4:54 AM – Usually it’s Bluebirds at the meal worm feeder, but not always. Following are three clips of other varieties of birds eating meal worms.
Here’s a couple of Carolina Chickadees and Red Bellied Woodpecker.
White Breasted Nuthatch at the meal worm feeder.
A Carolina Wren:
And a female Finch, probably a Goldfinch.
10:58 AM – This Brown Headed Nuthatch isn’t around all the time, but when he is, he likes the pepper feeder.
### Here’s another Bluebird at the meal worm feeder. I think this is the smaller of the two I’ve been seeing. He (she?) has distinctive markings, so we should be able to pick him out of the Bluebird crowd later.
8:08 AM – We got a late start with the birds this morning, and didn’t get the feeders back out on the deck until a few minutes ago. I went inside, and about 10 seconds later the platform feeder looked like this:
— We hadn’t seen the Goldfinches for a few days, but as seen in the video above, they’re back. The Bluejays are still missing, and the Cardinals now come only early in the morning, and just before dark. They used to hang around the feeders all day. I don’t know if the Cowbird invasion discouraged them from coming, or what. Who knows why birds come and go.
1:46 PM – It’s been raining a good part of the day. The platform feeder looks like a vat of birdseed soup. The birds seem to like it just fine. Here’s a few bedraggled Goldfinches snacking.
5:11 AM – The main camera on the deck was inside, getting it’s battery charged, but the other one caught this brief image of a ghostly raccoon checking to make sure the meal worm feeder wasn’t there. He (or she) is still not convinced the food court is closed at night. I’m pleased with the effectiveness of the pepper suet. All our suet from now on will be pepper suet.
### A few days ago the Redwing Blackbirds (along with the Cowbirds) flooded the back yard. Yesterday we had on Blackbird squatting in the platform feeder. He was there, continuously, for about a half hour – a long time in bird minutes. I don’t know where the rest of the crowd was. If the Blackbird becomes a permanent resident, I’d prefer just one or two, instead of the whole overwhelming flock.
### In this one, we’ve got a Purple Finch, Goldfinches and Sparrows, all feeding at the same time. They mostly get along, except for a few pecks back and forth.
2:06 PM – I didn’t think we had three of the full color Purple Finches around, but seems that we do.
7:37 AM – Two Purple Finches feeding with sparrows and Goldfinches, in the rain. We usually don’t see two Purples at the same time.
4:42 AM – No raccoon sightings last night. My guess is the first time we leave the feeders out at night they’ll be back.
There hasn’t been much squirrel activity lately. Here’s one feeding at the platform feeder. It was raining off and on yesterday, creating a kind of bird seed slurry. The squirrel really likes it. He’s got a lot of brown in his coat, more than we usually see.
After the invasion of Brown Headed Cowbirds and Redwing Blackbirds a few days ago, they seem to have disappeared. Looking at the videos I saw one bird I didn’t recognize – it’s the big one with brown/black striped feathers. It turns out to be a female Redwing, hanging out with the Cowbirds. Noisy feeders, aren’t they.
6:37 AM – We’re pleased to see that the meal worm feeder is attracting Bluebirds. Here’s a good video of one:
Although the Goldfinches are most numerous right now, we still have the Purple Finch and House Finch. The first video shows the Purple Finch sharing with the Goldfinches and some sparrows:
The second shows what I believe is a House Finch, also with Goldfinches. The color on this one looks more red than purple to me, but it’s easy to confuse the two. Easy for me, anyway.
4:14 AM – Raccoon was back last night, but thwarted by lack of feeders, and pepper suet. We took in all the ones on the deck, and it’s clear that the pepper suet worked. He didn’t even try for it. Instead he scavenged on the ground under the feeders. That’s fine, he’s welcome to that, as long as he’s gone when we let the dog out.
1:10 PM – Here’s the Red-Bellied Woodpecker at the pepper suet feeder. He attacks for a few seconds, leaves, returns and so on. His peak is really strong looking, which is to be expected from a creature that gouges holes in trees for a living.
6:30 AM – The Goldfinch flock is still around, in spite of the invasion of Brown Headed Cowbirds. Here they are swarming the platform feeder. Note the solitary sparrow in the middle of them, unperturbed.
6:20 AM – It looks like we have two raccoons. In the video below you’ll see one shadowy figure cross the screen, followed a few seconds later by another. I thought the first one might be a cat, but the shape is more raccoon than feline. Last night I brought in the vulnerable feeders, so they got nothing. Maybe a week or so of that will permanently discourage them, but that’s optimistic.
4:35 PM – A flock of Goldfinches moved into the neighborhood recently. The cold winter up north drove them further south than they usually come, according to the lady at Wild Birds Unlimited. In this video they are swarming a finch thistle sock. They are all Goldfinches, I think. The Cornell bird website shows non-producing males/females with very little yellow color. I estimate there’s about 10 – 12 in this flock, but that could be wildly inaccurate. The video is about three minutes long, and nothing much happens except Goldfinches feeding at the thistle sock, and occasionally squabbling about territory.
7:50 AM – Our first customers at the worm feeder (captured by the Worm Cam) are two Titmice.
4:20 AM – We made a trip to the Wild Birds Unlimited yesterday morning, and indulged ourselves. We bought two new feeders – one for big round blocks of suet, and one for meal worms (not the live ones). The latter is supposed to attract Bluebirds. We also bought a Bluebird house, a slanted arm to attach to the deck for one of the new feeders, and some squares of replacement suet. One of them is Pepper flavored. The Birds Unlimited expert tells us birds can’t taste the hot pepper flavor, but mammals – meaning raccoons – can. The theory is ‘Rocky’ will taste it, and never return. To that feeder, anyway.
Yesterday afternoon we set up the feeders, and rearranged the cameras. We’ll put up the Bluebird house tomorrow, probably. The new arrangement isn’t permanent yet, we’ll see how it works.
Of course ‘Rocky’ Raccoon visited, twice last night. The second time he was on the deck rail while we were right inside. The video below shows him reaching for the deck suet feeder, looking at the house, listening, then deciding to leave. On the first visit, he got into the new suet feeder on the deck, the platform feeder and the original suet feeder in the tree. He didn’t knock that one down this time, but did detach the camera from it’s mount and leave it on the ground.
These videos aren’t very good, but I’ll edit them down and post them to illustrate and document ‘Rocky’s’ bad behavior.
Here’s ‘Rocky’ listening to us inside the house:
Here he’s into the tree suet feeder:
8:10 AM – The Goldfinch is back at the suet feeder. He’s a very enthusiastic eater.
8:00 AM – Another visit from Bruno, the fence jumper, this time in daylight. This is two videos stitched together. In the first part, though you can’t see his face as the suet feeder is in the way, it looks like his owners are calling him. He takes his time responding.
6:40 AM – What bird is this? The back markings start half way down, unlike the sparrows and wrens. It’s closest to a nuthatch, but the color is wrong for the White Breasted variety we have. There’s a sort of brown cap, and some yellow around the throat, but none of this is distinct enough for me to identify him.
6:05 AM – This is the first Sparrow I’ve seen at the suet feeder. He just perched on top of it for a moment, then few away. I think he’d have a hard time eating through the grate with his short beak. The woodpecker next to him never stops eating.
4:25 PM – It was windy today. The motion detectors on the cameras are sensitive enough to react to tree limbs and bushes moving around, so we got a lot of ‘false positives’ – videos with no birds in them. Actually, there weren’t that many birds around, at least not as many as usual. Here’s a Pine Warbler at the suet feeder:
And here’s a male and female Purple Finch at the platform feeder.
2:55 AM – The new Trail Cam caught ‘Rocky’ coming and going three times. Unfortunately, there’s about a two second delay in the camera starting to record, so we just see a glimpse of him coming up the path. We get a better view as he goes back home. Maybe his den is in the small thicket in the lower corner of the yard. This is more activity than I really expected, and I think we’re not seeing all of it. The last video shows him coming up the hill at 2:46 AM, but not coming down. I’m sure this trail isn’t the only path he uses.
Coming:
Going:
2:40 PM – We saw a Goldfinch at the finch feeder. He spent a pretty good long time eating, so I got some pictures. Unfortunately, they’re really bad. I’ll post them below, anyway. Also managed to take a video, which came out better.
Here’s the Downy Woodpecker. I think. It’s possibly a Hairy Woodpecker, but those are supposed to be bigger with longer beaks. Either way, it’s the first time I’ve seen one. The camera battery died just after I started filming.
5:05 AM – These two videos show White Throated Sparrows (our most numerous visitors recently) squabbling for space at the feeder. In the first one a sparrow appears to ‘sucker punch’ another bird, flying in and pecking his head. After looking at it in slow motion, he’s actually swatting him with his wing. In the second, two of them have a kind of sparrow duel, with beaks, for position in the center of the feeder. This kind of thing goes on all the time, of course. I guess that’s why they call it ‘pecking order’.
Now the same video, slowed down to 40% of real time speed.
The duel:
In this video, you can see Mr. Raccoon in the background leaving the porch and walking along the path. We took the food in again, so there was nothing to attract him.
Finally, here’s the vivid Purple Finch from the still photos below. I haven’t seen him at the deck feeder before. He’s much more colorful than the usual Purple Finch, though unfortunately the camera doesn’t pick that up as much as I’d like.