Opening the cottage

[vaneramos]

The weekend is so rich in my memory, I can hardly evaluate or put it into words. Some highlights included the barbecue ribs, which vanished in a matter of minutes, a climb to the top of Dorset fire tower, playing Settlers of Catan, shooting an extravagant firework display off the end of our dock, and lying there alone with Danny later, watching satellites voyage across the stars. My brother and his wife, Mike and Dawn, stopped for tea on Monday afternoon. That was probably the fourth time I'd seen them in 10 years, and it meant a lot to me that they went out of their way to see us.

The bird listening was excellent, and I had a chance to improve my recognition of a few tricky songs. Here is a list of species I observed (27). Seeing so many species on their breeding grounds is even more exciting than seeing them on migration. The ones in italics were on or immediately adjacent to our property, the rest within a few hundred metres along the road: American Black Duck, Common Loon, Broad-winged Hawk, Ruby-throated hummingbird, Least Flycatcher, Eastern Phoebe, Red-eyed vireo, Blue Jay, American Crow, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Veery, Wood Thrush, Nashville Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Pine Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Ovenbird, Northern Waterthrush, Chipping Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Pine Siskin.

I recorded the song of a Northern Waterthrush.

Comments

[avad.livejournal.com]

love you.:)
Just today I was writing outside in my paperjournal when a little black-capped chickadee came right near to me on the deck railing, looked at me and chirped. I moved my head a bit thinking maybe it hadn't seen me and would be shocked but it just looked at me and chirped again twice and then flew up to the nearby tree. Perhaps you can tell me what that meant? It was darn cute but I don't speak the language!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Chickadees have an extremely wide range of vocalizations, in fact some researchers think they have a rudimentary language. For example they make one sound for small owls (more dangerous to tiny birds, because they're more agile) and a different one for large owls. Nuthatches also know the chickadee language. Chickadees have been observed making their "little owl" call to scare nuthatches away from bird feeders!

The bird who visited you had probably been fed by people before, and hoped you had a morsel for him. Chickadees are quite tame and have a good memory about where to find food. If you want, you can probably entice it to feed from your hand. Next time you go sit outside, take some chopped peanuts to offer, or bits of cracker with peanut butter. Sunflowers seeds would probably work as well.