Bears, Birds, and Media - UPDATE February 26, 2016
Common Redpolls
Common Redpolls
Lucky was playing with a stick. Holly tries to take it away and Lucky drew the line at that. Holly listened. Lucky, Holly And The Stick. On the other hand, when they play, Holly trusts Lucky to do what he wants with her, seeming not to worry he will hurt her.
On the way to work this morning a large juvenile goshawk, probably a female, flew off carrying a snowshoe hare that probably approximated her weight (probably 3 pounds each). It?s the first time I saw that. These birds are listed as rare and secretive. The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology website said, ?Northern Goshawks flash through forests chasing bird and mammal prey, pouncing silently or crashing feet first through brush to grab quarry in crushingly strong talons.? I can imagine that happening as the goshawk captured the snowshoe hare.
Redpolls crowding hairy woodpecker
Redpolls crowding hairy woodpecker
Out the window, a flock of redpolls flew away leaving one to continue eating. It was a hoary redpoll?very uncommon. Hoaries come down from farther north than the common redpolls. Hoaries live as far north as northern Greenland and other islands in the Arctic Ocean. I grabbed a camera to snap a picture of its stubby bill to compare with the larger bill of the common redpoll. Just as I snapped it, the hoary redpoll opened its bill, full of a crushed sunflower seed, in a threat toward a common redpoll that had just landed nearby. Click. Then it flew away.
A black-capped chickadee held a sunflower seed, showing what we feed here. We get what are called Semi-hulled sunflower seeds, preferably black oil, but this last batch looks to be mostly striped. They like those, too.
With each seed, black-capped chickadees fly off and land to hold the seed against a branch with a foot and peck it into tiny pieces to swallow. Redpolls eat more efficiently, they gather in dense flocks and work shoulder to shoulder chewing up sunflower seeds in place. A flock can go through a lot of sunflower seeds in a short time that way.
Red-breasted nuthatch
Hoary redpoll
Redpoll
By working in flocks, redpolls overwhelm the competition. Yesterday, a female hairy woodpecker that is several times larger than a redpoll, tried to hold her ground as redpolls landed 10 inches away, but as the air filled with redpolls swirling overhead and landing close, the woodpecker flew away. Within seconds her spot was covered by redpolls.
Chickadees and nuthatches stay away from redpoll flocks but are ready to dash in for their share when the wary redpolls spook and fly off briefly before returning. Although red-breasted nuthatches don?t try to dominate a flock of redpolls, they easily dominate chickadees. The nuthatch?s long slender beak that can probe into bark crevices also serves as a formidable weapon against single birds of comparable size.
Backpacker Magazine did an article on the recent movie ?The Revenant,? at
http://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/news/bear-attack-revenant.
