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October 05, 2006  Finding Siskin Kind I don’t often go out on limbs (I prefer to leave those arboreal appendages to the creatures with feet best suited for the job of perching.) But, having heard and seen things lately, I’m poised to make a prediction about a particular small bird that has been absent from our region for the last few years. Remember the feeder scene of yore? There was hardly a moment in which little striped birds, with the overall colour of cooked oatmeal, were not milling about. And boy, were they pushy! Even the hunch-backed Nuthatches, which look like they were built for rugby scrums, were given the heave ho. I speak of Siskins. Where did the little pointy-beaks go? Some were alarmed and thought they all died off. Others, like me, heaved sighs of relief and suggested they were simply over the next hill (the Rocky Mountains, to be precise) pillaging feeders on the prairie side. I know the mobility of the seed-eating crowd and intuited that Siskins, like Crossbills or Grosbeaks, were somewhere, just not here. So what has changed to make me make a prediction about the Siskins? Not a day has gone by, this September, when I did not hear Siskins somewhere. They signaled their presence to me by calling out their well-known phrases as they were flying overhead or unobtrusively scouring the branches of deciduous trees, ‘hurl-eee” and zeeEE-EET being their most well known. And so it was that the little stripers, through pantomime and song, stated quite plainly that they were back. So my prediction is this. When the last poplar leaves finally fall to the ground, all the Siskins will turn their heads in unison and search the landscape for the nearest seed feeder. For those that have not heard the ‘hur-lees’ and ‘zee-EE-EET’s, Siskins will seem to mysteriously and suddenly rain from the sky, taking up their places as if they’d never been away. When this comes to pass, those who have lamented the lack of birds at their feeders, will again be happy. But the Siskins’ return will also bring to an end the peace and quiet that all the Chickadees and Nuthatches have come to believe is the natural state of things. Anyone who has ever shopped for those door-crashing bargains will know the feeling. Not Alone Dowitcher Ever since Guy, Jean, and I went to see the twisted-beaked Long-billed Dowitcher at the east pasture pond, I’ve visited it daily to see how it fares. In last weeks column I suggested that its strange bill alignment was an injury and wondered if it would continue to feed successfully and eventually migrate away as many shorebirds have already done. On my daily Dowitcher visits I am surprised to find that it is never alone; at least one other Long-billed Dowitcher keeps it company. And the other day, just to add some spice, a Pectoral Sandpiper was also present. The Pectoral can be a difficult bird to identify but not as hard as some of the other shorebirds. This particular bird was a juvenile and its back was decorated with triangular feathering. The edge of each feather was trimmed in a light shade of brown, giving an impression similar to fish scales. The most helpful bird identification feature was the chest. I assume this is why the Pectoral Sandpiper name calls attention to the pectoral region, though I have never heard this given as an explanation. The chest is a buff under-colour marked with darker fine striping. Other shorebirds have a similar feature but never as strongly delineated as the Pectoral Sandpipers. The Pectoral surprised me by staying more than a day and this morning was standing out on the frozen mud awaiting the warmth of the sun. Nearby were the crooked-billed Dowitcher and another of its kind, gingery slipping around on the thin ice that covered most of the pond. Staying here this long doesn’t seem like wise behaviour and I’ll be sure to continue to spy on the strange threesome. Parakeet Feat I just had to pass this story on even though it isn’t about wild birds. Marianne visited the other day and said that her mother, who lives in Southern Ontario, routinely put her Parakeet out on the back step in its cage in warm weather. This isn’t the amazing part. Her mother left the cage door open! The Parakeet would then fly away to spend the day on the loose. Neighbours would call to say the Parakeet was at their feeder with Sparrows and at the end of the day the bird would return to its cage. There is more to the story, something about the Parakeet staying away longer and longer until one day it did not return, then being sighted a month later trudging homeward - on foot! The part about the Parakeet getting lost and trudging homeward is amazing enough but what’s even more unbelievable to me is that a parakeet could be set free and have the sense to do a homing pigeon act on a daily basis. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
