eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

By the calendar it really is Spring, but it sure doesn't feel like it yet. Northern parts of the Boston metro area had snow yesterday; down here it was just cold and drizzly and nasty, as it has been all week. These days when I fill the birdfeeders, even though it's still dark (again!) one cardinal starts his singing while I'm out there. I'm not sure whether he does it to impress me (it does!), or if he's just an early riser. But he sings his heart out each morning, in the dark, all by himself. It's beautiful to hear.

I've noticed that as the cold weather lingers, the birds are eating more and more food. Throughout the winter, I usually only fill the feeders about half-way, as that's about all that gets eaten by dark. But as the days get longer and the temps slowly wend their way above freezing, I end up putting out more food on a daily basis. I'd guess it's a combination of more daylight hours, and the start of migration season, which means more birds stopping by the feeders for a snack. Oh, and talking about stopping by for a snack, the NovaBird camera snapped this gorgeous shot of a female Red-winged Blackbird the other day. Embarrassingly enough, it took us a while to identify her--the markings are so dramatic in the photo, they threw us completely off!

Last Sunday, I raked the protective layer of leaves off the front garden, to uncover the crocuses and allow the Spring growth to get started. The poor garden looks so bare and chilly now, but I can also see green things starting to come up. I'll have to wait another few weeks before I put out the ceramic birdbath. (The birds know that there's water in the backyard garden birdbath, so they can wait until the danger of a freeze is gone for the convenience of having an extra water source.) When we put the front garden in last summer, the birds really enjoyed it--lots of undergrowth for shelter, water from the birdbath, berries for food, etc. Here's what it looked like then--a bit bare and sparse, but we have hopes that it will fill in considerably this coming year.

When it does, it will provide yet more habitat for our birds, and afford us even more enjoyment. How great will that be?

See you by those Springtime feeders,
Mrs. CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, the little house sparrow made his proud debut with a female... They stood on top of their birdhouse and shuffled about awkwardly as if two teens waiting for a Vegas Elvis to marry them. Quite cute actually... Too bad that my camera/tripod skills weren't nearly so cute, and I completely blew the photo. Just take my word for it, Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow were on the roof of the slight dwelling below.

On to more mundane... Last January we took a look at social networking and social bookmarking. Let's take another look.

Once again, the following two videos should offer some insight. (Though you should certainly feel free to ask this blog any questions that might cross your mind...)

Social networking:

The issue is now as it was then... Do you think that something like this would appeal to you? Or more accurately, would you use this sort of community browsing and information sharing? Thoughts...

• Speaking strictly for myself, I'm not all that crazy about the pure social networking sites like linkedin.com - at least not for this informal backyard birding audience. My Outlook "Keep" folder has a bunch of LinkedIn invitations, and every one of them is professional in nature.
• A service more dedicated to sharing significant and similar birding "tags" seems apt... Delicious looks very appealing. More experimenting with that down the short road.
• And then there's Yoono... How to describe? This is sort of a one-stop shopping for social computing. (I'm running it now, and it is a trip.) In general, think of other social computing services as more or less dedicated apps serving one purpose. On the other hand, Yoono acts more like an MS Office Suite... Tricky, but cool...

I know for many of you, the issue of social computing is foreign. However, the genie is clearly out of the bottle, and these are issues we all should discuss...

See you by the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

• We've got a sparrow on top of the bird house with an emerging black bib on his chest. As the season progresses, that bib will turn a rich black indicating that it's mating time. Ah, spring is here and love is in the air.
  

  (If you remember, last year about this time we had a sparrow who spent weeks on top of the bird house, all puffed up and dancing his strange little "hopping dance". As far as we could tell, all his efforts were in vain. Wonder if this little guy will fare better? And for that matter, is it the same individual? Hmmm...)

• The crocuses are up!
  

  These are always pleasant things to see, and they are a surefire indicator that summer isn't that far away. The downside of this is that while the crocuses are beautiful on the front lawn, they're about the only thing that will grow there. To say that the yard is "grass challenged" is an understatement. Do you think the neighbors would notice a concrete lawn painted green? Hey, we could even paint pictures of crocuses on the concrete... Naw, that probably wouldn't go over too well with the locals or the wife. But it would make for low maintenance...

• And finally we have absolute confirmation that spring has sprung! When you see a crow scarfing down some pizza in preparation for March Madness college basketball, spring is a lock.

  

In any event, 'tis spring again on Cape Cod, and the supersaturation of tourists can't be far off... Sigh...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

This just in! It looks like birds tend to sing longer in the spring due to a hormonal change sparked by longer days. You can read about the phenomenon here.

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Meant to make this entry silly fun from start to finish, but that just ain't gonna happen.

Check out the shots the NovaBird remote camera snagged of one of the local flickers. You can see the full-blown image here (well worth viewing).

On to the silly funny... Too bad I'm not in the "silly funny" mood. Yeah folks, it's been one of those "Last Couple of Days". Thankfully, my studies in boat building have thoroughly trained me for this. I refer of course to "The Moaning Chair". What's that? You don't know about the moaning chair? You don't know about the moaning chair? You heathen! Alright, alright, I'll explain... A moaning chair (recommended by boat builder and author Dynamite Payson amongst others) is the appropriate repository for you when all things have turned sour and the universe has just given you the Bronx cheer. That's the chair into which you plop after discovering wild personal blunders and cruel acts of fate such as completely botching the last decade's worth of tax returns, accidentally throwing out your pristine Mickey Mantle rookie card, or worst of all constructing two port (left-hand) sides of a boat. It is the place to be when the alternative is destroying the garage with an old butter knife and eating the splinters... Let's see... Today my moaning chair resonates with the following...

• Having "Writers Block" ain't funny - especially when there's other work to do
• Being pestered by an intellectually-challenged cat just rots
• Eating microwave Chef Boyardee spaghetti & meatballs from a microwave cup... Say no more
• Politicians, politicians, politicians
• Our national economy has more warts than an ugly toad contest
• I'm 50 years old and can no longer jump tall buildings in a single bound... At least not every day
• I'm not building a boat... Grrr!
• Flickers and red-bellies look too much alike
• The Amazon Kindle is still back-ordered 6 weeks and they still aren't listing this blog... Double grrr!!!

I'll be grumbling in the chair over by the feeders. (Where'd I put that stupid butter knife?)

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Onward...

The fall photo to the left reminds me of many moons ago, when I used to pick cranberries for an autumn living. The oaks surrounding the bogs always were like that - leaves in brilliant tatters, full of movement, rustle, and air so chilled and clean that you could taste it. This particular oak is a favorite hangout for red-wing black birds waiting to descend on our feeders. Unfortunately, the tree is growing too large and may soon pose a threat to both the house and the power lines across the street. In short, it may have to come down, and force the blackbirds to look for a different lurking haunt.

But boat builders and cabinet makers are funny people... We tend to look at trees and their demise in a slightly different way than others. My guess is that I'll have to "top" the oak, (start at the top and bring it down in pieces). But such a process can only be done whilst keeping an eye on bending and straight grains. (Contorted grain is perfect for things like the stems, knees, and breasthooks of boats, while straight-grained lumber is better suited for stuff like masts, spars, and furniture.) An example of the latter is shown below.

The "toolbox" is a rambling amalgam of ideas and materials. My design draws from a wide assortment of influences including Shaker, Japanese, German, and American Folk. The woods used are:

• 200 year old soft pine
• "Throw-away pallet pine"
• Mahogany
• Oak
• Home-milled maple

And that takes us back to the oak tree... How are we going to parse and mill that puppy? There are a couple of nice blanket chests hiding in the trunk, but what of the heavy branches? And the questions get worse... Rive or saw? What grain pattern to choose? Would a particular crook be just right for a boat unseen or perhaps undesigned?

Sigh... Such is the stuff of exotic birds, backyard oak trees, and ridiculous hobbies...

See you by the feeders (and perhaps the oak chips)...

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

omewhere in a place not here, and sometime in a time not now, child Lisa looked at a most-strange, off-colored bird not too unlike herself.

The bird seemed normal enough to Lisa, but still not quite right to light on all edges and from all angles. Regardless, Lisa fed it and watched it. And she felt happy with the creature, though always at a distance.

But there were other things for Lisa too... There was school, and friends, and clothes that got turned inside out... There was cooking, and painting, and many places to see in a place not here. There were loved ones - past, present, and future... But perhaps most important was simply being aware of the specialness of being in that place and that time, even if she was a little different.

And time did pass in a time not now... (Though surely time was approaching now, or leaving now, or running besides now, or something along those lines or curves...) Anyway, time moved right along. And as Lisa grew, she spent less and less time in a place not here, feeding a most strange, off-colored, wild bird not too unlike herself until the years seeped away and the bird flew away forever and Lisa hardly even noticed.

But later, much later, after she had grown and finally found her own way, Lisa would think back to the off-colored bird that wasn't too unlike herself. Just a little albinistic girl and a little leucistic bird not alone in a place not here, and in a time not now.

Sleepy by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Time to give the "PGA Isenhour Circus Hour" a break. Read that, "We've had enough birds and bird cruelty for a while... (And beyond that, the new Spitzer mess is just too weird for words.)

But while we're on the general issue of skewering institutions such as the Professional Golfers' Association, we might as well switch lanes and go after the ubiquitous "TV Chef"...

Yes, that's right; we're challenging the television cooking demigod's sanitary habits in the kitchen. (Mind you that I didn't dream up the following all by myself... Nope... This post is simply a reflection on a really bad experience, and a repeat of the stuff biology teachers and professors drove through my thick skull many moons ago.)

So how to introduce this post? Well...

Umpteen years ago, I was crossing the U.S. by car, and stopped at a huge truck stop/diner in Texas. Working on the assumption that "the truckers like it, so the food must be good", I ordered fried shrimp (which was delicious), and left... About 30 minutes later I was doing a great imitation of Linda Blair in the "Exorcist" ejecting pea soup, but only if Ms. Blair's character was terribly seasick, suffering from a blistering hangover, and wearing a thick wool suit (with no undergarments) on a scorching Texas day... Yeah, I got food poisoning alright... But why??? My guess is that a cook or server who dished up the shrimp failed to wash his or her hands after using the rest room. Yuck...

Anyway, it's in memory of that abdominal cataclysm, (and to give further voice to my biology teachers), that I offer these simple cooking safety tips. If you notice a bit of contempt for the boob-tube cooking icons, there's a reason for that. Onward to the tips!

• Not to be completely disgusting, but to be completely disgusting, keep your hands and nails absolutely clean - especially after using the bathroom.
• Wear a hair net or at least a cap. (See photo below for "weapons" in the war on kitchen filth.)
  

• Keep your kitchen spotlessly clean.
• Avoid wooden utensils like the plague. They're simply a germ factory in the making.
• Wash hands constantly.
• Wash dishes and silverware thoroughly in hot soapy water and rinse in hot water.
• Treat raw meat, chicken, and fish as contaminants. Anything that touches that stuff (including your hands) becomes contaminated. For example, if you handle raw chicken and then give your hands a quick wipe on that dish towel on your shoulder (like they do on TV), not only are your hands and the dish towel contaminated, but so is everything else you/it touches.
• Cook food to at least the minimum temperature as recommended by the Gateway to Government Food Safety Information site. This suggestion has a great upside... It gives you a reason to buy one of those cool digital cooking thermometers!
• Don't cook when you're sick or have a cold.
• Avoid the "taste and season, taste and season" method using the same spoon over and over again. (I guess the "Food Network" won't be calling me anytime soon.)
• Don't be scrimy in the use of paper towels.
• Don't just "wipe clean" spills... Use soap to really keep things sanitary.
• Beware the old sponge!

You get the idea... Common sense is a good thing. Besides, if the truth be told, most of us occasionally eat food prepared in less than perfectly sanitary kitchens and we survive quite nicely. Still, cleaner is better, and imitating Linda Blair is most unpleasant.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. If you want to see how easy it is to spread contamination during cooking, try brewing beer!

P.P.S. Be sure to check out our rice recipes, my chowder recipe, and our New-York style pizza recipe contest!

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Where to begin? This is a follow-up story to the senseless killing of a hawk, and also about how the news media will change a given story on a particular link, and "dispose" of the previous versions of the story.

On March 7, 2008 at 1:52 AM, I published a post reviling PGA player Tripp Isenhour for deliberately, senselessly, and cruelly killing a Red-shouldered Hawk. That post was based on an earlier version of the following Yahoo! Sports report

Except that the link above is not the same one I spoke to on March 7, 2008 at 1:52 AM... The content of the link has been changed... You can read the original content at: Pro golfer Tripp Isenhour apologizes for killing hawk, Humane Society to contact PGA

The second version of this same story (using the same link) was quite forgiving, (and if my memory and my wife's memory are correct) failed to even mention Jethro Senger, the sound engineer who reportedly yelled at Isenhour.

And now, the story has taken on yet another iteration - one of a more accusatory tone towards Isenhour. That makes for three different stories (all using the same Web link) that vary in substance regarding the issue of the dead bird.

This is pathetic for a bunch of reasons...

• A beautiful bird was killed either out of idiocy, wanton cruelty, or both.
• News outlets changing a story can drive a person crazy. Think about it... How many times have you read an article online, only to go back to it later and found that it "just didn't seem to be the same"? Well, guess what... It's quite possible that it wasn't the same.
• Media revisionism is a little scary. True, there are times when a simple behind-the-scenes edit is appropriate. That is, it's one thing to correct the phrase, "the dogs was on a leash" by changing it to, "the dog was on a leash". But it's entirely another to change "the dog was on a leash" to, "the dog was running wild". Doesn't the media understand that playing fast and loose with the story without full disclosure is a prescription for problems? Didn't "RatherGate" teach them anything?
• Finally, let's debunk the excuse that the shot that killed the hawk was "one in a million". That's a lot of fertilizer... No more and absolutely no less... Check out the following video of Tiger Woods trying to hit a camera... Granted Isenhour is no Tiger Woods, but he's a pro, and still plenty good enough to make that shot given 10 or 20 tries.

Anyway, lest we forget the dead Red-shouldered Hawk (or get confused by the varying stories), here's a reprint of this species of bird.

Once again, deep sigh by the feeders. And once again, thanks to Wikipedia for the hawk photo.

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

Sometimes writing these posts is easy, and sometimes it's nearly impossible. And I thought that tonight's work was going to be one of the latter. Unfortunately, not so...

What follows is a simple reaction to a first report concerning the killing of a hawk by an impatient/cruel professional golfer. If the "Yahoo! Sports" report is faulty, I apologize for the rest of this entry. But using that report as a starting point, here's my take on the situation.

Right now, it looks like one of the PGA spoiled brats (Isenhour) couldn't wait for a hawk to clear the course and took aim, again and again. It took him a few tries, but he managed to gleefully kill a Red-shouldered Hawk.

This is the ilk of Michael Vick (convicted of dog fighting)... I just checked the golfing blogs, and they're going up in flames...

Not exactly sure what to say here folks.

Expect "Bobby Cutts' Crocodile Tears" from John Henry Isenhour III... Expect a sizable chunk of society to be stupid enough to buy the "It was an Accident" story.

If this piece is true, this is just despicable.

Time will tell...

Signing off early in raw disgust... I'll make it up to you next time...

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Thanks to Wikipedia for the hawk photo.

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yeah, it's a cute fortunate shot of a threesome of what some feel is a nuisance bird. (The wife and I don't believe in nuisance birds.) And the fixed focal length of the NovaBird remote camera supplied the "shutter karma". But there's something else in the photo that is quite special. Take a close look at the plumage and beaks... The plumage is absolutely brilliant. (Check out a close up of a like bird here.) That radiance is indicative of full grown starlings. However, the beaks speak volumes, (pun intended). Seriously, an adult, non-breeding starling's beak remains dark through much of the winter. It only changes color with the onset of spring-like conditions. The three mugs in the pic above are close to announcing spring in full bloom! So who needs a rodent like Punxsutawney Phil?

Now, as for the "coffee-table politics"... How about the current hot-button, presidential topic of lost American jobs and trade agreements. People are running amuck blaming the President, Congress, NAFTA, China, Mexico, India, and for all I know, Bigfoot. And of course each politician has "The Answer". (Funny how no two politicians have the same "Answer". You'd think that given all the problems our nation faces, statistically two politicians would have to agree on something... Gee, it's almost like they've each got a self-serving agenda going...) Well here's what the politicians won't tell you...

• With the advent of the Internet and cheap shipping/freight, we truly do live in a global village complete with its own global marketplace. And the members of that marketplace are hopelessly intertwined.
• Every single worker in that global marketplace faces a tough decision... "How hard and how many hours per day am I willing to work to reach a certain standard of living?" People in places like India, China, and Mexico have answered that question very clearly - they're willing to work very long hours for very short money for what Americans would call an extremely modest or even unacceptable lifestyle.
• End result of the above? Well, here's a glaring example using China... We buy far more from China than we sell to them because the Chinese are willing to work longer and harder for a lower standard of living. The Chinese government then uses a portion of this vast influx of cash to buy American securities (like chunks of the Treasury debt and the U.S. corporate debt). Sure... Keep the ball rolling... (Besides, China is still number two in the "American Securities Game" at $699 billion... Japan is clinging to number one bringing the total to $1.4 trillion.) They bail us out; we buy more cheap Chinese goods on cheap credit, and get deeper in debt. And so the cycle goes. But the problem is that the average American household owes over $8,000 on its credit cards. Guess where this is going...
• And what do the politicians do in this oh-so-important election year? Why they quickly pass a $150 billion "Economic Stimulus" bill. Gee is it possible that we'll just go out and buy Chinese goods as always and make the situation worse?

Even given serendipity, disheartened by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

References:

• China’s Holdings of U.S. Securities: Implications for the U.S. Economy
• Hu Jintao, Bush's Banker?
• Fast Facts About Credit Card Debt

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's start this post on an upbeat note. Here's a Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker coming in for a landing at the local diner. Note the brilliant yellow rachis in the primary feathers.

And with that, so much for being upbeat... Today, I spoke with an old family friend who owns a backyard bird supply shop, and he echoed what we discussed a year ago on this blog concerning the cost and availability of sunflower seeds - it's getting tougher and more expensive to buy quality seed. (See More Spring Cleanup.) Biofuel and healthier human eating habits are putting a real squeeze on the old birdseed staple. We'll keep you updated on that issue.

Deep breath... And the news goes from costly and inconvenient to real disaster... In New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts, the ubiquitous little brown bats (and other bats) are dying by the tens of thousands from a condition known as "White Nose Syndrome". So far, little is known about this syndrome, except that a fungus is involved, and that the illness is causing an unprecedented die off of bats. (See Wikipedia: White nose syndrome. Also "Google" on "White Nose Syndrome" for more information...) The experts are talking about a 90% mortality rate. That's extraordinarily bad. Not only do bats eat the moths and beetles that destroy our crops, they also eat the mosquitoes that carry stuff like the West Nile Virus and in general pester the snot out of us. Couple that with last year's struggle to properly pollinate plants due to the honeybee "Colony Collapse Disorder" (again, see More Spring Cleanup) and we've got trouble right here in River City.

No... The town square isn't going to burst into flames just because bats are dying at an alarming rate... But this isn't good either. It's not good for farmers, it's not good for consumers, it's not good for folks who like the outdoors, and it certainly ain't good for bats.

So there you go... A flicker, and bad news... Let's keep an eye on the latter and discuss it by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

And in short order, we'll show you a red-bellied woodpecker having one of those days. But first, some background...

The birdhouse we built last year is popular - extremely popular. We've had as guests or brief "roosters"...

• A very sad house sparrow...
  
  
  
  
• A chickadee...
  
  
• A downy woodpecker...
  
  

And that brings us back to the woodpecker having one of those days. Check out the picture below...

This is a red-belly absolutely determined to open up the entrance to this perfect dwelling come Hades or high water. But one small problem stands in his way. When we built the birdhouse, I covered the ingress with 1/8" thick diamond-plate aluminum sheet with a very fixed 5/4" to 6/4" hole... Not to be denied, the red-bellied hammered away at the metal for ten minutes or more. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so pathetic. Eventually, the bird simply gave up and flew away.

But that raises a more serious issue. Should we build another bird house for a larger bird? (See posts Let’s Build a Birdhouse! parts 1 and 2.) Last winter I suggested a future project like building a bat house or perhaps a raptor platform... Maybe we should rethink those ideas; frankly, it looks like we have a housing shortage right in our own back yard...

And there's yet another side to this - our back yard is becoming a buffet table for predators. Just today, we had a small hawk (Coopers?) swoop in and a coyote meander through. I guess that in the endeavor of backyard birding, a bit of carnage is the price of success.

If we were to build another birdhouse for a larger bird like the Red-bellied Woodpecker, I'd aim for the same basic design shape as the one mentioned above, but I'd probably increase the interior to 6"x6"x14". The opening would be about 2". And mounting something that large 12' off the ground would be a challenge. The way to go might be to simply buy a 16' 4"x4" or 4"x6" and hold it in a tabernacle rig set in a concrete base...)

Hmmm... Things to think about. As always, your thoughts are more than welcome.

See you by the feeders and perhaps a new housing development,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)