Filed under: Age-appropriate, KidPost, MamaPost, Practice | Tags: bird feeders
We are filling the feeders. It’s a balmy November morning, maybe already 50°F and due to rise into the 60s. Not really critical, for the birds, this feeding. But we got up early, strangely for us, so why not.
Mama: “What do you like best about feeding the birds?”
LittleBirder: “The way the seeds fall and sprinkle all over.”
And here I was thinking about the birds we see, and he likes the cascading sound and feel. Pay attention to the now, MamaBirder. He is!
I am washing dishes, looking out the window at the way last night’s heavy snow*. It’s bowed the branches of our small trees and various shrubs, making rather lovely arches and temporary small cathedrals. A few usual small birds have been to the mixed-seed feeder we have going at the moment. There’s one right now, making the feeder swing with every attempt; it’s really too large for that feeder.
“Hey, LittleBirder, there’s a Blue Jay in the crabapple tree. Go look!”
He runs to the front door. This is a glass door, and at the moment surprisingly clean. I assumed he’d look through, since the crabapple is only about 8 feet from this door. Plus he’s in jammies, and it’s somewhat chilly, having snowed and all. But no. I hear it swing open.
And surprise, surprise, the Jay flies away. Oh well!
* 1″-2″ very wet and sticky, perfect for snowballs
Filed under: MamaPost, Practice | Tags: birding, birds, birdwatching, for Birdwatchers Big & Small
Saturday, May 17th, will be International Migratory Bird Day.
Come celebrate at the Birds of Vermont Museum, if you are near Huntington, Vermont, that day!
LittleBirder and I added birdseed to the feeders — until he bent over and klonked his head on the open lid of the big green one. Ooops. Poor little guy.
Partly sunny, but no birds (a few whistles and twitters as I walked with Orca). Are they out of the habit of being here because we haven’t put out bird sees/black oil sunflower seed?
Filed under: Birds Seen, MamaPost, What's that bird?, birdwatching | Tags: birds, identification, reasoning
LittleBirder and I were looking at chickadees and a titmouse on the feeder.
Me (indicating the titmouse): And do you know what that one is?
LittleBirder, after thinking: Is it a baby blue jay?
A bit later, he wanted a blue jay to come inside and keep him company (we hadn’t seen a blue jay today).
LittleBirder decided that the blue jay was today’s bird, and talked about seeing them outside.
I wish I’d written down right away what he was saying. It’s clear to me that Blue Jay should be be #2, really, though I know he knows cardinal by sight…at least in photos. It’s rather sweet: we have a video of him from last Christmas, in which he and his Uncle are putting together a puzzle of a cardinal. LittleBirder is saying “Boozhay?” repeatedly, which Uncle S interpreted as “building” (as in building a puzzle). I was taking the movie, so I didn’t say anything, but I thought he was asking whether the cardinal was a blue jay.
We took ourselves out for a walk today, LittleBirder and I. Near our home is a pair of ponds. In a fit of practicality, I dubbed them “High Pond” and “Low Pond”, referring to their elevations with respect to dirt road that runs between them. There’s easy access to the ponds, even with the raspberries nearby (these are blooming white today).
Overhead, we saw at least two male Red-winged blackbirds and just down the road over the meadow, an American Robin—on a different wire this time, although for all I know it was the same bird as we saw last week. I spotted an Eastern Phoebe on a dead branch dropping low across the stream (there’s a stream just to the north of the ponds, running roughly east; we saw the Phoebe from the bridge).
At home, we saw a male Indigo Bunting on the feeder with the thistle seed. Blue is our favorite color.
We’d mention the amphibians and fish and insects and flowers we saw today too… except we pretend this blog is only about birds. *chuckle* So go see Mama’s blog if you want to know more…
Dadda comes out to tell us there’s a bird in the house. When we get inside, it’s fluttering against the round window. I’m pretty sure LittleBirder knows this bird, both in photos and in person and by song, so I ask him, “Who’s that?”
“A chickadeedeedee!”
I pass the short guy to Dadda, and they go make sure the doors are open. Talking low and easy all the while, I come over to the window and catch him gently in my hands on the second try. It bites me. Chickadee bites are amusing. Sharpish, and way too silly.
I turn, hoping to be able to show it to LittleBirder up close, but the bird is too quick. It sees the open door across the living room as I am about a quarter of the way turned, and with a mad scramble, shoves free of my loose fingers and is outside in about half a second.
As for the learning birds/recordkeeping part of this blog, I’ve been sure for ages that LittleBirder knows this one: we see it often enough. He can identify it by sight in person (feather?) and in photo, as well as by sound, and will tell us the song when we ask even if there’s no bird around. But as those have been my criteria for deciding he knows the bird enough to claim it, I’ve just been waiting for a good opportunity when we saw one to add it.
Stats:
May 29, 2007, midday.
Starksboro, Vermont
Black-capped Chickadee
Fluttering in some confusion
LittleBirder and I have just added more birdseed (black oil sunflower and mixed “songbird” seed; there’s enough thistle for now) to te empty feeders and to the rocks. We’re now waiting to “Let’s see who comes.”
Blackflies, mostly.
I swoosh away a bug, saying, “There’s a bug flying around my face.”
LittleBirder replies, “That happens outside sometimes , Mama.”
This week we’ve seen or heard Cardinals, a Baltimore oriole, a White-crowned sparrow, Ovenbird (I think), Wood Thrush (I think), Goldfinches, Chickadees, Titmice, Chipping Sparrow, Blue Jay, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Red-Winged Blackbirds, and Ravens.
More details for some of these over in MamaBirder’s Small Measures blog.
