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
“On the Fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Four Calling Birds”. I wouldn’t want four calling birds in the house but I would like hearing some of the songs of the spring birds, but that won’t happen for a while as winter only officially started a week ago. Even the noisy barn swallows, like these four birds, would be a welcome sound over the squeaky snow under my feet as it is -5ºF this morning.
Four Noisy Birds
In the northern states, we often refer to birds as winter birds or summer birds, even though the winter birds are actually year-round birds. The summer birds arrive in the spring and leave in the fall and most of the ‘summer’ birds are gone now although I still heard a bluebird singing on Saturday.
But then there are the traveling birds who only stop briefly on their way to and back to farther distances like the High Arctic tundra. And when they are passing by, they often are changing their plumage so it makes it difficult for me to identify these visitors.
On the shore of Lake Superior this fall, I encountered one of the visiting feathered friends and at first, I thought it was a Semipalmated Sandpiper. When trying to determine which bird it was, they often state it is larger or smaller than another bird but when I don’t have the other bird in the same picture or a ruler as they run by, that doesn’t help me much.
One site stated that “If it’s on sand but really actively chasing the waves back and forth, up and down the beach slope with each wave, with legs moving so rapidly they’re blurs, it’s a Sanderling.” Well the birds I was watching was doing just that as I have a lot of blurry legs pictures and the few which aren’t blurry or not standing in water, shows the lack of hind toe that a Semipalmated Sandpiper has. It is also lacking the fine tipped bill so it appears my piper is actually a Sandlering juvenile or a Sandlering adult in transition from breeding to non-breeding plumage.
Whatever they were, they sure were fun to watch as they chased the waves in and out and once in a while, they got wet like I did when a rogue wave rolled in.
Speedy Peeping Bird
This juvenile Great Blue Heron doesn’t seem to notice the rushing water of the Amnicon River behind him but instead he seems to be scanning the pool of water for lunch.
Heron on the Amnicon
