The Flickers that excavated a cavity nest in a poplar in my front yard have successfully incubated their eggs and are now into the feeding-the-young-stage. Watching the parent birds coming and going, I can only imagine some of the day-to-day conditions in the small confines of the nest cavity.

It takes quite a while for the parent birds to return with a crop full of food most likely ants, that being the Flickers favoured food. The young are at the stage where they climb up inside the cavity and greet the returning parent bird at the entrance. It must be very crowded inside with five or six young birds clambering upward when they hear the parent bird above.

The parent bird must regurgitate the contents of its crop into the awaiting young and this event takes a while. Obviously the babies that can stay near the entrance stand to benefit by more feedings. One of the parent birds simply feeds at the entrance and flies off to refill. The other, I assume the female, does what I call the housework as well as the feeding. When she is finished handing over the food to the young she enters the nest cavity.

It must be challenging to enter the already crowded nest hole and push past the young who are forever hungry and no doubt trying to waylay her as she moves inside.

She is inside for about fifteen seconds. Possibly she may be seeing to it that the smaller and perhaps not as aggressive nestlings, not able to reach the entrance in the push for the food, are receiving a portion of the food.

I know one thing she is doing. Removing fecal sacs. When young birds are still in the nest their droppings come out in compact packages that are easily carried by the parent bird. Can you imagine the mess and state of health of birds like young flickers if all their droppings accumulated inside the confines of the dank nest cavity?

The parent bird emerges and flies off with the fecal sacs and drops them far from the nest, leaving behind a chorus of chanting baby flickers.

I think that the sound the young flickers make has no resemblance to sounds made by birds in general. It has a somewhat mechanical chugging quality. I think this noise is an adaptation that repels such animals as squirrels from entering the nest while the adult birds are away. A squirrel would need to muster a fair amount of courage to go into a the dark recesses of a cavity with such a noise issuing from it.

Canadian Geese?

A story on TV the other night caught my attention. I think the city involved was Seattle. The basic idea was that they had too many Canada Geese and they had a plan to cut down the goose population by killing a number of them. It wasn't the story itself that was interesting. It was that of the news reporter's choice of words. He kept calling the birds "Canadian" Geese. Maybe it makes a better international story if it sounds like Canadian birds are interfering with the running of a city in the United States. The name of the bird is Canada Goose. It isn't a nationality issue. These birds do not have Canadian citizenship and it is very likely that a large percentage of Canada Geese are born and raised in the United States. With such coverage, perhaps there will be an international news story if an American Redstart is involved in an airplane incident. "American Bird Downs Canadian Plane!" the headlines can scream. Hey! I know it's a little thing, but let's not ignore the little things. Just identify me correctly as a Canadian Nit-picker. Not a Canada Nit-picker.

Feline Frolics

CATS!!!

GRRRRRR!

But what can you do?

I was entering the driveway when a cat dashed across in front of me. It was coming from the direction of the Flicker tree. The Flickers were in a frenzy, calling and peering down from their perches, afraid to go near the nest. The cat disappeared. I know it well. It comes over several times a day to see if their are any unwary birds or squirrels to kill.

The Flickers carried on for some time. Finally one flew to the nest tree, still calling nervously. It took a long time for it to get up the nerve to enter the nest hole. I guessed by their reaction that the cat may have climbed up the tree stump to investigate the scene. I waited until both parent birds had fed the young and then placed a hoop of fencing around the base of the nest tree. I think it is enough to deter a cat that probably has many other fish to fry. Unfortunately they are all in my yard and they aren't fish.

My yard has several areas cordoned off with circles of fencing. Every time I am at the dump I pick up any rolls of fence so I have some to spare for these special incidents.

A large enclosure is directly under the front window feeder. It slows down the attack of a cat bent on killing migrating Juncos and Sparrows under the step in the spring. I put a gate on the front step because the cat would hide at the very top tread of the step and from this vantage point could easily pounce on busy birds pecking fallen seed. The cat has jumped up on the window feeder tray many times. One morning I saw it swinging awkwardly from the suet feeder on the poplar tree in front of the window. I guess it leapt to catch a Chickadee and ended up with a pound of suet in its claws.

I could see signs where a cat had caught a few Varied Thrushes this spring. No doubt its annual tally of dead bird is shocking.

But what can you do? People who own cats know that cats will be cats. They know that they love to stalk and kill. It doesn't matter how well fed a cat is it will hunt prey, which to me makes it an even greater waste. At least a hawk needs the birds it takes. So I go about depositing circles of fences here and there.

Flying Flowers

Arctic Skipper, Hoary Comma, Western Tailed Blue. What do these names have in common? They're all butterflies and I saw them from my back step. These are all new names to me and I was able to identify them using an excellent book given to me by Doug Smith. The book is named "The Butterflies of Canada". It shows coloured pictures of all the species found in Canada and it also indicates their various distributions on clear, simple maps.

I must admit that this book has mostly languished on the shelf since I received it. But a trip to Wells Grey Park where we figuratively ran into a pale Swallowtail Butterfly stirred my interest. This Pale Swallowtail (yes, that's its name) was easily found in the colour plates and the book says the limit of its northern range is Wells Grey Park.

On our Churn Creek bird trip a number of us were down on hands and knees trying to identify a dark butterfly on the road. The books we had were not up to the challenge. I have since been able to identify it as a species of Alpine Butterfly, but would have to see it again to make certain of its exact identity.

I found that it is not necessary to catch the species that I identified. But a little stealth and knowing what to look for are essential.

Just like birds, butterflies have ranges, and territories, so watching for rare species would be possible. But I'm thinking to myself, "Oh no! Another time consuming pastime, and I haven't even begun my Sedges of B.C. collection!"