Some people disagree that feeding birds is a good idea. As temperatures drop and natural food supplies dwindle, I feel it’s important to feed the birds – I’d feed them all year round if I could. We only had our seed feeder (back) up for one month since moving here. Almost two weeks have gone by since our landlords made us take it down. Apparently their cats were enjoying too many hot snacks.
The absolute worst was the first few days after the seed feeder came down. The birds would come and look for their food and stare at us through the window as if to ask, ‘where? why?’ We know birds are very adaptable and get their foods from various places but still feel like we’ve let them down. One of the few things that helped this place feel like more than just a repository for our belongings; has now been taken away.
I spoke to our next-door neighbour this week and found out that he’s throwing down the same kind of seed in his backyard, so do get to see a few lbj’s hopping about. He throws the seed down early in the morning to ensure that it’s pretty much gone by evening. Uneaten seed can attract the wrong kind of visitors to your backyard.
It’s highly likely the cats will go next door anyway and nab a few more unsuspecting lbjs from there, so it made little sense for us to be forced to remove our feeder. The other neighbours (on the far side of this house) also have both seed and hummingbird feeders, so the cats may go there for a hot snack.
According to Wild Birds Unlimited, this is one of the best areas of Vancouver for backyard bird variety – there may have been even more species to see here in the coming months, which we will probably not get to see now. Who knows, the Brambling may have even returned on the way back through in spring…this sucks.
Thankfully the hummingbird feeder is still up. As I opened the blind this morning, an Anna’s came over right away to glare at me through the window, probably thinking I was a threat to ‘his’ feeder. He came right up to the glass as if he were going to tap it with his beak. He glared at me for another moment or two, then settled down to feed. Soon, another Anna’s came over; they had a grumble at each other and flew away. At the last house, Anna’s hummingbirds often came right up to the window and one actually did tap on the glass.
An hour or so ago, I saw about 5 European starlings hopping around on the ground nearby (there’s been many more of them hanging around in the past week or so). Suddenly, around 50 more took off from the lawn; they’d been hidden from view until then. Plenty of Juncos and various Sparrows hopping around on the ground today…they are finishing up seeds from spent flowers.
This past week or two, we’ve heard a Chickadee call that is new to us. It actually sounds like a small snippet from their more familiar call. Maybe it’s a youngster learning the ropes, or a warning signal that we’ve not heard before… Time of year, sex of caller, predator nearby – there are many factors to consider when trying to identify bird calls.
All in all, it’s a busy bird day today. No photos this week, so I’ll leave you with RightAntler’s Brushes painting he did on his iPad. Love it!
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