Foiled Again
Phil Taunton
Friday, December 14, 2007
I’ll take the blame for the hazardous icy conditions we’ve endured the last couple of days.
Wifeus has plans to paint the kitchen before Christmas, and I thought since colder weather was here, it would be a good time to go on a two- or three-day pheasant hunt — the best laid plans of mice and men.
It’s not nice to fool the wife, or tempt Mother Nature for that matter.
Staying at home because of the ice hasn’t been so bad since bird watching is another of my favorite pastimes. When faced with adverse weather conditions, it’s enjoyable to just stay in, observe and feed the birds.
We did discuss painting the kitchen a couple of times, but I still can’t find a roller to fit my hands!
Besides Cardinals, juncos, house finches, chickadees, red-breasted nuthatch and several species of woodpeckers, a bird new to me visited one of our feeders this past week. It was a male Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
The Kinglet is one of North America’s smallest birds and came, along with several American Goldfinches, to a feeder containing black-oil sunflower seed. It resembled the Goldfinch but its constant wing-flicking and an infrequent display of a red crown provided its positive identification.
Both male and female Ruby-crowned Kinglets have noticeable wing bars, a short tail and are a dull, olive-green color. But only the male displays the red crown, which usually stays hidden until the bird gets excited.
The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is noted for laying a very large clutch of eggs. Although an egg weighs only two hundredths of an ounce, the pair’s entire clutch of eggs can weigh as much as the female herself.
Another visitor was a Sharp-shinned Hawk. It lit atop the neighbor’s cedar tree and was dining on a songbird it had preyed upon. This small hawk has short, rounded wings and a long, barred tail ending with a square tip. Standing only 9 to 13 inches tall, the adult Sharpie, also known as the Blue Darter, has a blue-gray back with reddish barring on the underside of its wings. The male and female of this species show a greater disparity in size than any other American hawk, with the female weighing nearly twice as much as the male.
In some parts of the country, the Sharpie has become a regular visitor to bird feeders, where it preys strictly on birds using those feeders.
Besides watching birds, I also like to make feeders and give them as Christmas gifts. I’ve always been a believer in “it’s not the cost of something that counts, but the meaning for which it was given.”
Some people say I’m just cheap. Whatever!
Bird feeders are easily made by boring holes in coconuts and seasoned “bird house” gourds. Holes with diameters from 5/8 inch up to 2 1/2 inches can be cut with a little hand drill bit attachment called a hole saw.
I gave such a coconut feeder to my mother-in-law one Christmas. Maybe that’s where the cheap label came from!
This type of feeder can be filled with any fruit, nut or seed mixture. She put black oil sunflower seed in hers and hung it outside her bedroom window. The next morning she was aghast to find a squirrel, apparently stuck, with its body hanging out each side of the coconut. She was relieved to see the squirrel rise up, reach back under its belly, and grab another handful of seeds. You also can make an inexpensive suet-type feeder by using your hole saw and boring holes about a 1/2 inch deep in a section of dead tree limb or in a 2-by-2-inch board about 20 inches long. Clean the holes out and pack them with a suet mixture. Put an eye screw in one end of the feeder, connect a cord and tie it to a tree branch or Shepherd’s hook.
Presto, you now have a suet feeder that serves a wide variety of birds, especially woodpeckers, chickadees and nuthatch.
A mixture you might want to try in such a feeder is Dorothy’s Bird Cake.
Directions: Mix 1 pound lard or melted grease, 1 pound peanut butter, 3 C. Oatmeal, 2 C. corn meal and 1 C. whole wheat flour. Let set and stuff into holes of your suet feeder.
Audubon Society
Christmas Bird Count
The National Audubon Society’s Annual Christmas Bird Count will be held in our area on on Saturday and Sunday. These events are held all across Kansas and are open to all bird enthusiasts.
Volunteers are appreciated. You can go on an organized field trip or you can take part by just counting the birds that come to your backyard feeder.
The Christmas Bird Count helps biologists compile information on bird population trends and give wildlife enthusiasts a chance to add more birds to their own “life list”. For additional information regarding these statewide counts, contact Chuck Otte at otte@nqks.com.
The John Redmond Refuge Area will be having a bird count on Saturday. For more information, call (620) 364-2522, or you can show up at 7:30 a.m. at the Corp Office west of New Strawn or the Flint Hills Refuge Office in Hartford.
The Emporia Area Count will be on Sunday. Call Jean Schulenberg at 342-2380 to find out the particulars for this count.