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