Personal Bird Lists

Winter Yard List Competition
Most of the birders I know keep various lists. There are, Life Lists, Yard Lists, Winter Lists, Provincial Lists, Feeder Lists and I know of more than one person who keep a Pond List (I suppose if I spent over $6000 on a “water feature” I would too). A Life List is all the birds you have seen in your life, anywhere, period. A Provincial List is self explanatory, but people who travel frequently maintain several Provincial Lists (I have frequent visits by a man from Texas trying to add to his New Brunswick List). The milestone for the NB list is 300 birds, there is a party and cake, you get Jim Edsall to carve that species for the mantel, but NB lists can go over 365 species.
A Yard List is the birds you see or hear from your yard, most don’t limit it to birds that are actually in or above your yard, that would make your list proportionate to the size of your property. So anything you can see or hear while keeping at least one foot “in bounds” can go on the list. Our yard list is 104 species, which I thought was OK, I recently heard of one totaling 155 and one over 170, time to dust of the binoculars and brush up on the bird sounds. My Yard List and my NB List are very similar, I don’t get out much.
A Winter List starts on the first day of December (mid-night) and ends on the last day of February. The New Brunswick Winter List is around 160 species for the 3 month period.
So I would like to propose a little friendly competition…..a 2009-2010 Winter Yard List. I like this idea because it starts everyone off on the same level; zero and since it only takes place in your back yard it doesn’t violate the Kyoto Accord by having people taking off to Edmonston every week end. This is an interesting activity that anyone can participate in, family, friends, the dog (setters and spaniels will “point” out birds), you could even hire a naturalist if you really want to win, as long as they are in your yard. Dead rarities drug home by the cat absolutely do not count, please don’t even tell me about them. To sweeten the pot a bit the grand prize is the 4-10 bird feeder pole with squirrel/raccoon baffle, 4 bird feeders and a supply of seed and suet. (Everything you’ll need to win next year.)
The rules for the contest are: count everything you see or hear during the count period (December 1 - February 28). Any species really out of the ordinary might need to be authenticated, a photo will be great. Anything you know is rare and you are having a hard time identifying, give me a call or e-mail and I should be able to check it out or get someone I know from your area to lend a hand. Use the range maps in the field guide as a base of reference, they will tell you what is and is not expected. Escapees won’t count so stay away from the pet store; you laugh but as overly competitive people get older this is all we have left. The Judges (Me) will have the final say.
A few pointers if you want to have the biggest list:
Get started counting December 1, make sure your feeders are well stocked for a couple weeks before and get counting on the first day. There will no doubt be some stragglers that have yet to migrate, if you wait until January to identify them they will probably be gone.
Try to identify as many of the sparrow and similar species as you can. The judges will not allow LBB as a species. LBB standing for little brown bird, a term used by lazy birders. If you have a decent guide and binoculars you might be able to count 8-10 species that often get written off a LBB’s. Scattering some white millet around the ground or on a platform feeder will help attract the ones that don’t eat sunflower seed.
Suet and especially a peanut butter suet mix will attract quite a few insect eating birds. The Woodpeckers, Nuthatch, Chickadee would be common visitors and possibly Kinglet, Mockingbird, a late Oriole or something really rare could be expected on the suet mix.
Fruit will attract another variety of birds, you might want to collect some berries now and freeze them for feeding later in the winter. You can also feed cut up apples, grapes, frozen bananas and par-boiled raisins to attract Oriole, Bohemian and Cedar Waxwing, Robins, Mockingbird and other rarities.
Water will make a big difference, if you have a heated birdbath or a birdbath heater for your existing bath you will be able to offer water throughout the whole count period. If not put water out in the morning of mild days, use something that you can pop the ice out of, the larger plastic trays that go under potted plants work well and if you’re like Martha Stewart you can make an ice sculpture out of all the discs you’ll have.
Don’t forget to scan the horizon for birds. Use binoculars or a scope to check as far as you can. You should be able to add hawks, eagles, geese, ducks and others that might not necessarily come into your yard. Use second story windows to look around the neighborhood, if it’s at the feeder next door you can count it. Check local building codes before erecting any towers.
As long as you are doing this anyway, you might as well do the Christmas Bird Count (CBC). There is a need for “Feeder Watchers”, you can submit the species you see over the whole CBC period and do an extended watch on “count day” for your section. Contact Nature Moncton (the group formerly known as the Moncton Naturalist Club, until it was discovered that confusion with the Nudist Club was affecting enrollment), and they will give you the kit you’ll need. For those outside Moncton, contact your local nature clubs, a list is on the Nature New Brunswick website.
Finally, I have compiled a basic list of species you could see in and over your yard. There are 80 species, you won’t see them all and there will certainly be some birds you see that aren’t on the list, non-typical yard birds, like the ones you’ll see flying by aren’t all listed and I didn’t bother to list all rarities that have been seen in the past during the winter count periods. I will have copies of the list at the Moncton Market starting Saturday (today) at no charge or contact me if you can’t make it.
I’ve started a separate “Winter Yard List” photo album for the contest and I’ll post pictures and names of contributors along with their running totals. This is just a friendly competition to help us get through another long Maritime winter. Here’s to late snow cover, reasonable temperatures and big lists!

written by Dwayne Biggar at The Bird Garden

Ground Feeding

First, I would like to look back at last weeks column about decrease in birds at feeders; I noticed last Wednesday, during the storm the birds arrived in good (not great) numbers. The following morning the feeders were quite active until later in the day when the snow blew off the trees and I assume the birds, especially finch species, returned to the natural seeds. Many of you stopped by the Market to tell me a similar scenario played out in their yards as well.

I mention ground feed in passing in quite a few columns, often as a byproduct of feeding mixed seed, in most cases ground feeding is coming across as a bad thing because of the unwanted birds and rodents it attracts. Also, when you rely on the birds on the feeders to spread your ground feed, you loose control of how much gets spread.

The problem with the mixes, they often contain ingredients that are eaten by nothing but Pigeons and rats. (I have a dilemma here, if I don’t draw a comparison between Pigeons and rats, the birding “purists” and the rednecks will be contacting me to ask me “What’s the difference?” or “Pigeons are just rats with wings” or, my favourite, “We call Pigeons, Sky-Rats ‘round here”. If I do draw a comparison the Pigeon lovers, and you guys are much more vocal, will be contacting me to ask me “Why do you hate Pigeons?” or “I love all birds” and “Pigeons have to eat too”. So in the interest of time I’m not going to mention any similarities.)

The usual ratio of sunflower to ground feed, in New Brunswick anyway, is about 10:1 to 5:1, that is for every 50 pounds of sunflower you’ll likely have about 5 or 10 pounds of millet eaten. Since millet is a cheaper ingredient, it’s usually the major part of cheap mixed seed and it tends to accumulate under the feeders. I speak to a lot of people who don’t even think birds will eat millet, but it’s more that the birds that do eat it, don’t eat from tube feeders as readily as say a Chickadee or Goldfinch.

The best thing about millet is that it’s very water proof, sometimes when the Junco and Sparrow are in high numbers, I will throw a couple scoops of millet on top of the snow. This works best if the snow is crusty, but you can stomp down an area or feed some on the edge of the driveway as well (avoid the sidewalk as it will stick to your boots). If it gets covered with snow, I’ll throw some more out. This works great since in the spring when the Sparrows and Junco return in large numbers the millet will continuously emerge as the snow melts. The tough waxy coating on the seed protects it and the seed is perfectly safe. Sometimes in spring, the Junco and Sparrow number a few hundred in our yard, it can get so loud outside, I don’t hear the trill of my cordless phone over the song. About the only thing that does happen to ruin millet is the sprouting. When I first started feeding, I used plywood platform to offer millet, if it was warm and the seed stayed wet long enough I would remove a “mat” of sprouted and tangled seed. Now I use well drained platforms and don’t offer too much at once when it’s warm. If some does grow, I try to mow around as many of the plants as I can, the birds really go for the fresh millet on the stem.

Here’s a few more tips on feeding millet that I haven’t seen in any books:

One day, while spreading a scoop of millet, my aim was off and I discovered that millet will stick in the needles of the really thick spruce trees. I noticed the resident sparrows were going crazy in the tree, it took a while for me to remember the misplaced throw and figure out what they were doing in the spruce in such large numbers. Now I do this all the time, especially when the branches are wet or have sticky snow.

For years I have been feeding millet under our deck, the deck has lattice around it so it’s automatically a small bird only, covered platform feeder. We have a small window in the basement that looks out under the deck so you are often at eye level just a couple feet away from the sparrows, and some of these guys (and girls) are beautiful. If you don’t have a viewing opportunity under your deck, you’ll still get to see them as they come and go or perch in the sun for a while. Not to exclude the larger Mourning Dove I also feed millet under the shop deck (no lattice), the only down side is when you step out onto the deck the sound of 30 or so Dove taking off still startles me.

Since my van seldom moves all week there is usually a bare patch under it all winter. Most of the birds scratch around there for grit anyway, so I sprinkle a bit of millet, yet another covered platform.

A warning though, at first I used to feed all seeds under the deck and our vehicles, the problem is the sunflower was attracting squirrels, when they started checking out around my basement sills and one started hiding seed in the floor vent intake of my old truck, I quickly stopped the sunflower and the squirrels stay away.

A last word on millet, there are 2 kinds, red and white. White millet is the definite favourite and this is a good thing because it’s cheaper. Red millet will be reluctantly eaten after all the white is gone.

Another popular ground feed is cracked corn, it’s a good seed, it’s even cheaper that millet and it does attract different birds. However corn does not belong in a tube feeder, it’s dusty, (some brands more than others) and since it’s “cracked” all the natural water proofing on the seed is gone. Corn and mixes that contain corn usually end up in a moldy lump in the bottom of feeders. So, corn is best fed sparingly on the ground or in a well drained platform. Most of the ground feeding birds will eat corn, Sparrows going for the smaller pieces, Ducks, Pheasants, Doves and Jays the larger ones. The biggest disadvantage to corn instead of millet is the black birds all like it, you’ll be getting Crows, Starlings, Grackles and others that don’t eat millet. So if you do feed corn, don’t mix it in with the millet, this gives the smaller guys a quiet place to eat.

written by Dwayne Biggar at The Bird Garden

A Good Field Guide Makes All the Difference

I started out birding on the wrong foot, back then there weren’t many specialty shops, there wasn’t internet and although there were clubs, I wasn’t aware. When I wanted to buy a field guide I thought the logical place was a book store, so off I went to the mall and bought a guide that came “highly recommended”….by the kid who worked that weekend. I should have clued in to the fact it was the only guide they had, so what else could he recommend?

With the new guide in hand and Dad’s old binoculars, I went off to conquer the bird world. When I didn’t progress, I blamed the binoculars and bought a better pair. Still my birding was at best frustrating, I was only able to identify the most common and slowest moving birds. The sparrows and other LBB’s (little brown birds) seemed impossible, the book that was recommended was poorly arranged, the writing was in one section and the pictures in another. Male and female bird pictures were in different sections and similar birds weren’t even grouped together. I was spending all my time flipping pages and reading descriptions, but not enough time studying the birds, I eventually stopped taking the field guide altogether.

When I finally bought a different guide, it was like someone turned on a switch, almost overnight it started coming together. The guide I bought was Peterson Eastern Birds, it was the first time I used a book arranged like this, the similar birds are all on the same page, males and females are shown together, (a good thing because they often travel together), the written description is on the facing page and; the most important thing for me because I’m lazy and a slow reader; there are “arrows”. These arrows changed my (birding) life, now instead of reading two descriptions and figuring out what was different between them, I could glance at either picture, note that the arrow is pointing to a wing bar, an eye line or a different coloured rump. This leaves you more time to study the bird instead of the book. This arrangement is even referred to as the Peterson Identification System and has been called the greatest invention since binoculars.

For those impossible sparrows, Peterson was kind enough to separate them into a few categories, there’s a section for rusty capped, streaked or clear breasted, these being the most striking markings. Then the arrows help you narrow it down, hopefully to one bird.

Now instead of a big void in my Life List under sparrow, there are 11 confident check marks, in ink, not the penciled in ones that I do when I’m not sure. You’ll raise the eyebrow of doubt when you read this, most people do. In fact there are 3 or 4 more sparrows that I could have on the list if I did some driving around. All but 2, I’ve seen in our yard, the Swamp Sparrow and Nelsons Sharp-tailed Sparrow I see on the marsh below our house.

This week I’ve had several questions that lead me to believe others weren’t using the best guides either, one guide didn’t show the American Goldfinch in winter plumage, the other didn’t show the European Starling at all. The Goldfinch is a common winter visitor and the Starling one of our most common birds, although not a native species a good guide has to include Starlings, if for no other reason than to distinguish it from other birds.

These questions inspired me to write a little field guide review. One of the most frequent requests I get is for a book on New Brunswick or “just local birds”. There are a couple that fall into this category but they are mediocre at best. I suppose there just isn’t enough market for a good guide of New Brunswick birds. Thatʼs not a big deal though because the guides for eastern North America will include all our regular birds plus most of the rare birds that wonder out of the normal range.

My top 6 book picks in ascending order.

#6 My least favourite book of the ones I will mention is the Stokes Field Guide to the Birds: Eastern Region. I do get a few requests for this book, itʼs a photographic guide, which is usually less recommended for identification, but the big problem is the layout, there is only one bird per page, making it hard to compare similar species and they don’t use the arrows to highlight field marks. The best feature is that it goes page for page in the same order as the Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs, East, which is a great 3 CD set containing the songs and calls of 374 birds. Some find it useful to page through the book at the same time as listening to the sounds. (This system is being rapidly pushed aside by MP3 players, there is an iPod and iPhone app with all the sounds and pictures downloaded)

#5 National Geographic Birds of North America, is an OK guide that used to be considered one of the best (until a better one came along). It is a source for the birds you’ll see that aren’t in the eastern guides, but the big down fall is the lack of arrows that draw your eye to the best field marks. This guide uses several different artists throughout, you’ll notice a difference in style and quality across groupings.

#4 Peterson, Birds of Eastern and Central North America, is one of the best beginner guides out there, it has been recently revised to include the map on each page, in the past users had to turn to the back to see each map. This was often neglected, leading to false reports of birds that are only likely to be seen in southern US. Not that it’s impossible to see these rarities, but if you can tell at a glance that it’s not supposed to be in New Brunswick, you’ll be more likely to double check.

#3 Sibley Guide to Birds of Eastern North America is the other best guide for beginners, it has all the features of the Peterson, and maybe even a little more. The only reason I wouldn’t buy this guide first is that it’s totally duplicated in the Bird Bible, but this one fits in your pocket, the Bird Bible......only really big pockets. If you don’t intend on buying the “Big” Sibley or don’t mind the duplication, I think this is the best beginner guide out there.

#2 Kaufman Guide to Birds of North America, the more I use this guide, the more I like it. Itʼs easy to use has the arrows that I so need, maps in the right place, similar species lined up together etc but the thing I like the most is the pictures. They are digitally enhanced photographs, that is they went in and added and embellished the

field marks that are so often not included in photo guides. Kaufmanʼs tips and descriptions are great, he tells us things the other guides donʼt. If you already have an artist rendering guide this is a great addition.

#1 The Sibley Guide to Birds: (The Bird Bible) this is my top pick, even though it is big and more expensive, it has the most information. Every bird is shown in flight with wings up and down, sizes include wingspan and body size, similar birds are grouped together and every possible variation of plumage is represented, even more so than his Eastern Guide. And needless to say, since it’s my favourite...it has arrows. Leave it in the car or on the coffee table if you find it too big, you will not regret this purchase. My 10 year old copy is well worn, not only from the field but the pages of the birds I most often carve have sawdust in the fold and a little extra paint around the edges, but I wouldn’t trade, it seems to fall open to the best pages.

There’s so much that can be said about field guides and so many opinions, these are only my choices. You can find more information and reviews online and most sites show a few pages of each book. Or you can do it the old fashioned way, go to a store and flip through a couple.

written by Dwayne Biggar at The Bird Garden

Spring-like Weather in February

There’s never been any thing I could do this time of year, business wise, to create the buzz of excitement (albeit small) that Mother Nature stirred up last week. If you string together a few spring like days and add to that an increase of activity at feeders and people start thinking about their yards, nesting birds, and yes even Hummingbirds. It’s a good thing too, because our kitchen cupboards are getting bare and the giant bag of rice I bought the wife for Christmas was almost gone.

Past years I tried various things to increase winter sales, even trying to cash in on Valentine’s Day with the “Nothing Says I Love You Like a Big Bag of Fat” marketing slogan. Can you believe, in 3 years I didn’t sell one pink gift bag full of suet? This year though, when I went shopping after the market I didn’t get depressed when I saw about a hundred men with overpriced bouquets of flowers in the checkout lines. I didn’t want to yell, “Don’t you think your wife (or significant other) would get more enjoyment out of a bag of fat? Those will only last a week, a bag of fat will bring joy for the rest of the winter.” Not this year, no sir. When I paid for my 20 kg bag of rice, I had a smile on my face and didn’t harass even one “Flower Bearer”, all thanks to a great week of weather, that started a little shaky.

Yeah, I was on the road to Sussex bright and early Tuesday morning, the drive there was more than scary but by the time I was on the road back at 10:30 it was like a different reality; the sun was out and the same treacherous roads were “bare full width”. My point...on route west just before the Potash mine, you can see briefly into a pit, there were about a hundred birds flying around, mostly Crows and Ravens, but there were several Bald Eagles. Someone else noticed this and since the roads were better, they had spare eyes in the passenger seats and they weren’t being passed by an Echo who spun sideways in the slush in the passing lane (sometimes it so hard to get any good birding done on the highway), they were able to count 5 Eagles. His question and mine, is, “Why so many birds and why the Eagles?” Maybe someone knows the answer and possibly a safer place to scope out the entire pit. You can only see the tops of the mounds from the highway and it is a very brief view. If you can count 5 Eagles there’s likely more out of sight. I know of an area in St John where road kill is taken to a pit where birds, especially Turkey Vultures feed on it. This might be the answer? At any rate, I’d like to hear more about this potential Hot Spot.

I was talking to a woman from Dalhousie who was extremely excited about impending spring, last year she had a nest of Eastern Bluebirds in a house that was first occupied by Tree Swallows. I assume by the timing that it was a possible second brood. The male disappeared and the landlords helped with the feeding, buying copious amounts of meal worms and giving them to the female beside the nest box. The brood fledged but I didn’t catch the number. My advice was to get a couple more houses out asap, if the female or any of the brood return to nest early and the Tree Swallow wants to use the house they will come out on top, Swallows can be very aggressive. If there are more houses within 50 feet, it’s unlikely another Swallow will be allowed to nest that close, but after some wrangling the Bluebird will, hopefully, be reluctantly welcome. This is a good thing too, the Swallows will aggressively defend the area from predators and in doing so will defend the Bluebird house as well. It’s often referred to as “pairing” houses, placing 2 within the Tree Swallows territory so they won’t both be taken by Swallows. I would love to have a yard full of both Swallows and Bluebirds.

So, her first mission for the day was to locate some sharpened cedar fence posts to be ready to drive them in the ground as soon as the frost comes out. Her next mission was to bribe her husband into building more houses. I found this report significant because of the location, I don’t know how many Eastern Bluebirds nest that far north. I’d be interested to hear of any more Bluebirds nests.

I was also surprised by the run on hummingbird feeders, there were a lot of people who, although jumping the gun, are preparing for the first of May. I listened to many stories, questions and problems, when I mentioned the website learner.org and their Hummingbird Migration Map pages, people were quite excited. (I have it bookmarked, it is hard to find from the learner.org homepage. Google Hummingbird Migration Map and you’ll see the one I use, among others.) Through this site you can watch the Hummers progress, you can even e-mail the people who reported the sightings. There have been a few sightings in Florida already, by March 15 there will be lots of birds on the North side of the Gulf of Mexico.

Last year the weather was exceptionally bad, and spring seemed late. Easter Sunday we had a storm and our power went out. With little to do, I decided to cook up some nectar for the Oriole feeder on the wood stove. I wasn’t actually expecting Orioles, but have heard of several common species that acquire a taste for the sugar. I put the feeder on the deck rail hanger and waited for someone to partake. Well it was less than fulfilling, other than the odd Chickadee that was really just curious and the Goldfinch who used it as a perch to await a turn on the nyjer tube...nothing. I changed the nectar occasionally, but since it was usually frozen I figured it was OK to leave it for a stretch. On May 1, a week early on a year I thought they would be extra late, my son spotted a male Hummingbird. I quickly put the word out on naturenb, a network of local naturalists, who also put out feeders and there were several sightings the next day. I’m trying to contain my enthusiasm in case we get a bad blast of winter, but, I’ll have my feeders out by the last week of April this year for sure. It makes one wonder if they aren’t always back that early and we just have May 7-12 in our brains as the time to put out the feeders. It also makes one wonder what could possibly be keeping them alive that early if there aren’t any feeders out.

Another sure sign of impending spring, the Red Squirrels attempting to “increase their population”. This sighting was reported by a guy so excited about the great weather he bought a baby shower gift for the lovely couple, a Squirrel feeder and bottle of Squirrel food.

As I write this though, there is a winter storm warning, up to 20 cm, I read this Sunday and thought, “No big deal”, but now it’s a red “Weather Warning”, I don’t remember as a kid 20 cm qualifying for a storm warning, I blame it on the Metric system, 20 cm sounds more dire than 7.8 inches. This is the Maritimes, anything under a meter shouldn’t require a “warning”. (I hope it’s not bad karma to poke fun at the meteorologist, feel free to stop by and yell at me if I jinxed it.) Don’t let this impending “dusting” dampen your spirits, Spring will come, no matter what happens the rest of the winter, you can’t take away the first half and the fact that I haven’t used half as much firewood as I did this time last year.

written by Dwayne Biggar at The Bird Garden

Goldfinch Invade

This is a picture out the kitchen window showing about one third of the finch in our yard on the morning of February 17. After a slow winter at the feeders this was a welcome sight. Most are Goldfinch, there are a few Pine Siskins and Chickadee.