This weekend, Carrie and I had company, which meant spending a lot of time in the dining room, which also happens to be the best place in the house to watch the birds that visit our yard. Sunday morning, I came downstairs for Breakfast at 8:00 a.m. Our company was still asleep. Carrie was already up and had been watching our feeders from the kitchen window while preparing a roast for lunch in the crock pot. The first two birds I noticed were a Mourning Dove and a juvenile White-crowned Sparrow eating the seed that had fallen to the ground beneath our platform and cage feeders and the extra seed I had thrown on the ground for them the night before. The White-crowned was soon joined by a Dark-eyed Junco, one and then another and another White-throated Sparrow, a female Northern Cardinal, and, of course, House Sparrows.
As I was watching the sparrows, a flock of American Robins flew into our two cedars and began devouring the cedar berries, which I had never before noticed. This flock was soon joined by a flock of European Starlings competing for the same meal. These berry starved starlings did not seem at all interested in the food in the feeders hanging from these trees, except for perhaps an occasional peanut. Of course, stealing peanuts could not have been easy for them when competing with our Red-bellied Woodpecker, who made multiple trips to the peanut feeder over the next hour. The Red-bellied usually landed on the trunk of the cedar from which the peanut feeder was hanging, starting off with a bite of bark butter, which I had spread over the knots of the trunk to attract Brown Creepers. Then he would fly to the peanut feeder, take a couple of bites, and fly away with peanuts in his mouth, displaying his beautiful markings with each beat of his wings.
Although I did not see any Brown Creepers eating the bark butter, I did see one near the top of one of my other trees, which towers over the cedars, and another bird was up there as well. The light was poor, but yellow flashes and heavy streaking on the breast gave away the identity of this Yellow-rumped Warbler, which took to chasing the Brown Creeper in circles around the upper branches of this tree.
While the Red-bellied Woodpecker was flying in and out, I noticed, just to the left of the peanut feeder, an American Goldfinch on the sock feeder. Then I observed several more flying in and out of the trees and feeding from the sock and platform feeders. Even their duller Fall colors seemed amazingly bright on a dark, cloudy day as did the blazing red feathers of a couple of male Cardinals in the cedars.
By this time my company Allison and Justin were up showering and eating Breakfast. We were talking around the table and bird watching together--some of us more than others. Each of them had looks through the binoculars at a bird or two or three, including the Red-bellied Woodpecker. American Crows flew over with their loud caws and two or three Blue Jays flew into the trees and dropped down to the ground. Then I noticed what I first thought was a Downy Woodpecker high up in one of our trees, but when I observed the white stripe down the bird's side, I cried out, "Yellow-bellied Sapsucker." And then there were two of them. Both Carrie and Allison got looks at these two young sapsuckers as well. They did not stay long and did not visit the sap wells, which their predecessors had hammered into our cedar trees, but it was nice to get a look at them on such a dreary Fall day. Before we left for church, a female Downy Woodpecker, visiting the peanut feeder brought our woodpecker species total to three.
When we returned from an enjoyable worship service, the same feeder was visited by a handsome male Downy, whose red head feathers were sticking up almost like a tuft or crest. Two Yellow-rumped Warblers had moved into one of the cedars and were gulping down some of the cedar berries left by the robins and starlings, at times hovering like a hummingbird while grabbing these berries. A White-breasted Nuthatch flew in to grab a dab of bark butter, and later a Carolina Wren, spotted by my wife Carrie, gave great looks while visiting the peanut feeder, bringing our total yard count to 20--pretty nice for such a dull Fall day. My complete list is below. The Cooper's Hawk shown above was in my yard on October 23.
Glenn, McLean, US-IL
Oct 30, 2011 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Protocol: Stationary
20 species
Mourning Dove 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 2
Downy Woodpecker 2
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 3
Black-capped Chickadee 4
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Brown Creeper 1
Carolina Wren 1
American Robin 10
European Starling 12
Yellow-rumped Warbler 3
White-throated Sparrow 7
White-crowned Sparrow 1
Dark-eyed Junco 5
Northern Cardinal 4
House Finch 6
American Goldfinch 5
House Sparrow 8
Written and published on November 1, 2011
