September 2008

Red Knot

OK, I haven't posted anything for awhile. Sorry about that! Anyway, last week a recent Nature episode was released on DVD, Nature Crash A Tale of Two Species. I thought that I had posted something about it when it first aired, but a quick Google search of my site turned up nothing. The show was about over harvesting horseshoe crabs, and the effect on red knots, a migratory bird. If you haven't seen it, you can rent it from Netflix. I don't know (or care) if Blockbuster carries it.

I am going to try and add a Google search to my site, since it lacks a built in search. If it doesn't fit in well, I will pull it.

I have seen a debate about when to take down hummingbird feeders. Some people fear that, if you keep the feeders up past September 15th, you will encourage the birds to over winter and not migrate. Since I haven't seen any birds here, I figured it was a good time to pull mine. The cypress vines still have blooms, so any stray passing through it can still find a quick fix. Most people believe, when a hummingbird gets the instinctual urge to migrate, it will go, whether or not food is available.

I haven't seen any cardinals lately. I really hoped the female would show up at the birdbath, but neither one did. I still haven't seen a male downy, either. But, here are some recent visitors. A blue jay, a mockingbird, and what is this monster? It is a normal size goldfinch. It looks huge because it is close to the camera. And finally, the party continues!

edit Here is a party video.

Migration

The hummingbirds started their migration, so any that visit my feeder would not be local. I didn't realize that they would start so soon! I will keep the feeders up until I am sure they will have all passed by here. I will wait until next year to decide if I will try again to attract them, but right now I'm thinking, why bother? By the way, when I was taking the feeders in to clean them, I heard an eagle call. It was frustrating! I could hear it several times, and it seemed to be moving away from me, but I couldn't spot it.

Since I had not seen a single image of a bird at the hummingbird feeder, I moved the Wingscapes camera and pointed it at the birdbath. The robins loved the birdbath, but I haven't seen any of them for weeks. I was curious to see what is splashing all the water out of the birdbath. I should have known! See them here and here. They do look like they are having fun.

We got two inches of rain from Hanna, but it wasn't enough to stop my downy!

I knew some species of birds are supposed to be able to identify individual people, but this post in rec.birds, from Jerry Avins, sort of grabbed my attention:

"I once raised a pigeon from dropper feeding to release. A year later, a pigeon of the same coloring peeled out of a high-flying flock and landed on my shoulder."

Amazing!