5:01 AM – Mother Cardinal feeding a young one. This is the second immature Card we’ve seen.
The back feathers of this Cardinal is kind of weird looking. I hope it’s part of the molting-refeathering process.
Just for a change, here are a couple of wet Blue Jays.
4:42 AM – At the beginning of this clip notice the Blue Jay dropping a seed, and trying to snatch it out of the air. For some reason that’s a very human gesture. Next, another Jay lands, and they have a beak duel. Then a longer sequence with a Jay and a Cardinal getting some feathers back on her bald head. I still think Cards are more aggressive when they’re molting and irritable.
The Mourning Doves have hogged the platform feeder for so long this Summer that the other birds seem to have gotten used to it. The cheeky little finch and the Jay ignore the bigger bird.
2:42 AM – We’ll start with the Blue Jays doing some synchronized gobbling. Be sure to watch all the way, at the end of the clip is a high speed version.
More finch action. A male and female Purple Finch are feeding, and are joined by a female Cardinal. They get along just fine until a male Cardinal shows up on the water dish, and chases the Purple away. The Cardinal is molting bad – maybe he was irritable.
12:50 AM – It seems like all we see at the platform feeder these days are Doves, Cardinals and Blue Jays. We used to have a wider selection of birds – maybe we’ll see that again in Fall. In the meantime, here’s a rare (for now) appearance of a female House Finch. Of course she gets run off by a scruffy looking Cardinal.
Back to the Blue Jays – here’s a typical session on the platform: Cracking open a seed, and sharing the feeder with a Blue Jay friend. That’s a dove that shows up half way through. The Jays are getting used to them, as you’ll see.
2:43 AM – We recently put a cylinder of compressed seed impregnated with some kind of hot pepper material. It works very well to keep the squirrels from hogging the feeders. Here it is in action, repelling a squirrel who tries a few bites.
We have seen a ton of Blue Jays lately. The Identification Project is still going on, but we’ve become confused by the similar markings. How many ‘families’ we’ve got now is uncertain. They’re showing up in pairs lately, and not fighting, so presumably they’re related.
3:45 AM – The Cardinals have had a bad time of it lately, what with the molting. Some of them are so pathetic looking that I stopped posting videos of them. Even though I’ve been reassured by more experienced back yard bird enthusiasts that this happens every summer, it’s been disturbing. This Cardinal, however, does seem to have a new batch of head feathers, ones that look bright and new, when compared with those on his body. This may be the same one that was featured a while back. They look new to me, anyway, and I’m inclined to be optimistic about this.
The friction between the Mourning Doves and Blue Jays continues. The larger, heavier Doves almost always prevail in these skirmishes.
4:09 AM – Nice looking Downy Woodpecker at the cylinder feeder.
Two Blue Jays sharing the platform.
4:46 AM – This Blue Jay is easily identified by his black crest and the black sides of his face, and back of his head. He also has one small white patch at the ‘small’ of his back, before the tail feathers begin, and one other one half way up his back on the left. Also, no ‘collar’ around his neck/shoulders. I don’t really want to call him ‘Black Head’, so suggestions for a name are welcome.
We replaced the suet with a cylinder of compressed seeds, the ‘hot pepper’ style. This White Breasted Nuthatch is one of the first consumers. The Nuthatches don’t usually dawdle at the feeders, as the hit-and-run style of this one demonstrates.
3:48 AM – More bluebirds. For some reason they were absent from the mealworm feeder for a day – we had no videos at all of them. The next day, though, they were back. Where were they? No one knows.
We’re gradually starting to identify each Blue Jay – we’re not sure how many, but we’ll eventually have a pretty good count. This one is recognizable by the two vivid white patches on his lower back, one above the other. His ‘collar’, the black marking around his neck is lower than most of the others, and his face markings are not strong, just a relatively faint line across the eyes and a black bar between the eyes. He also seems to be molting, but that’s another story. We need to find out of the markings change from molting to molting – just one more fact about birds we don’t know – yet.
2:28 AM – Red-bellied Woodpeckers. They’ll show up at any of the feeders, but the suet is their favorite, for both young and old.
There are several Blue Jays using the platform feeder these days. A few of these are the new young ones. I wonder if they’ll stay around, or move on to their own yards.