"The Goldfinches in my yard aren't bright yellow, like in magazines"

Eastern Goldfinch

    If you’re looking for a yellow goldfinch, try looking in New Jersey in the summer. The tiny birds are nowhere to be found in Texas at this time of year; except in their dull, winter plumage.  In north Texas, in the winter, goldfinches are what I call ‘”dirty yellow” (see picture).  Bright yellow is what’s called their ”breeding plumage”, but you see that only up north in warm seasons.

Goldfinches travel and feed often in flocks. So you may see none on your feeder – then a minute later you may see several on it, and another dozen nearby waiting a turn. Special Goldfinch feeders are sold with many small holes [“ports”] for the small, imported seed called “nyger”. Nyger (often incorrectly called “thistle”) is their favorite food. A close, and less expensive, runner-up is Black Oil Sunflower seed. That’s what I use.

In north Texas they start appearing about mid-to-late November. They usually start their migratory flight back north around the end of April. About that time, they may begin molting their drab winter plumage - turning again to bright yellow. But, unless you're looking at a magazine written up north, you'll never see it.

 

  Starlings love to steal chunks of suet. Especially from a feeder that's meant for woodpeckers. Put these impolite, non-native birds in their place by using a suet feeder that only has access from below. Woodpeckers and several other nimble, clinging birds will nonchalantly cling to the underside of an “upside-down” feeder, using strong feet. Starlings (a pesky, black bird) don't have the physical features it takes to hang by their feet, and will go elsewhere.

A few friends of mine have had success with ordinary, less expensive, suet feeders, by putting a length of duct tape across the upper edge and halfway down each vertical side-edge. 

 

 

Where are north Texas' owls going?

Great-horned Owl

     
North Texans are often surprised to learn that they have owls as neighbors. It's true, but there are fewer owls around than a decade ago. That's worrisome!

Our common owls range from the ±10” Screech Owl, through the mid-sized Barn Owl and Barred Owl, to the large Great-horned Owl. All four kinds of owls hunt at night, feeding on animals that are also active at night. These include large insects (favored by Screech Owls), many kinds of rodents, up to skunks (a favorite of Great-horned Owls).

Barn Owls

      An owl is one of the best rodent-control creatures on earth. For example, one adult Barn Owl eats about 90g. of food a night – the equivalent of two rats.  A breeding pair and their chicks can eat about 3000 rats per year. Where rodents have been displaced by recent construction, owls (particularly Barn Owls) eat well.

     Unfortunately, the large, dead trees they like to nest in are frequently cut down and natural tree cavities are filled in, so good nesting sites can be hard to find.  Man-made nest boxes can help alleviate the problem, although not all owls use boxes. Boxes can be put almost anywhere – even on the wall of a house. It should be in shade most of the day and, especially in Texas, shouldn’t face the hot, west sun.

Screech Owls

Barred Owl

 Since owls fly quietly at night, you may never know that they’re around. During the day, they often sleep in the open, undetected, since they are so well-camoflaged. Hence they’re very good neighbors. With the leaves gone from most trees, now is an excellent time to look for them resting in trees.








 

Why do birds puff up in cold weather?

Carolina Chickadee, puffed up

 

In cold weather they can look like tennis balls with wings sometimes! It just means they’re trying to keep warm. When a bird puffs up, or plumps up, he’s actually conserving warmth by raising up his feathers, fluffing and separating them, then bringing them back into place - except with lots of tiny air pockets between the feathers and the bird’s body.  This trapped air increases insulation for extra warmth, and the trapped air is is kept warm by the bird's body heat.

If you have a birdbath, remember that only clean feathers fluff up properly. If a bird has dirty feathers, inclement weather affects him greatly. So, even in winter, birds need a clean, handy birdbath. In very cold weather, the actual bath only takes only a second or two.

Lots of birds, however, hang around a birdbath a lot, to get multiple baths and sips of water. In freezing weather I'll pour hot water in ours to keep it from icing over.

 

 

Fox Sparrow

Double-scratching birds     In the winter, many birds forage for food by scratching through the leaf litter on the ground. In north Texas, you’ll see Juncos, Towhees, most blackbirds, many kinds of native Sparrows, and others doing this. Watch closely; actually the birds hop forward by moving both legs forward at the same time, then backwards a little if there’s snow covering the ground. This double-scratching does an excellent job of locating food.

 

 

 

Squirrels v. your birdfeeders

A hungry squirrel is an athletic squirrel.  It can leap about 8 feet horizontally - from standing still on a nearby branch or roof. Also a squirrel can jump about 4.5 feet vertically - possibly from the ground to a birdfeeder.  So merely hanging a typical birdfeeder from any old tree branch is often asking for trouble.

no seed for you!

There are two reasonable solutions that don't involve traps, firearms or hanging a feeder from a far-away branch.  1.  Fill a feeder with safflower. Most birds like it, but squirrels hate it. One taste of safflower seed and that particular squirrel won't be a problem any more.  2.  Use a squirrel-proof feeder; I suggest a Squirrel-Buster by Brome (pictured). Several feeders claim to be squirrel proof, but the Squirrel-Buster is the only one I know of that actually is. It costs a bit extra, but you'll save the extra cost in a year or two.
We have two at our house. They try, but no squirrel has ever gotten a single seed from them.

A few desperate friends of mine trap them and relocate them. When the "removed" squirrel is gone, however, several nearby ones will fight noisily over the now-vacant territory (a huge headache). The original squirrel usually finds its way back, anyway.

We use the other method too; filling feeders with safflower seed, at our house - in very vulnerably located feeders. Safflower is available at most good birding stores.

A Caribou is the same thing as a Reindeer.

in North America it's called a "Caribou"

A Caribou IS a Reindeer. The confusion may have arisen because the use of reindeer as a Christmas symbol originated in northern Europe, where almost nobody uses the word "Caribou". If the tradition had started in Alaska, Santa's sleigh might have been pulled by eight Caribou.

The Caribou is a member of the deer family, living in the northern regions (like the North Pole). Unlike other deer, Caribou of both sexes have antlers. Like other deer, they are herbivores - meaning they eat plants. They have extraordinarily thick and buoyant coats, enabling them to live in extremely cold weather, and actually sleep while floating in water.

There are millions of Caribou/Reindeer in the world. Almost all species
migrate twice a year, following safe and trusted routes they've taken every spring and fall for centuries that are about 600 to 800 miles long. (They walk or run, not fly) .  On migratory trips, the adult females leave about two weeks before the rest. The males and juveniles leave later.

Merry Christmas!!

Partidge in a perdrix?       The Christmas quote about a “partridge in a pear tree” could possibly have been a simile, pun or mistranslation, according to John Riutta, in Backyard Birds Newsletter.  The tale, having wound itself through many languages and cultures may have borrowed from the French.  The French word for partridge is “perdrix” (pronounced something like “pear-dree”).  This sounds suspiciously like “pear tree” in English.  Maybe the long-forgotten author of the song was focusing on a single partridge in a tree full of partridges. Who knows?

 

two trees provide oxygen for your lungs

Any project that plants trees is far, far more than just a "do-good" project with dreams of making a neighborhood or street look prettier.  Planting trees is absolutely crucial to the continuation of life as we know it on this planet.

You see, there are a lot more people on the planet every day; and we're killing trees to the point where we have just a small fraction of the trees we once had. The crucial point we often forget is that it takes roughly two mature trees to produce the amount of oxygen needed by one human being. (This happens through "photosynthesis", where a tree takes carbon dioxide from the air and converts it into oxygen.)

Trees still vastly outnumber people so we're not in immediate danger of suffocating. But it could happen, theoretically, in the distant future. So now is the time to plant all those little trees. In so doing, we can look toward the faraway future, when that tree (or its descendants) puts a substantial amount of oxygen into our air.

By the way, in Texas, now is by far the best time to plant trees (unlike up north)

Plant a Wax Myrtle to have a "bird magnet"

Wax Myrtle

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North Texas' underplanted, “ideal for warblers” evergreen shrub

When garden or birding magazines suggest planting a “winterberry”, what they’re really recommending for north Texas is a Wax Myrtle. It's an evergreen that’s native to this area, unlike the winterberry – which is likely to die here. What’s more, the Yellow-rumped Warbler (common in north Texas) is the only warbler species that can digest the waxy, blue-black berries. these berries (only found on the female plants)  give the shrub its name. When seed, from plants or from feeders, is unavailable to birds they can exist off the berries alone, especially when they have water (a birdbath?) nearby.

Left to its own in nature, Wax Myrtle can grow to 20' tall. Typically, however, the evergreen shrub is kept to 6 or 7 feet in most residential landscapes.  It grows in almost any decent, loose soil, requiring very little water.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? :    (I first wrote this after hearing of the tragedy in Connecticut. Then, fearing I would put too much emotion into it and not enough reason, I re-wrote it the next day.)

  After we grieve for the victims and their families of the latest school shooting, let’s collectively do something about our country’s rabid gun mentality. That’s the proper memorial and legacy.

I don’t advocate making target-shooting or hunting illegal, nor do I want to restrict reasonable self-protection. So let’s start with a logical step of making guns less available – especially to all the felons, mentally ill and the irresponsible among us. Then let’s ban the sale of weapons that have no logical role in our civilization except to kill other humans.

Someday, we’ll admit to ourselves that “a well-regulated militia” in 2012 means Police Departments and the National Guard, not an informal conglomeration of unorganized citizens. Maybe the Supreme Court will agree, but probably not in my lifetime.

If you have children or grandchildren, you’ll probably agree right now. If someone out there wants to gun me down for what I think, go for it.  I’m in the phonebook.