Birds

Chickadees hang out for a drink

This is my favorite, a lot going on. Besides the wing stabilizer and the fact that
 the bird is drinking, notice you can see him through the clear ice. Also look
how it clings to both sides of the icicle. I suppose they do it but I have never 
seen a bird cling with its feet in opposition like that,
April 23, 2017
This year for the first time I was at the East Pole long enough to justify putting out a bird feeder. I hung it off a corner post on the deck and it was there and full most of the time from the middle of December until the end of March.
In that time there was a constant flurry around it. At first maybe a dozen chickadees began hanging out. In time redpolls discovered it and a couple dozen of them came over. Interspersed with them, a couple of Pine grosbeaks stopped by every day and one day a hairy woodpecker showed up.
My presence didn't seem to deter them a bit. A couple of times they almost hit me as they flew around. My chopping block was almost directly under the feeder and even that activity didn't discourage activity around the feeder. It is so quiet in the woods, I could hear their wing beats overhead as I wrestled with firewood and they flew back and forth.
Note the drop of water from another icicle at upper left.
In all it mesmerized me at times and I would discover I had stopped doing whatever my task was and I was watching the interactions among the various birds.
Then one day something new happened. It came about around the middle of March, a time when I have mentioned the temperature on the porch sometimes reaches 80 degrees in the sunshine. I had finished my work for the day and poured three fingers of an expensive scotch over a handful of compressed snow and settled into my deck chair to sip the whiskey and watch the birds. In that heat snow on the roof had begun to melt and icicles formed along the eaves. It took a while to focus on the fact that some of the chickadees were landing on the icicles, clinging to them and staying for a moment or two. At one point I noticed a couple of drips falling off the tip of an icicle and it was in that
Note two drops falling. My friend Gretchen Small was
inspired by this photo to paint the picture at left.
observation I realized the chickadees were drinking the meltwater on the icicles.
Over the next few days I sat out there for several hours with my camera in my lap, watching them drink and sometimes even forgetting to lift the camera. In the process I was able to capture several good photos of this phenomenon. I posted a few of the photos on the Birds of Alaska facebook page and one of them got more than 200 likes and the other about 150. It seemed few if any people had observed this activity by chickadees.
Artwork by Gretchen Small
I found it so interesting, if rain hadn't appeared in the weather forecast, I'd probably still be out there photographing drinking chickadees. I've posted some photos here that show different ways the birds approached the icicles in order to catch a drink.



Chicadon'ts

  December 29, 2017

Often a naturalist or even at times a full-blown scientist will observe some critter's behavior immediately apply it to every member of a species, as if there are no individuals. Not all animals or birds act like all other members of their species.
     Case in point: A few years ago I read something about chickadees in which the author said when around a feeder, one bird will dominate, chasing others off the feeder until he leaves and they can come get their share. The way he wrote it seemed to say all chickadees do this. Take a look at that picture. Four of them visible on the feeder at one time. I have seen that more often than not. For sure sometimes one bird will chase another off  but just as often more than one will be there at the same time.
     There may be another aspect of what seems to be dominant behavior, like when one bird flies in and another takes off. I have seen this in gulls around harbors. One gull stands atop a piling. A second gull approaches for a landing and the first gull takes off. Rather than dominant/submissive behavior, this is probably a simple function in physics. The gull flying in has the weight and momentum to knock the first gull off the piling, so the first gull takes off, knowing full well he can't withstand a collision on such tiny platform. I've seen chickadees and other birds for that matter do the same thing.
    On a step outdoors today I noticed the feeder was getting low. I had packed in 25 pounds of sunflower seeds for just that purpose. Later I went out and noticed there weren't any chickadees in sight so I figured it was a perfect time to take the feeder in and fill it, which I did.
     When I brought it back out there still wewe no birds in sight. I said out loud, "Here you go guys, meat." It's only five steps from the feeder to the door but before I got there a whole cloud of chickadees had descended from somewhere to the feeder. Chickadee telegraph?  

The sun also sets

A chickadee catches a drink from a melting icicle while 
two drops get away from him.
March 19, 2017

Eighty degrees in the sun on the deck. Comfortable chair, boots up on the generator box, five feet from the feeder. A mediocre scotch in hand with a tight-fisted chunk of snow to cool and temper it mixed with a few birch chatains to give it that woody flavor.

Action is brisk at the Chickadee Singles Bar as we all wait for the grosbeacks to come by for their afternoon set. One even landed on my boot.
You know, I write a lot about the birds, but I am not a real birder. I mean if somebody says there is a tufted titmouse in the neighborhood, I am not going to grab my binoculars and camera and race out the door. I like the ones who come to me, the ones I feed, and the few individuals I recognize as I watch them and try to decipher what their behavior means. Think about this. It is so quiet in the woods I can hear their wingbeats as they flutter about and the clicking of their feet as they land on the plastic feeder rim.

They have been checking the ventilation holes under the eaves, I think for nesting spots and it makes me glad I took the time to put screening over them when I built years ago. It's not that I wouldn't love to entertain a nesting pair or two, but I would rather not have them tearing into my insulation. The other day I watched one explore the whole front of the house, even once clinging to the siding. How I wished I had had a camera when it perched on the fin of the killer whale decoration on the door.
A couple of days later, a good one, almost 80 degrees again.

So I watch them now, the day's work done, a big chunk of the wiring project completed, even a light hanging over the kitchen, and firewood packed away. I split and stacked three sledfuls and brought out one for the next 24 hours. And, satisfied, scotch in hand, I can relax and enjoy the sun while it lasts.

I had an interesting revelation today. Someone came out to that neighboring cabin I can see these days. Whoever it was didn't stay the night and I got the idea he was just checking on it. The same thing happened last weekend.

I got to wondering why, and if anything were missing would I be the chief suspect. Giving it some thought, I realized there is probably nothing in that cabin I would want. I did a mental inventory of this place and realized I really have everything I could possibly want. Short of a hot woman or a couple of sitcom DVDs, nothing. I have it all. How many people can say that? If this keeps up I might need another bottle of scotch, though, but no need to break into someone's cabin on the off chance I might find one. I can afford a trip out and a good one if need be.
My friend Gretchen Small says the chickadee drinking
in the photo above inspired her to paint this picture of a
Swainson's thrush.

The sun is heading into the trees now, so it might be time for a little dinner and a movie. I am thinking Moulin Rouge, the new one with Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman. Did I ever write about the night I chatted with her for a few minutes online, just a couple of days before her marriage to Keith Urban? Honest, I did. Jokingly I told her I had this great script with a part prefect for her. I could almost hear her mind snap shut. I told her I was only kidding, but she only came back a little way.

Well with dinner and a movie in the near future, I am guessing the following applies.

With two more weeks to go, I think I am going to have to go out for another bottle of scotch. This one lasted 30 years. I might as well pay the money for a good one for the next 30.

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Sports malaprops

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A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

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GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

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Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

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