All posts by parmacetti

Sunday – 12.11.2016

2:15 PM – Another cold night. We took the water out of the birdbaths over night. D added some to one of the feeders about 4:00 AM. It froze pretty quick. We had a thirsty cat come around last night, and then this morning. Here’s a video of him checking the bath for water, finding only ice. I don’t really want to attract cats, for obvious reasons, but don’t want to see them do without.

After we replaced the ice with liquid water this morning, the birds came around. The water wasn’t frozen, but it was cold. That didn’t stop them from bathing. I saw Mrs. Cardinal and a Carolina Chickadee, and this sparrow:

Saturday – 12.10.2016

7:20 AM – There wasn’t much new bird action this week. It was mostly the same backyard residents drinking and bathing etc. The big news is the failure of our new birdbath, the fancy one that’s supposed to let us tip out the water without detaching from the rail. It’s bigger and deeper than the other, but the attachment hardware doesn’t really work. We decided to replace it with a low-tech version. But we’re also adding one of those solar powered sprinklers. Hope it works the way it’s supposed to. If it does, the birds should like it.

The temperature dropped below freezing, so we had ice on the bird baths. Here’s a couple of videos of the birds coping with it. This morning I went out and broke through to the water for them.

Bluebird, finch and sparrows on ice:

Cardinal on ice:

Thursday – 12.1.2016

1:00 PM – Not many birds around the baths this morning. They’re still eating at the feeders, but evidently the rain we’ve been getting has taken care of their need for water. I suspect that the bird baths are a resource of last resort for the birds. In the drought, they were all over it. No more drought, so no more birds. Actually, the Purple Finch and Black-eyed Junco made an appearance, but no cardinals, no varieties of sparrow.

The squirrels, however, must find the baths convenient. It’s been all squirrel traffic today. But the birds are sticking to the feeders.

We put up a ‘Finch sock’, a cloth feeder with thistle. That’s supposed to attract Finches. We’ve already got plenty. I haven’t seen any of them on the new feeder yet, but it’s still new.

No videos so far. There’s nothing interesting to see.

1:30 PM – Looks like the Tufted Titmouse and White-throated Sparrow are back at the baths. Here’s the Titmouse bathing:

Tuesday – 11.29.2016

The first serious rain in months last night. All the birds and squirrels were on duty this morning, so I assume they weathered the storm. The cameras caught Mr. Cardinal taking a long bath, about three minutes. That’s pretty long for a bird to stay in the water. The videos are below. WordPress (or the webhost) wouldn’t let me upload the three minute version, so the separate files are provided.

The other video was Mrs. Cardinal bathing  as a White-throated Sparrow waited, perched on the bath rim. As she left, he hopped in.

There’s been a lot more bathing than usual the last few days. I wonder if it has something to do with the baths getting leaves and twigs in them, and after last night, a good dose of rain water. Maybe the tap water chemicals puts them off. That calls for some research.

Three videos of Mr. Cardinal bathing:

Mrs. Cardinal and the White-throated Sparrow bathing:

 

 

Monday – 11.28.2016

7:40 AM – No visits from the raccoon last night. He’s interesting to watch, something new, but I’d just as soon he didn’t come up on the porch. I should probably set up the dogs wading pool, down at the far end of the yard. That would give him the water he probably really needs (due to the drought), but keep him away.

6:00 PM – Two short videos from today’s bird action are below. It was a windy day, and both birdbaths got some leaves and twigs in them. This didn’t seem to bother any of the birds. In fact, the Carolina Chickadees wallowed on them when they were bathing. They are very vigorous bathers.

Purple Finch, Cardinal and White-throated Sparrow sharing a drink of water:

And more Chickadee bathing:

 

Bird Videos – Lots of Them – BUT NOT REALLY

A number of videos we took at the beginning of this project will not display due to the uncertainty of the Word Press storage system. We did some research but couldn’t find a solution, so we are reposting them, one and two at a time, starting in November 2017. They will be the bonus ‘Retro’ videos displayed after the current bird and critter activity.