out of the fields of the Wildlife Rehab place I volunteer at, large grassy fields perfect for this grass loving Vesper Sparrow.  For that matter its scientific name is pretty redundant, Pooecetes gramineus  which means “grass dwelling, grass loving birds” and that’s where I was seeing them.  They have white feathers on the outer side of the tail that you really only see in flight but that makes them a fairly easy ID.  “Vesper”, as in singing beautifully at dusk, but again something I will have to listen to on line for they won’t be doing it here. 

Another new sparrow for me was a Lincoln Sparrow, which I assumed had something to do with Abe. Maybe they found it in IL or perhaps it was an extremely honest bird.  But no, it was named after Tom Lincoln, a 21 yr old from Maine who had gone on a birding expedition with Audubon himself in 1833 and had succeeded in collecting it, so, it was named after him.  Who knew?  This is a really shy sparrow, said to be afraid of it’s own shadow, that stays really close to the brush.  The only reason we got to catch it was there were about 20 of us walking and clapping our way through the brush herding whatever was there toward the fine mesh nets that stretched across the field. 

Speak about a need to be dexterous; I could never make bird-banding my avocation. I am way too clumsy with my hands. But Craig Hensley, our leader, the head Naturalist at Guadalupe River State Park, was so skilled at it. He handled not only extricating them from nets, but then holding them gently and showing us the primary feathers, the secondaries, feet, beaks etc,. Then, with tiny tools, he measured different parts to the bird’s wings and finally attached the small coded ring that would help them identify it later if it was caught again.  He even held the bird up to our ear so we could hear the drum roll of a heartbeat it had.  In the end he placed it gently in a child’s hand and let them have the treat of releasing the bird.  Wonderful!

So just a LBB?  I think not; a bird, just as worthy as any other of our attention and admiration.  And to all my Cape Cod friends, think of me next time you hear “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody”, especially the treat of hearing a young one who is just learning and can only get out the “Old Sam, Old Sam” what was that next line?” I loved that!  But you have to wait, spring isn’t quite at your door yet!  But it will be, the snow will melt, the birds will head north and then you will have my envy. Till then, think of me out in this now, lovely weather, getting the hang of who is whom in the LBB world. 

May Day, May Day

Interestingly, I have been monitoring the "perfect storm" that has just hit my dear home of Cape Cod when I found myself in my own mini "perfect storm".  I am about to have some minor surgery on a leg, in about an hour for that matter,( I am writing this at a military base while I wait, ergo no pictures today), and I will have to stay off my feet for a few days.  I have been saving up all the blogs that are clogging my brain and had hoped to write them while I was in a forced to be inside, when my dear computer started making distress noises and now is in more of a need of a doctor than I am.  And of course the irony is, being home bound for a week means I can't take it anywhere to get it fixed.  So, this is just a short blog to explain why I am not blogging!

It has been an out of body experience watching "Nemo", and by the way, when did they start naming winter storms?  I skyped with my daughter in Maine and got treated to scenes of blowing snow; I watched the weather channel and saw pounding surf and shots of sideways snow, then stepping out the door into 70 degree weather, I saw that the first flowers, the "wind" flowers are already coming up!  The rest of the world takes this in stride but for me it is just mind boggling even though this is my second February and I should begin to understand that means spring here.  Still, old expectations die hard. 

The Texas weather has been admittedly gorgeous!  Not hot, not cold, just right, 60's and 70's which are my idea of perfection.  It sets off crazy over-zealous planting ideas.  I had to come to the base with my husband and while I wait for my appointment I filled the car, for the second time this week, with native bushes, flowers, and even small fruit trees.  They are so amazingly affordable at this nursery that it seems a shame not to try some and, of course, they look lovely now.  What is the nursery man's motto?  "We grow 'em, you kill 'em", which is about right in my experience.  So they are all shiny and green and looking grand now, but we shall see who holds up through a Texas summer.  They stock mostly natives so that is good, but some of my tried and true natives I put in last year seem to have gone belly up over the winter.  If you don't succeed at first...

The hardest part of such misplaced optimism is the work it will require to "plant" them.  Think some dynamite would be helpful in my box of garden tools, or at least a pick and axe and willingness to swing them.  We are on the Edwards Plateau, almost pure limestone with a thin skin of soil.  However, our personal yard slopes down towards a creek and the soil of the hill luckily settled on the bottom half of the yard, so you can actually dig there.  But whatever you put there will have not only soil but unrelenting sun. But I, once again, will naively believe the tags that say these dears were born and bred here and should love the sun.  We shall see.  But it is spring and hope, as they say, springs eternal so why not.

Well time to scrub up and get to surgery.  In an extra measure of caution they seem to recommend that the patient scrub up with the same thing the doctor does. I am lucky my husbands office has a shower for after walking the dog and messing around with plants I might have picked up a microbe or two. And if a miracle happens, and the computer fixes itself, I hope this week will see some true nature blogs, not just stream of consciousness writing, be published.   We shall see. To friends on the Cape, I am praying no real damage happened although I am sure the beach is greatly re-altered. And I am sure that you will tell me all about it when  you can.