Merry Christmas

"I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year." Charles Dickens.

Happy 4th of July

 

No blog today, just some holiday-appropriate red, white, and blue local birds. Like this perky northern cardinal gathering a gift of grapes. Click to enlarge.

A great egret in a sultry summer pond.

And a handsome insouciant blue jay. Have a great holiday! Click to enlarge.

Appreciating Cardinals

It has been raining and gray here for days that feel like weeks. It seems to make the red cardinals stand out even more than usual. Click to enlarge.

It reminds me of something Terri Guillemets wrote:

"Winter is the slow-down

Winter is the search for self

Winter gives the silence you need to listen 

Winter goes gray so you can see your own colors..." 

On the technical side, when I was picturing red cardinals on gray backgrounds, I realized that although my camera can take a selectively colored photograph like that, I did not know how to change an existing color image to only show reds and grays. I figured out how to do it with Photoshop. (I have CS 5.) I opened this jpg and called it Layer 1. Then I chose Color Range from the Selection menu, and then Reds from the Selected Colors pull down. I copied that selection to a new layer. Then I used the Adjustment option from the Image menu to change Layer 1 to Black and White. That's it. Red cardinals on gray backgrounds.

Works well for house finches, too.

Holidays

The holidays have started. I hope your Halloween and Thanksgiving were as nice as mine. 

Here's a thought about holidays from Fred Rogers:

"I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending."

Winter is coming! Get the egg nog ready! 

Happy Fourth of July!

No blog this week -- just a couple of red, white, and blue local birds: northern cardinal, great egret, and blue jay. Have a great holiday! Click to enlarge. 

Bird Jokes!

Know why I fly over the sea?
Because if I flew over the bay -- I'd be a bagel. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Know why I hold up one foot?
Because if I held up two -- I'd fall over. LoLoLoL!

What's got six legs and can fly? Us! Ha ha ha!  

What's the best time to buy a parrot?
When they're going cheep! Ha! 

Composing a tweet right now. :-) 

A Cardinal's Progress

Remember this little immature cardinal from last week's blog? Click to enlarge. 

He has grown in the intervening week -- longer tail, longer wings, and check out that working crest! I like to think that the peanut breakfasts I provide are helping him grow big and red. Oh, and he makes a better impression when dry, too. 

Baby Cardinal Poses for the Camera

Maybe it was the cold windy rain on Sunday, or maybe he's now old enough to recognize a friend, but the normally elusive baby cardinal that's been coming to my porch for seeds and has always flown away before when I pointed a camera at him, finally sat still for photos. Click to enlarge.

As usual, his mother was not far away. He has her nose, don't you think?

The little fella still begs with fluttering wings and soft chipping sounds for mother to pick food up for him and put it in his mouth, but when she's not close he feeds himself. 

Unlike his mainly tan mother, he's growing male red body feathers. 

 A nice addition to our Brooklyn garden! 

Happy New Year... 5777

The Jewish NewYear 5777 begins today. I'm relaxing and thinking about what kind of sweet dessert to make. I'm pretty sure it will use apples and brown sugar and I'll borrow some raisins from the supply we bought for the birds. These days two and sometimes three robins show up on my porch every morning for a breakfast of raisins, so we use them up pretty fast. The robin above is hanging around hoping for a few. 

The female cardinal pictured above is usually waiting in the morning, too,  and she brings a begging baby; she hops over to the window sill and looks in if I'm not there soon enough for her schedule. She says "CHIP!" to get my attention and I give her a peanut, which she breaks into small pieces to feed beak-to-beak to the baby. I can't show a photo because they let me watch them but both grab their peanuts and fly away when I point a camera at them. Click to enlarge. 

So for dessert I think I'll stew tart apples in butter with brown sugar, pie spices, and a few of the robins' raisins, and then pour it over yogurt. Sounds good, right? We can eat it while watching the birds outside the window having their own feast of raisins and peanuts.

Cardinals Doing Fine

Northern cardinals nest in the garden behind my condo every year; it's a good spot for them with trees, water, and food. They stop by my porch occasionally and I give them snacks of raisins and peanuts.  For the past few days the female pictured above has been going out of her way to make sure I see her when she visits; she flutters in front of the window or lands on the sill and looks in while chipping loudly. Click to enlarge. 

Not coincidentally, a male cardinal has been stopping by the porch with two big babies in tow. He feeds them mouth-to-mouth or flits around nervously while they feed themselves. The male and female haven't come to the porch together for a while. Maybe they are working different shifts. 

The male is easily spooked when the youngsters are with him and they all fly away when I try to photograph them so a don't have a 2016 family photo yet. But here is a picture of one of the baby porch cardinals from a previous year. 

Any questions? 

Spring Birds in Winter

Remember the polar vortex winter we had last year? This robin came to my window every cold morning of it with his feathers so puffed up he looked downright chubby. I fed him raisins for breakfast straight through until spring. He's back! He (or someone who looks just like him) started looking in my windows a few weeks ago and is back in the habit of breakfasting on raisins at my place. 

Robins eat worms and insects and fresh fruits and berries when they can get them. We typically see robins stalking worms in short grass all through summer. When winter comes and the insects and worms hole up, robins change to a diet primarily of dried fruit. Some robins migrate to warmer places, but some just disappear from lawns and form winter flocks that travel to different kinds of foraging areas. 

White-throated sparrows are behaving differently in deference to winter, too. They have started to show up on my porch where I haven't seen them since last winter. I see them in the neighborhood all year, but they only visit the porch in winter (even though they would likely find a snack of seeds in any season). Click to enlarge.

New York City's northern mockingbirds tend to stay put during the winter, but it might seem like they have gone south. We are used to their flashy wing-waving and tireless singing; in winter they become relatively quiet. They visit my porch for raisins. 

I usually hear my favorites, the blue jays, before I see them. I give them peanuts in the shell. They make repeated trips until they have gathered them all. But they have to share with...

Northern cardinals that always seem happy to pose in the snow in return for peanuts... 

and Brooklyn squirrels! 

Polar Vortex Winter Birds

Male northern cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis. Click to enlarge.

It was a cold week in New York. As I sat writing at my desk by the window I saw the neighborhood birds in another light. One of the ways birds keep warm is by fluffing up their insulating feathers; they looked like puffballs all week. 

European house sparrow, Passer domesticus. 

They have other ways to keep warm. Their feet are thermally isolated from their bodies by a network of blood vessels that cool outgoing blood and warm the returning flow. They also can stand on one leg with the other inside the warm cover of their feathers. Sone huddle together at night to share warmth. City birds are good at finding warm spots to sleep near like chimneys or lights, and on eaves. An old building I worked in attracted a red-tailed hawk on cold nights; it slept on the sill of a window that was so leaky that the perch was practically toasty. 

Another thing that helps keep birds warm in cold weather is eating high calorie foods. When snow covers the ground, even the most resourceful city birds have trouble finding food. My little porch gets covered with snow but I brush off the dormant planters and put food in them: sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, peanuts, grapes, raisins, perhaps some bits of apple and whole grain bread. Below are summer photos of the neighborhood birds that have been visiting.

The blue jay, Cyanocitta cristata, announces its arrival with chime-like musical calls. A pair have been showing up together all week. They eat seeds and peanuts. Each takes one seed at a time to a perch in the little tree close by. The bird holds the seed in its feet, pecks with its bill, then pulls the seed out, eats it, and comes back for more. Very labor intensive! 

A house sparrow might show up alone but is soon followed by a flock. They eat  everything, including safflower seeds that they are reported to eschew. Maybe Brooklyn's  house sparrows  have a cosmopolitan taste for foreign foods. 

The male northern cardinal preferentially takes whole peanuts. He flies away with them and returns in a few minutes for another. I know when he has arrived because I hear his quiet tick tick tick. After peanuts, sunflower seeds are his next favorite thing. He stabs at grapes eating beak after beak full of fruit. 

The female cardinal has arrived alone or with a male every day. 

White-throated sparrows, Zonothrichia albicollis, normally feed in the underbrush by scratching at leaves. They are good in snow, too, tossing it up with their feet and flapping wings to uncover seeds. A few of them come to my porch to look for food throughout the winter. 

Morning doves, Zenaida macroura, seem passive with the other birds, but make up for it by eating faster. They don't open the seeds before eating them, like most of the other birds. They just peck them up, shell and all, one peck per seed. Very efficient! 

American robins, Turdus migratorius, don't all migrate away for winter. They do change their eating habits. No worms are available. They disappear from lawns and go foraging for dried berries. Click here to read more details in a previous blog. One or two are spending the winter near my place; the apples, grapes, and raisins are for them. And they like an occasional nibble of whole grain bread. 

Happy New Year!

Wishing you great wildlife sightings in 2013...

Sunday Breakfast

I scatter seeds on my porch in Brooklyn Heights for the birds when the weather gets cold. This morning I had lots of visitors. Click on the photos to enlarge.

House sparrows, Passer domesticus, are always the first to arrive. They like seeds and breadcrumbs.  They usually come in a group. 

The cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, eats seeds, nuts, and fruit. A male/female pair come together, and he usually comes out from cover first. She is less trusting and flies away if she sees me watching. They can open peanut shells, and often nibble some grapes and then fly off with one big peanut each to peel and eat in a more private place. 

I can always tell when the blue jays arrive from their loud calls of Jay! Jay! Jay! The jays, Cyanocitta cristata, target whole peanuts in the shell, carrying them off, one by one, until they have collected them all. They find a good spot and bury them for later. 

White-throated sparrows, Zonotrichia albicollis, mainly breed in Canada and then migrate south to spend the winter in the eastern and southern states, west coast, and northern South America -- and in my garden. They show up on the porch when I put out seeds, seeming mainly to be interested in the smaller ones, like millet. 

Pigeons, Columba livia, almost never come to the garden, but they seem to know immediately whenever there are seeds on my porch. Ditto breadcrumbs, another of their favorites.