Birds and More Birds!
After some freezing nights in Florida (20s with temperatures that felt like teens), the backyard feeders were alive with activity during the day. Birds would descend in flocks, with many species creating a colorful feeding frenzy.
As we approach the end of our bird bonanza, I wanted to share images that highlight just how many and how busy it was. It is not an exaggeration to say over 100 birds stopped by daily for a meal.
Why so many? Birds use their energy stores to keep warm at night. With temperatures in Florida well below normal, they were in a feeding frenzy by morning. In fact, during the coldest days, I was refilling the feeders (I have eight) twice daily to keep up with demand!
The Stars of the Show
The bonus of so much activity? Endless photo opportunities. So it was quite a treat to watch them come and go as they prepared for the night ahead. The feeding frenzy provided many photo moments.
Below is a list of the birds featured in the photos. The Pine Warbler and Eastern Bluebird were featured in previous blogs. To learn more about each one, click on their name.
House Finch
- The House Finch is a recent introduction from western into eastern North America (and Hawaii), but it has received a warmer reception than other arrivals like the European Starling and House Sparrow. that’s partly due to the cheerful red head and breast of mailes, and to the bird’s long, twittering son, which can now be heard in most of the neighborhoods of the continent. If you haven’t seen one recently, chances are you can find one at the next bird feeder you come across.
- The red of a male House Finch comes from pigments contained in its food during molt (birds can’t make bright red or yellow colors directly). So the more pigment in the food, the redder the male. This is why people sometimes see orange or yellowish male House Finches. Females prefer to mate with the reddest male they can find, perhaps raising the chances they get a capable mate who can do his part in feeding the nestlings.
- The oldest known House Finch was a female, and at least 11 years, 7 months old when she was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in New York in 1985, the same state where she had been banded in 1973.
Chipping Sparrow
- A crisp, pretty sparrow whose bright rufous cap both provides a splash of color and makes adults fairly easy to identify. Chipping Sparrows are common across North America wherever trees are interspersed with grassy openings. Their loud, trilling songs are one of the most common sounds of spring woodlands and suburbs.
- Particularly in fall and winter, watch for small flocks of Chipping Sparrows feeding on open ground near trees. In spring and summer, listen for the male’s long, loud trill, then look for the male in the upper branches of a nearby tree.
- In much of the West, Chipping Sparrows disperse shortly after breeding to move to areas with better food resources. It’s not unusual to see Chipping Sparrows on alpine tundra or along roadsides in open grasslands. This results in the common misperception that they bred in those areas, when really they simply moved there to molt.
- Chipping Sparrows typically build their nests low in a shrub or tree, but every once in a while they get creative. People have found their nests among hanging strands of chili peppers, on an old-fashioned mower inside a tool shed, and on a hanging basket filled with moss.
- The oldest recorded Chipping Sparrow was at least 10 years and 11 months old when it was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in Ontario in 1998. It was banded in the same province in 1987.
- All of the facts above for the Chipping Sparrow, House Finch and each highlighted bird were accessed with permission at Cornell Lab of Ornithology. 2019. All About Birds. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. https://www.allaboutbirds.org Accessed on [date].
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