9:08 AM – Typical morning at the deck platform feeder. There’s also a lot of finches hanging from the finch-sock, but no video of that.
Tag Archives: Various Birds
Sunday – 1.22.2017
3:15 PM – The rain filled the deck platform feeder with water. It covered up the small seeds the Sparrows eat, resulting in some disappointed birds:
However, the black oil sunflower seeds preferred by the Cardinals floats. He experienced no interruption in service due to weather.
This Mourning Dove has a big enough beak to get whatever he wants out of the water.
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10:25 AM – Plenty of White Throated Sparrows this morning. They moved on and some Purple Finches took over. It’s interesting to watch the interaction between the male and female Finches. The male drives off one female, but allows another to stay in the feeder. His mate?
In the following clip, immediately afterwards, the male and female couple are sharing the feeder. When another female approaches, the male again drives her off.
In subsequent clips, the female finch drives off other females. I conclude that the male and female Finches are a couple, and have higher status than the ‘single’ females that approach the feeder. Or maybe not. One thing is clear, Mr. and Mrs. Purple Finch don’t like to share.
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12:50 AM – The cat that visits periodically came around a while ago, looking for nuts. We took in the deck platform feeder so as not to attract ‘Rocky’ Raccoon, so he had no luck. I’d put out food for the animal but I don’t want him there all the time, and don’t want all the other cats, raccons and possums that would follow him.
Saturday – 1.21.2017
3:00 PM – Some close up images of male Purple Finch. These were taken with a Nikon Coolpix L830 with 34x zoom lens, as an experiment. The videos that are regularly displayed are from the Arlo security cameras. With the Nikon it’s possible to get images and videos of the birds at the other feeders around the yard. But it’s not as easy as the automatic Arlo cams.
9:55 AM – The platform feeder on the deck doesn’t have drainage, so last night’s rain filled it up with water. Here’s a couple of birds coming to terms with that. They look disappointed, but I don’t have much sympathy with that. There are five other feeders around the yard. No one goes hungry. No bird left behind.
4:55 AM – For about 30 minutes last night, ‘Rocky’ Raccoon feasted at the platform feeder, and washed up in the bird bath. Here’s a sample of the videos we captured. He looked really hungry:
In this one he eats voraciously, then gets into the bird bath for a wash:
Finally, ‘Rocky’ overdoes it, and knocks the bath off the rail. Unlike past episodes, he didn’t fall.
As interesting as these videos are, we don’t really want ‘Rocky’ as a regular guest. We’ll probably start bringing the food in at night, and emptying the bird baths.