FeederWatch: Weeks 7&8

Not a lot new to report these weeks, many of the same birds are coming back to the feeders. We did have one new bird, that really confused Miss Renee this year. We had a Hairy Woodpecker at the feeders on week 8. Now they look much like the Downy Woodpecker, except for their beak and size. While the downy is about the size of a sparrow, while the Hairy is the size of a robin. It's not a huge size discrepency, which is why it was at first doubted that it was Hairy Woodpecker and just another Downy, but after a Downy showed up shortly afterwards, the sizes became more apparent. As if figuring out what each little brown bird (sparrow) wasn't hard enough, now we'll have to pay closer attention to the size of the woodpeckers visiting. (Unfortunately we have no pictures of the Hairy, but enjoy these pictures of the Downy, top male, bottom female).

Actually there was also a very unique incident at the feeders during week 8. We actually had 1 American Goldfinch displaced 4 European Starlings from a hanging platform feeder. This is rather unusual due to the size of the American Goldfinchcompared to the Starlings (see pictures below). I'm not sure if the reason the Goldfinch was able to cause the Starlings to scatter was due to the goldfinch flying in to the feeder from above, or if it was because as it was descending it spread its wings wide to slow its descent and thus startled the Starlings. Either way it is interesting to think about. This observation was submitted along with our count to Cornell as part of their behavior interactions observations (yes they do want more than just numbers).

Count Week 7: 15 species, 56 individuals

northern cardinal 2

white-throated sparrow 3

house finch 2

american goldfinch 6

dark-eyed junco 4

blue jay 2

house sparrow 16

black-capped chickadee 4

carolina wren 1

downy woodpecker 1

white breated nutchatch1

song sparrow 1

tufted titmouse 2

european starling 10

mourning dove 1

Count Week 8: 13 species, 44 individuals

northern cardinal 2

american goldfinch 5

house sparrow 15

black-capped chickadee 3

dark-eyed junco 6

white-throated sparrow 2

downy woodpecker 1

white-breasted nuthatch 1

song sparrow 1

european starling 3

tufted titmouse 3

carolina wren 1

hairy woodpecker 1