Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 306
The full moon has passed and that normally means a change in the weather, either hotter or colder and my daffodils hope it is going to be warmer. The crocuses are still putting out their blooms and many other flowers are pushing up greenery all over the garden. The red maples are just showing their red flowers and leaf buds on the ridge behind the pond.
The turkeys have been strutting all around this area and some hens came from somewhere after surviving the winter. I only had one family that I saw at Eight Acre Wood last summer. With all these females around, maybe there will be more babies this summer.
At the feeder, every time there was a coating of snow all the birds from the area showed up for a snack. I had over one hundred birds many days at the beginning of the week, mostly American Goldfinch, Pine Siskins, Slate-Colored Juncos, and Black Capped Chickadees. The male Goldfinches are putting on their colors with black feathers coming on their heads and lots of yellow showing up all over. They look very scruffy before they get all their coloring filled in. The male Purple Finch on the other hand look like they are headed to a ball as their reds glow in the sun.
One day when we had two inches of snow a big flock of robins showed up and cleaned the rest of the small crab apples off the couple trees along the driveway. There was a little water in the ditch below and they scratched in there looking for dropped fruit. I gave them some dried raisins and craisins (dried cranberries) along with some fish pellets which they enjoyed all day. The Common Grackles and Red-Winged Blackbirds soon found the cash crop and took over the area. With all these birds around, it was also a cash cow for the predator birds that showed up a Sharp-Shinned Hawk and another Northern Shrike. I never saw either catch a bird, but I found a couple piles of feathers where they enjoyed a banded Junco and a male Purple Finch. They were good enough to leave me the band on the leg of the Junco in the pile of feathers. I watched them come in a couple times and many of the little birds would take refuge in the brush pile by the feeders. The Hawk would flutter around on top of the pile hoping to have a bird try to escape so it could catch it on the fly, but it never had any takers. The Shrike on the other hand after chasing the little birds in the pile would go right in the pile after them and they would fly out the other side and fly to a bigger brush pile a hundred feet away. The Shrike then went to that brush pile, and I couldn’t see if it was successful getting supper there or not. Let’s hope they don’t have to search for their supper much longer before spring pops out for good.
The Crown Point Banding Station behind the fort at the Crown Point Historic Site by the bridge to Vermont, will be opening on May 3 for its fiftieth year of operation. This is one of the oldest banding stations in the United States. We will be open for two weeks, ending on May 17th at noon, and visitors are always welcome. You must walk in from the visitors’ parking areas, a five- minute walk. We normally have the nets up by 6 AM and roll them up around 7 PM. The birds are more active early in the day and we don’t have the nets open during rainy weather so pick a good day and stop in for a visit.
If you are out on the water, wear your life vest as a dip in the freezing water may be your last. It is mandatory for small watercraft, but you never know what might happen when you are out on the water.
Most of the folks who went south for spring break should come home with a tan, but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Goldfinch
