Bird watching in back yard is addictive Food attracts diverse crowd

Admittedly, until the past few years most of my bird watching has been done over the barrels of a 20-gauge side-by-side or a 12-gauge pump chambered for 3-inch shells. That’s not to imply, however, that I’ve forsaken hunting feathered game. What I’m saying is that lately I have become addicted to watching and studying the behavior, interactions, and antics of the birds that room and board, so to speak, in my back yard. The reason being that my wife, who thinks she is responsible for the winter welfare of all the animals that show their faces thereabouts, has turned the area into a veritable Feed and Seed store. So it was that, recently, after shouldering 50-pound bags of cracked corn and sunflower seed from my truck to the large trash cans used as storage bins, I made the mistake of asking her how much money she was spending to feed the voracious freeloaders. The immediate response was: “Not as much as you spend on shotgun shells.” So much for that.

Allowing that April and open-water fishing season are two days old and this column is hooked to bird watching instead of casting in snow-banked brooks and streams roily with runoff, it’s a sure bet that all five of my regular readers are wondering if I lost a wheel weight a few miles back. And being hunters as well as fishermen, I can see their jaws dropping as they read that, of the birds I observe in my back yard, from chickadees to wild turkeys, I find the oft-maligned crow to be the most interesting.

In addition to being long-lived and highly intelligent, crows display a social order that is impressive, to say the least. Accordingly, I have yet to see the usual family groups of three or four fight with each other for the bread dabbed with peanut butter, placed especially for them, on the branches and forks of a backyard maple. Moreover, instead of selfishly eating its fill, the first crow to arrive calls to the others, announcing that breakfast is served.

Conversely, impatient and garrulous flocks of gulls, blue jays, mourning doves, mallard ducks, turkeys, cardinals, juncos, chickadees, starlings, cowbirds, sparrows, purple finches, now and then a rose-breasted grosbeak and the like feed in what is best described as a feathery free-for-all. Speaking of grosbeaks, the flocks of evening grosbeaks whose dramatic plumages of yellow, white, brown, and black once brightened bird feeders hereabouts all but vanished with the passing of the spruce budworm infestation that occurred in the 1970s.

The evening grosbeak’s large crusher-type bill identifies it as a seed eater. Yet, my wildlife biologist friends Brad Allen and Tom Hodgman affirm that the bird also feeds on a variety of invertebrates. Particularly spruce budworms, the availability of which impacts evening grosbeak populations. I wouldn’t wish for another spruce budworm epidemic, but as an artist, I’d sure like to see again the dazzling combinations of colors that cardinals, blue jays, and evening grosbeaks paint on snow.

Seeing as the Penobscot River flows handy to my house, it didn’t take trafficking gulls and mallards long to discover the backyard banquet. At first they arrived in pairs, then in flocks of four or five that quickly increased to six, eight, 10, and steadily multiplied to the current 30 or more. Suffice it to say, the corn-fed drake mallards are resplendent in their prenuptial plumage.

It seems, however, that my “back forty” – 40 yards, that is – isn’t the only place where mallards are being fed. A few weeks ago, Moe Williams, who lives on South Brewer’s Grove Street extension, phoned to tell me he was seeing big flocks of mallards flying in the direction of the Green Point Road. “They fly right over my house,” he said. I know that during winter the ducks raft in the pools of the Bangor Wastewater Treatment Plant located on Route 1-A below the Tin Bridge, but I have no idea of where they are going when they fly over Moe’s house. “Wherever it is,” I said, “you can bet they’re finding feed.”

To say the flocks feeding in the back yard are entertaining would be understatement: The gulls noticed that the crows often dropped bits of bread when taking it from the tree. Therefore, when the crows arrive, the gulls gather beneath the tree to await the fallout. For the most part, the crows, gulls, blue jays, doves, and ducks tolerate each other, but the picture changes when the flock of 14 turkeys shows up. Like troops assembled on a skirmish line, the big birds gather at the edge of the woods. Then, as if responding to a signal to advance, they come charging into the back yard all at once. With necks and heads lowered and wings outstretched, the turkeys drive the other birds away.

Having established the breakfast pecking order, the turkeys begin scratching and feeding and chasing each other. Near as I can tell, there are three young toms (jakes) in the flock. And like boys sprouting chin whiskers, don’t they think they’re something special with their 2-inch beards and wattles flushed and swelling with springtime. I’d say the three males spend as much time displaying – strutting with feathers fluffed, tails fanned, and wing tips dragging – as they do eating. But at this stage of the game, the most they get from the steadily feeding hens are pecks of annoyance for being in the way.

Equally entertaining is the activity at the suet cage. Hanging in a cedar tree that shades a window of my den-studio, the avian eatery serves pleasant distractions from painting. Not the least of which are provided by nuthatches, red-breasted and white-breasted, that apparently don’t know which way is up. That’s my impression at least, because the birds seem to prefer being upside down when feeding, even while foraging on the trunks of trees. The fatty food also attracts downy and hairy woodpeckers, tufted titmice, chickadees, and, of course, blue jays that are strikingly beautiful in spite of their boldness. Speaking of woodpeckers, back along I heard a familiar loud, stuttering call and looked out to see a pair of pileated woodpeckers probing the bark of the maple tree. Owing to its size and dramatic black, white, and red plumage, the “cock o’ the woods” is indeed an impressive bird.

As can be imagined, the feed-and-seed smorgasbord also attracts animals other than birds. To wit: deer, gray squirrels, red squirrels, raccoons, foxes, and now and then a coyote. Considering the cast of players, it’s not surprising that the performances on the snowy stage behind my house are also intriguing. I’ve noticed, for example, that squirrels feed en masse on rainy and drizzly days, making me wonder if they perceive that hawks, being so soft-feathered, aren’t apt to be hunting in wet weather. The squirrels also appear to have natural rain gear. While sitting and feeding, they curl their bushy tails tightly over their backs and heads. When the tails become beaded with water they are twitched dry.

It’s no secret that deer “yard up” when deep snow makes traveling difficult. Likewise, when Ol’ Man Winter spreads quilts of fluffy snow, squirrels stick to home until the snow settles enough to support them. Otherwise, they can’t run or maneuver, making them easy pickings for predators. The turkeys also disappeared when deep snow caused them to wallow, thereby expending precious energy. The flock could easily have flown in to feed but for some reason wild turkeys prefer to roost until a storm of fresh snow packs enough for them to walk on it. There is a documented case, in Vermont I think, of turkeys roosting and starving to death because of a prolonged period of deep, soft snow.

What I find most amazing, though, is the unerring ability of birds and squirrels to recognize winged predators. For instance, the busy feeders show no sign of alarm when a crow or a gull scales toward the back yard from afar. But let a hawk, say, a Cooper’s or sharp-shinned, silhouette itself against the sky and the premises will be vacated with a whirr of wings and scrambling feet. The departure may not be as swift when the frenzied calling of crows signals the presence of a prowling fox or cat, but none of the assembled diners stick around for second looks. When you think about it, though, it’s really not so amazing: If your life depended on instant recognition of shapes, forms, and movements, you’d be fine-tuned to them as well.

At times, of course, the critters that have discovered the handouts at Hennessey’s house get to be self-imposed problems. The turkeys scratching and strutting a stone’s throw from the sliding glass doors of the room I write in cause my English pointer, Bud, to tear up the rugs and rearrange furniture; and now that the raccoons are rummaging at night, the trash can and suet cage are raided continually.

All told, though, watching the furred and feathered gatherings is well worth the price of admission. Among the attractions are chickadees and juncos getting drinks from dripping icicles, male cardinals feeding females by passing seeds from bill to bill, and squirrels leaping from the branches of the maple tree to disappear into the safety of snow tunnels that emerge at the edge of the woods. Also, because mallards jump vertically when taking wing, the backyard flock was reluctant to feed beneath the low-hanging branches of the maple. So now the ducks feed contentedly on corn scattered in the open area beyond the tree. Last but by no means least was a visit this winter by what I believed was a varied thrush. Slightly bigger than a robin, which is a member of the thrush family, the bird that showed up at my house had the varied thrush’s distinctive dark V marking across its rust-colored breast feathers. From what I’ve gathered, the varied thrush is common to northwestern states but now and then appears at eastern feeders.

So now comes spring, thankfully, and with it mating season. Foxes, squirrels, and raccoons, which mate in February and March, are ahead of the game, but for the most part, mating rituals among birds are just beginning. Dawns now are announced by the doleful calls of mourning doves, robins are playing hopscotch on patches of bare ground, the twittering calls of cardinals sound like someone whistling to a dog, and last week Bud pointed a woodcock hunkered on the spongy grass showing beneath a sprawl of sumacs. As an aside, the spreading patches of bare ground seen around the bases of trees are produced by branches and trunks absorbing the heat of the sun and radiating it into the root systems, thereby warming the ground and melting the snow above it.

For sure I’m excited by the signs of spring pointing toward ice-outs and the April-foolish fishing season. Nevertheless, I have to say I’ll miss the winter-long entertainment provided by the birds and other wildlife that patronized the buffet behind my house. I’ll even go so far as to say their antics and interactions are more enlightening than the glimpses of game that I get over the barrels of my shotguns. With that said, there’s no doubt in my mind that I will be hit by a couple of full-choke blasts fired from among my five readers. Without question, the first shot will be to inform me that this column is for the birds. The second, equally predictable, will be to ask me when I joined the Audubon Society.

Tom Hennessey’s columns and artwork can be accessed on the BDN Internet page at www.bangornews.com. Tom’s e-mail address is: thennessey@bangordailynews.net