Last evening I was walking through the pasture to take a picture of the new calf and on my way, I spotted a bald eagle circling overhead as I suppose it wanted to eat the afterbirth. After circling a few times, it landed in a tall pine tree since I wasn’t leaving but then the smaller birds weren’t leaving the eagle alone either. Finally it had enough harassment and took off although the smaller birds were still chasing the eagle as it left.
Eagle Being Harassed
These Yellow Warblers are busy feeding their young chicks which is extra work with a cowbird chick in the nest too who is so much bigger than the little warblers. So a majority of the insects the parents bring to the nest are given to the bigger mouth of the freeloader.
Brown-headed Cowbird females skips building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. They deposit their eggs in other birds nest to raise their young, often though at the expense of the unwilling foster bird’s own chicks. But the cowbirds don’t just dump and run but keep an eye on their eggs and young and if their egg are removed, they retaliate by destroying the host chicks eggs in a term called “mafia behavior”.
The nests of the Yellow Warbler are frequently parasitized by the Brown-headed Cowbird so the warbler often builds a new nest directly on top of one containing the cowbird egg along with their own eggs. Sometimes there may be up to six layers if the cowbird keeps redepositing eggs but it appears this nest is only one layer.
Yellow Warblers Feeding Their Young
The video has some clips of the Yellow Warblers feeding their four chicks and the extra cowbird (but I was mad at the freeloader so I cut out most of the clips where the big mouth was getting all the food).
Certain birds let you know when you are too close to their nest and will try to lead you away from their nest, dive bomb your head or start squawking at you. The Red-winged Blackbird gets rather noisy when too close to the nest and soon both the female and male are making a fuss until I leave the area. The female was trying to feeding her babies when I spotted the nest and she wasn’t happy with me. At least this nest I could get to since most of the nests are over the water as the Red-winged Blackbirds like to build their nest among the cattails.
Red-winged Blackbird Babies
Last evening and this morning, the catbird has been singing up a storm but not the catty mew which which him sound like a cat, but his long song which can last for up to ten minutes as they copy the sounds of other species and stringing them together to make his own song, like his relatives of mockingbirds and thrashers. The Gray Catbird belongs to the genus Dumetella, which means “small thicket” and they can be found in thickets of young trees, dense shrubs and vines.
Cat Sounding Bird
Many birds are busy making nests or even sitting on eggs already in birdhouses I have made so I didn’t appreciate the Northern Flicker trying to drill through the top of one the birdhouses. It wasn’t my fault the wind blew down the dead tree a week ago where it nested in last year so he didn’t need to try to destroy another nesting site.
The Northern Flicker spends a lot of time on the ground looking for insects and I see plenty of ants around, one of its favorite foods, for it is eat and capture with its tongue which can extend two inches beyond the end of its bill.
Northern Flicker Looking for Insects
More signs of spring with new calves in the pasture, even though this one was watching the bird until I stopped for a picture.
New Spring Calf
My robin is to blame for the predicted snow and sleet tonight since I keep seeing him duck under the pine tree so the snow can’t land on his tail during the brief snow showers, so apparently it has only snowed on the robin twice and not the three times for spring to truly arrive and stay. I might have to stake the robin in the middle of the yard tonight so that the snow can land on his tail and be done with winter. I guess that is why the robin is Wisconsin’s state bird because we have six or more months of winter!
Robin Causing it to Snow
It is a cold Valentine’s Day, the coldest in 72 years according to the weather folks, so probably no romantic picnic outside and no kissing the ring on the lady’s hand since the gentleman’s lips would freeze on to it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of love in the air at the bird feeders either as it is every male, female, and youth on their own trying to get a seed as the birds battle each other and the squirrels. Maybe love will come back when spring ever decides to return.
The Great Backyard Bird Count started yesterday and continues through Monday so people around the world are counting birds this weekend. I haven’t seen the cardinals this week at the feeders but the finches, red poles, chickadees, nuthatch and woodpeckers have been fighting at the feeders.
Love is Not in the Air
It seems like when the temperature finally gets above zero, then it snows like this morning. And the wind is blowing the snow sideways as well as making it hard for the birds to land on the feeders except for the feeder which the gray squirrel as commandeered (who is now a white squirrel with all the snow gathering on his back since he has been squatting for a while as I gave up chasing him off after the fourteen time).
But since it still below freezing, the bears should at least be hibernating yet so maybe the birds will be able to use this feeder since the squirrel hasn’t climbed the pole yet. This feeder disappeared last spring when the bear broke the pole and ran off with the feeder. It took a while before I found it behind a brush pile in the woods and the bear must have eaten a lot of seeds that day since he left some big brown piles on my lawn!
Snowy Bird Cafe
“On the Eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me Eleven Pipers Piping.” If I had a true love, I’m not sure what kind of piper he would send as images for the eleven pipers are commonly either playing the flute or bagpipes. And while I don’t mind the sound of a bagpipe, having eleven flutes or bagpipes piping in my small house would be a little overwhelming and too noisy. And it would be hard for them to play outside since it was -18ºF is morning and their lips would freeze onto any metal part of their pipes. On a non-winter day, I would rather see and listen to a different type of piper piping.
Eleven Pipers Peeping
