Favorites
It’s Easter and it is soooo tempting to purchase live chicks and bunnies for your children and grandchildren. But, please reconsider. They really are not good pets for young children! Children want to play and handling these young animals and birds so much it is not good. In fact too much handling can cause stress for them and the baby chicks could die, and this in turn causes stress for the child and you. It’s a vicious circle.
Why not take them to a farm or the petting zoo?
The Prothonotary Warbler (Prothonotaria citrea) is one of only two warbler species in North America that nests in cavities. The other is Lucy’s Warbler of the Southwest, and it is not known to live in artificial habitats. The Prothonotary Warbler is a user of birdhouses, and a pair will even use one to raise more than one brood in a year. Different pairs will also use the same house to raise their broods in a given season.
This bright yellow beauty with blue-gray wings and tail is about 5-1/2″ long. Its song is a ringing “sweet-weet-weet-weet-weet”. It lives in wooded swamplands, flooded bottomland forests, and along streams with dead trees near them. Sometimes they live in trees actually in the water. The borders of creeks and rivers seem to be their favorite nesting places, but nesting over still water is not uncommon. Their nests are close to the ground.
The Prothonotary Warbler’s range covers most of the southeastern states, north to Minnesota, Michigan and New York. It appears occasionally in New England in the spring and during migration periods may appear anyplace coast to coast.
The Mountain Chickadee or Poecile gambeli has a white eyebrow through its black cap and lives in and west of the Rocky Mountains, where he calls chick-adee-adee-adee. The Chestnut-backed Chickadee has a chestnut-brown back and a brown cap and lives in the northwest and along the California coast. His call is more of a tseek-a-dee-dee.
The Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees like mixed forests, open woodlands and suburban areas, while their western cousins prefer coniferous forests.
Chickadee belong to the titmouse family. They are largely an insect eaters, but in winter they may depend greatly on seeds and berries. They are adept at foraging for insect eggs and larvae from twigs and bark, and this accounts for their active hopping and climbing around on trees to spot their food from all angles! Their favorite foods at feeders are sunflower seeds, peanut kernels, other nutmeats, peanut butter, and suet.
In the non-breeding season chickadees tend to flock together, and sometimes the flock may even include titmice, kinglets, nuthatches, and other birds. During breeding season, the males will drive others out of their territories, so you may have only one pair of chickadees in your yard, where you may have had a flock all winter.
From the beginning of courtship through the period of egg incubation, the male chickadee feeds the female. They typically raise one or two broods a year of 6 to 8 young and are year-round residents.
Since chickadees’ natural means of nesting is to excavate a hole in a rotting tree, you may make your nest box more attractive to them by putting a little sawdust or wood chips inside it for them. They will not use it for nesting, but since they usually work in pairs to carry a little sawdust away from the hole they are making in a tree, they will perceive that this hole in a tree is appropriate for them, and they will carry the sawdust away before nesting there.
Chickadees move to denser woods for breeding and nesting, but the rest of the year they like open areas and forest edges.
Are you a true bird lover? What do you think about this feeder? I think this is a wonderful idea! It is fun to be outdoors and watch the birds, but this is the ultimate. You can be sitting in your living room and the birds will come in to your room. Well almost. This way you can see them up close.
The little bird that speaks his name and does acrobatic stunts on tree branches delights all bird watchers. This plump little fellow with the black cap is friendly, and chances are he’s been at your feeder in the winter.
Chickadees look for tree holes, either natural or made by woodpeckers, for their nests. But if a tree is sufficiently soft or rotten, they may make their own holes. A dead birch tree, which is rotten in the center, is an ideal place for a chickadee nest.
Four species of chickadee may be found in nesting boxes. The Black-capped Chickadee or Poecile atricapilla lives in all northern and most middle states as well as in most of Canada. Its black cap and bib, and white cheeks identify it, as does its chick-a-dee-dee-dee call. The Carolina Chickadee or Poecile carolinensis, which looks almost the same, lives in the southeast quarter of the US and has a slightly higher, faster version of the call.
Birds are really very interesting to watch. They come in all different colors and sizes. They sing different songs. They are beautiful and fun. On a hot summer day they with land on the fountain or birdbath or along the edge of the pond. They’ll splash and peck at their features or each other. They’ll hop around and if the water is not too deep they will hop right in splashing and singing. Now that they are refreshed, you probably will be too. You don’t even realize how relaxing this is until you think about it.
Have you ever really noticed the truly magnifcent colors of our birds? Most people are aware of the bright colors of exotic birds… reds, blues, yellows, oranges and greens. But many of our native birds have spectacular colors as well. There are deep shiny blues, reds and yellows. Have you spotted them in your backyard?
Duck houses for ducks that live in trees? Yes, a few ducks do nest in trees on a regular basis, and these include the Bufflehead, Wood Duck, Goldeneyes and Mergansers. These ducks commonly nest in tree cavities, which makes them good candidates for man-made habitats.
They are incapable of excavating a cavity to live in as a woodpecker might, so they search for an existing hole … and a rather large one at that. Their acceptable cavities are fewer than ever, making them quite dependent on human benefactors. Young forests, and those without woodpeckers or flickers, will not have cavities suitable for ducks.
Winter is almost over, but please remember our little feathered friends. They are still in need of our help. If we have fed and housed them over the winter we still need to take care of them. They have become dependant on us and it may be difficult for them to go out on their own in search of food, depending of course where you are and how much snow you still may have.
This may be a good time to clean your houses that are empty, so that they will be ready in the spring with the arrival of new birds.
There really is nothing so exquiste as a bird in flight! Have you ever really watched them? So beautiful. It doesn’t really matter how big or how small they are. They are just so graceful.
They must be very strong to be able to stay in mid air and propel themselves forward. And the distance they fly when they migrate in unbelievable.