I changed things up on my bird feeding this weekend and post an activity about bird behavior. To begin you must visualize my feeding situation and layout. I live in Moundsville but on the outskirts. My house is surrounded by other homes but is 200 yards from the edge of the woods. I have maintained feeding birds for years and is on the dining list of birds who no doubt know there will be food available: Sunflower, Niger, and Suet.
I live on a hillside so my back door and deck are up high. In fact my basement door exits directly onto my back yard patio. I feed from a feeder and suet on my deck. I also, throw food out under my feeder which is 15 feet below... I cannot see the ground below my feeder leaving those ground dwellers on my basement level mostly unobserved. Well, this weekend I did not feed on the ground level and only put out seeds on my deck level scattering a great deal across a larger part of the deck. So if ground dwellers wanted fresh seeds, they would have to come up to the deck.
"Bird count" birds today: 6 cardinals, three nuthatches, 15 house finches, 5 song sparrows, two downy woodpeckers, two red bellied woodpeckers, 8 chickadees, 7 titmice, 5 gold finch, 3 blue jays, 8 starlings, 3 english sparrows, 5 juncos, two carolina wrens ....... all within ten feet of my window. It snowed and I had active feeders during this 2 hour observation.
The activity: Match the birds above to the observation below.
______- one female appeared to have some symptoms of conjunctivitis. She seemed overly aggressive toward other birds.
______- this species pretty much declined my invitation to the deck and preferred to find seed left over from the week, even though the snow cover made doing so more difficult. When it did come to the deck, it "hopped" from place to place, never going to the feeder.
______- these two species were first to find my small bucket of sunflower seeds that I kept under my swing, two feet from my widow. They were the only birds eating from that food source, taking one seed at a time flying elsewhere to eat.
_____ - this species stayed together in a nearby tree, then swarmed the feeders together eating primarily from the suet cakes.
_____- this loud species owned the feeder when it came to feed on sunflower. Others vacated.
_____- this species "ran" back and forth more than did the others, picking up small leftovers all around the feeding area.
_____- this species was most sedentary, eating from one seated position for the longest time.
_____- observed three species feeding from a small hole on the side of the feeder when the busy feeder did not provide space
_____- this species used its tail more than any other to maintain its position on the suet cakes, primarily.
_____-this species seemed to enjoy the crumbs of suet that landed on the deck as its main course.
Point being, you can identify the bird quite often just by its behavior.
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