Two Out of Three Birds...

Two weeks ago, I tried a backyard experiment—I changed the feed in my birdfeeder from sunflower seeds to a seed mix, hoping to attract a larger assortment of birds. I didn’t get the results I hoped for. Only one or two intrepid yet desultory house finches strayed to the feeder and pecked gently at the food in contrast to their usual vigorous feeding habits. Just the previous week, my feeder attracted flocks of birds—Black-capped Chickadees that flitted in and out as they grabbed one seed at a time, House Finches that squabbled aggressively among themselves, and so many Black-eyed Juncos that they overflowed into the front yard.

Meanwhile, I learned about which bird feed is desirable and which is not, from a bird’s-eye’s view. Information on the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Web site (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/Page.aspx?pid=1179) confirmed that birds “spurn” cheap fillers such as the red millet my mix contained.  Sunflower seeds on the other hand are the most popular food and have the high fat content that birds require during the winter.

To attract birds other than my usuals, I might use safflower oil, white millet, shelled and cracked corn, peanuts, milo or sorghum, and rapeseed. Birds reject canary seed, red millet, golden millet, and flax, or the feed may attract species people generally consider undesirable such as cowbirds, a competitive bird that drives out others.

Three days after I returned to sunflower seeds, the birds returned en masse. The accompanying photo shows mounds of sunflower seed shells beneath the feeder. The backyard experiment didn’t turn out as I had hoped or expected—I didn’t attract more birds or more species—but I did learn how to take care of the birds I do have. 

Winter Solstice

Winter solstice is two days away, on Friday, the 21^st, at 4:12 a.m. Where I live the day will be 9 hours, 16 minutes, and 3 seconds long. The sun will be “standing still.” (The origin of the word solstice comes from the Latin solstitium, from sol sun + -stit-, -stes standing). Even though we celebrate solstice because it signals longer days, it’s just the beginning of winter. The weather gets colder, because the earth’s temperature will continue to drop as it gives up retained heat from summer and spring. Sunrises won’t be earlier until January, because it is later sunsets rather than sunrises that increase the length of daylight  (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=1947).

Winter has already begun here. Today is 22 degrees, but with the wind it feels like 10, and the sky is overcast. Birds and squirrels have disappeared from my yard and are in a state of torpor that they will arise from as the sun appears and temperatures increase. In this state of temporary sleep, metabolism slows, along with heart rate, respiration, and body temperature.

Birds are much better equipped to survive cold than heat (see the lecture about metabolism on the terrific site http://ornithology.com/ ). Feathers are incredible insulators and are a bird’s first defense against frigid weather. Other mechanisms or adaptations that allow birds to survive low temperatures include roosting in flocks, tucking their heads into their bodies so that a smaller area of mass is exposed to the cold, and fluffing their feathers.

Perhaps the most relevant question for the pedestrian naturalist is, how can we help the birds as they emerge from their sleep? Birds raise their metabolism by sunning themselves and by shivering. Shivering consumes a great deal of energy, which means birds need ready access to quality food. They also need access to water. Even though they can eat snow, doing so cools their systems, and so it’s far better for them to drink water that we can provide. Winter technically arrives with solstice, but for birds and mammals, winter arrives when it arrives.

Wish Upon a Star (or Three)

The weather outside is frightful here in Colorado, but tomorrow night, December 13, I’ll be sitting on my front porch after midnight wrapped in a down sleeping bag watching for meteors shooting from the direction of the constellation Gemini. On Thursday night/Friday morning, after midnight, is when the Geminid meteor shower peaks in North America, with the sky flashing up to eighty meteors per hour. Don’t give up if you are an early bird, though, because Gemini rises at about 7 p.m., and you may see “shooting stars” every hour even tonight, December 12, and as late as December 18. I’m hoping to see one on my run tonight. If you are impatient, though, and don’t want to depend on the possibility of seeing that once-per-hour shooting star, you’ll want to stay up after midnight. The new moon that rises tonight will render tomorrow’s shower clearly visible and a simultaneous potential meteor shower as yet unidentified by scientists will add up to thirty meteors an hour, rendering the sky awesome (in the old-fashioned sense of the word).

The possible unidentified shower—it’s not a sure thing—will come the sky from Wirtanen’s orbit in the direction of Pisces, and although as Deborah Byrd writes (http://earthsky.org/space/new-meteor-shower-might-coincide-with-2012-geminids), it’s probably not important to know whether you are seeing meteors illuminating the sky from the direction of constellation Pisces or that of Gemini, I think the contrast as Pisces sets in the west while Gemini rises in the east with meteors emanating from both directions simultaneously will provide a brilliance I’ve never seen.

If you want to identify the constellations, I like the Sky Map app. And, if you want to know more technical details about meteors and the showers themselves, NASA will be holding a live chat all night December 13, at its site http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/watchtheskies/index.html

First Steps

“With what joy is the return of spring hailed by the pedestrian naturalist; he needs no gun nor pressing-book to make wanton waste of life and beauty. His very being is exultant while watching the quick movements of the various members of the feathered tribe, as they flit hither and thither…”—William Monroe Egan.

Pedestrian refers to the act of walking as well as to the commonplace and unimaginative. I can’t imagine how the word came to mean both things, since walking is hardly unimaginative, even in the city. Nature exists in my urban neighborhood as well as in the “wild.” Nature is always extraordinary whether I am watching a squirrel frenetically bury an acorn or a mink foraging by a river’s edge. This blog recounts my pedestrian experiences with nature, whether in my front yard or in Colorado’s northeastern plains and Rocky Mountains.