Birds of a Feeder
Birds are territorial, yes. But where's the tipping point toward too much competition?
This morning I took the eight steps from the microwave where I reheated my coffee to the bird-watching place in front of our dining room window. My eyes were fixed on the seed ports of my new feeder, and in the time it took me to see outside, a bluebird has made a flash of a touchdown and departure on the feeder, and I knew the Tufted Titmouse was why. The Titmouse, already at breakfast, had faked a head-butt toward the interloping blue one, his sharp mohawk accenting the aggression.
I sipped my decaf. I saw it all.
If I allow myself to anthropomorphize, I think the bluebird just wasn’t up for a feud and thought, “too much. I’m outta here.” Blue’s body language said the rest with a graceful U-shaped swoop up to a sunny high branch on our old sycamore.
The scene unfolded and was over in 5 seconds, and while I enjoyed it, I felt mixed emotions. On one hand, watching wild bird drama early in the day made me feel philosophical and able to breathe better, more deeply. I thought, I should start my day at the bird feeder more often. Inhaling the air of a new day. So positive! Then: This is some of the last air I’ll ever breathe in 2023. Another year. Gone in a flash. Funny how quickly a touch of the morose sneaks in. I replayed the Titmouse’s head-butt in my mind, and it reminded me about habitat fragmentation, a term I’d learned about recently in a webinar.
“Birds are very territorial, (loss of habitat) will create conflicts between the birds, produce scarcity when it comes to resources.” - Alex LoCastro, conservation program coordinator for BirdsGeorgia, speaking in the webinar, “Creating Your Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary.”
Free is how most people think about birds and using the metaphor, “free as a bird” usually describes a good thing. But in the past decades in Georgia, especially in urban areas, things are not so easy come easy go as we’d like to think. The stark truth is that most bird species don’t get to fully explore and thrive in their natural habitats. In LoCastro’s class, I learned about how fragmented bird habitats are today, and wondered if we are at a tipping point toward even more bird species loss than ever before.
The drawing below illustrates one of LoCastro’s points about how birds need natural spaces. Our cities are so overdeveloped, she pointed out, and we have cultivated so much land with turf grass and nonnative plants that we’ve made it hard for the birds to survive. “If you are like this goldfinch here (drawing below), you are going to get to this area (near buildings, development) and realize there is not anywhere else you can go,” she said. “(We need) something else to connect the dots in order for them to find the food they need, the habitat they need, the nesting, etc.”
Here are six ideas on how to make your yard more friendly to the birds and other wildlife. This link from the Constitution Marsh Audubon Center will take you into the weeds of this discussion, but if you just want the highlights, here are the basic suggestions in bullet form:
Plant native plants.
Provide fresh water.
Keep cats indoors.
Place decals on windows.
Install a bird feeder in winter (and take it down in spring)
Spread the word.
I’m doing point six right here, reader. Research shows that we’ve lost more than one-fourth of our birds in the U.S. and Canada since 1970. I encourage you to watch the BirdsGeorgia webinar, or go more in-depth on your own research on how to help birds. I don’t like the idea of undue competition for the birds, and I don’t like to think about environmental tipping points. But we must.
FeederWatch, the right community science for me right now
With my new bird feeder positioned just so this week, right outside the window where I work, I’ll soon be a community scientist for FeederWatch (Embrace the winter. Count feeder birds for science!) I can’t wait and am trying to do some homework right now.
As a beginning birder, I am reading David Allen Sibley’s book, Sibley’s Birding Basics. I only got the book in mid-December, and I’ve been skimming through it here and there, because I’ve been a holiday-maker, and you know what that means. Oh, you don’t? Being a holiday-maker at our house means the adult kids are here for a few days, and we are all living together, mostly happy, mostly eating. It’s all great, all the diversions, distractions and traditions, and for me reading takes a back seat, like a third-row seat that’s turned the wrong way.
Anyway, all of that is to say I’ve only browsed portions of Sibley’s book which is actually fine, because I’ve made some happy discoveries. Happy discoveries feel like serendipity, and who doesn’t want more of that during the holidays? Or anytime.
One discovery in Sibley’s book: how different birds fly
“General modes of flight can be used to identify broad groups of species. Bursts of wingbeats and short periods of near free fall with the wings folded against the body, the flight path more or less undulating, are seen in most passerines and woodpeckers.” (Note: passerines are 60 percent of all birds.) - Sibley.
I fixated on that bit: free fall. My son and I strolled outside a few days ago, and I told him what Sibley wrote.
What if airplanes did that I asked, and he said crazy to think about, as we got quiet and tried to see it in our mind’s eye. Birds doing free fall? All my life, I’ve been here on this Earth with the birds, but I’ve never keyed in on bird flight undulation or considered how they could be okay traveling along with a little bit of normal free fall happening. Raising my face to the sky, I scanned the gray afternoon sky above. Flat. Empty. No birds to be seen on that particular day. But one thing for sure is this: I’ll be looking for flying birds in 2024. My gaze won’t just be on my feeder, but also on the sky above it.
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We used to keep our feeders full in the winter, but squirrels were consuming the seeds faster than the birds. And they kept defeating our efforts to keep them off the feeders. But our yard is just about as natural as we can make it and still live here.
Love this, Pamela. I have three feeders and a woodland backyard. Busy birds here!