birding
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Also, They’re Here!
What is a little snow in the long run? Waves of migratory birds are washing upon our shores. This weekend, little flocks of Golden-crowned Kinglets, chortling Northern Flickers, tail-snapping Phoebes who make you wonder what they’re catching, but then, the early insects are out, too. And the warblers:Pine Warbler (Setophaga pinus). Yes, they can be a…
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Kestrel Week In Review
Saturday. The female had some prey, a small bird, probably House Sparrow. There aren’t many other options around here, yet. She flew down to the roof with her prey, then soon after flew up to another pipe without it. Too soon to have plucked, eaten the prey. Did she cache it?Wednesday.Walking up the hill after…
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Ring-necked Duck?
Aythya collaris does have a chestnut collar. But you usually can’t see it in the field.What sticks out, of course, is the white ring around the bill. Yet nobody calls it a Ring-billed Duck, except perhaps me in my bird-name dyslexia. Why is this?Rick Wright was speaking at NYC Audubon recently. One of the things…
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Mammal Monday
In abstentia.Just to reiterate, not to say regurgitate: owl gobbles up critter, digests all the good bits, and then throws up the bones and fur. Pellets are wet gooey masses when they’re yawped up, but still, whole skulls through the throat?! Of course, they went in that way, too.
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Kestrels Update
A favored perch. For a few days. We thought it was too crowded up there for sex, but it wasn’t.When you see a bird doing a series of wide-open yawn-like movements, they’re probably yawping up a pellet of undigested remains of yesterday’s meal. Two of these pellets are visible on this platform, there’s another behind…
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Raptor Wednesday
Other (?) Kestrels:This one swooped across our path in Green-Wood, shot across 5th Avenue and disappeared behind the buildings there. It soon emerged with prey in talon. House Sparrow, I guess.We know there are at least two males in the area, because we’ve seen them either together or simultaneously. This shot, from earlier this month,…
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Sappy
A Blue Atlas Cedar (Cedrus atlantica)A line of sapsucker holes. About 3/4″ deep, through the bark.These holes are chiseled out by, in our parts, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius), who drinks the sugary sap and snaps up any insects also attracted to the sweet stuff.
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Kestrel Check-In
Check. Check. Check.All these shots are from this week. The last two were on Thursday afternoon. I saw the female feed on small birds, presumably House Sparrows, twice within an hour. She’s packing in the food for egg-laying: remember, an American Kestrel egg represents 11% of the female’s body weight.For raptor friends, the scrape cam…
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Even More Sharp-shinned
As I was preparing to head out the door last Sunday, the dawn of DST, I glanced out the window occasionally to see if the Kestrels would show up at the crack of dawn. They don’t set their clocks forward, after all. A bird whooshed into the London Plain across the street and hop-skipped-flew up…
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Backyard and Beyond 