di shpatza

Right on Time

Posted on Tuesday, 14 May 2013 by The Birding Bunch

Isaiah 64:
8 But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
9 Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.
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During our recent snow, we had a lot of birds.  We felt as if we were spending more time keeping food above the falling snow than really paying attention to who we were feeding. There was one bird that didn’t look quite like we were used to seeing the last couple days, but it wasn’t so far different from what we had, so gave it no thought.

But this bird had an opinion about this snow.

I was doing something other than birding when the light bulb turned on.  I remember!  We had this “guy” last year.   Exactly one year ago on 2 May 2012.

Here is the Clay-colored Sparrow with its cousin, the Chipping Sparrow.

Categories: di fekkel, di shpatza

Highlights

Posted on Monday, 13 May 2013 by The Birding Bunch

Psalm 4:
4 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.
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It’s the birdiest time of year and I cannot keep up!

As of this writing, I have two posts scheduled out and am so very behind on editing photos. I want to do that dreaded task of uploading our photos online for prints. I just learned our bird photo albums have not been updated since November.  Today, I will share a few highlights and I may not be as regular with posting for the next few days.

If you wish to look at our year list, you’ll see our latest birds.  Some are pretty neat, I think.  I still need to get a couple of birds added, but need to have them confirmed.

For my blogging friend in California… We have one of your birds here!  Maybe we can send some of ours your way, just look for the white throat.

A special Butterbutt-
Audubon’s Warbler

We’ve seen a Black-crowned Night-heron (Now what would this Alpha code look like? I’ll find out later), Lark Sparrow, Cape May Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler… The Bobolinks, Baltimore Orioles (five of them), Dickcissels, Red-headed Woodpeckers have returned to the yard. Oh, one of our poor birds has a LISP, the Lincoln’s Sparrow. People say these are not feeder birds… well, I don’t believe that! We have a nice sized group here.

The Kestrels seem finally settled and we’ve seen one Kestrel bringing food to the one in the box. For some reason, they’ve allowed Meadowlarks, Red-winged Blackbirds and Grackles to perch on their box. This seems odd, but I wonder if the one on the nest doesn’t bother with it as it would require getting off the eggs.  A couple of hapless Starlings were flying about the box, but seemed terribly afraid to land. They left.

Thursday, we had a great evening of birding. In one and a half hours, we saw 48 species, all within a mile of home. We left as soon as the rain slowed to a drizzle. (We got 3 1/4 inches that day.) The flooding pasture gave us a new yard bird, Blue-winged Teal.

Saturday, was the once a month field trip and we reached a personal high count for the day. 86 species. I hope to create a page for this list.

What is missing so far is our Ruby-throated Hummingbird. We set out nectar hearing of early reports. Soon, soon…

Sadly, the Ring-necked Pheasants are rebounding and we know what that means… :(   We hear a couple of the males from our house.  Others are seeing them around Iowa as well.

Categories: alpha codes, anti-hunting, bird rarities, di shpatza, lifers, raptors

Spizella pusilla

Posted on Friday, 10 May 2013 by The Birding Bunch

1 Corinthians 6:
2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
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This is a cute button of a bird, one of the smallest sparrows.  It has such a fun sounding Latin name, Spizella pusilla.  Say it a few times and you will not forget its name.  It’s specie name, pusilla means tiny.

The Field Sparrow is overall more pale than other sparrows.  This photo shows the faded appearance of the crown.

I am curious, what color is this bird’s bill?  Every field guide I have looked at calls this color pink.  I think it looks orange.  What do you see?

And off topic…
Finally!

Categories: dangers to birds, di fekkel, di shpatza, Latin names, links | 3 Comments

“Helmet Head Is Here!”

Posted on Thursday, 9 May 2013 by The Birding Bunch

The youngest exclaimed this the other day and I knew exactly what he was talking about.  It was pretty thrilling for the little guy to have spotted the very first one of the year.

This is a White-crowned Sparrow.   Someone once mentioned how this bird looks like it is wearing a bicycle helmet, so this is why the little one called it a “helmet head”.  The children also have called them “Zebra heads”.

A long time mystery has been solved.  A couple of years ago, we noticed the sparrows hanging out by the back door, eating something.  We could not ever figure out what.  This year it dawned on us.  That is where the boys dump the duck’s water.  Ducks tend to have a bit of feed left in their mouths when they drink, so there is often a layer of it at the bottom of the bucket.  It was confirmed when the bucket was dumped over the snow.  We saw the sparrows hungrily eating from the duck’s mouth rinse.  And there was all that food just around the corner.
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Ephesians 6:
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

Categories: di shpatza

Emberizidae Family

Posted on Thursday, 2 May 2013 by The Birding Bunch

Ephesians 3:
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
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In common language, this is the Sparrow family.  But that is misleading.  Not all are named Sparrow.  You have Juncos, Longspurs, a Bunting, and Towhees.  In Iowa, there have been seen 26 of these birds.  Also, a couple of birds that are named Sparrow are not true sparrows.  A list  of Emberizids can be found here.

Our Lincoln’s Sparrow has returned!

This has been the time for sparrows.  In the last week, we’ve seen in our yard this fellow, Swamp, White-crowned, White-throated, and our beloved Harris’s Sparrows.  And this batch of Harris’s is feisty!  They want no one eating their food.   It was funny watching them charge after the HOSP!

Talking about House Sparrows, you may know their numbers are decreasing in their native land over in Europe.   People here  joke about wanting to ship them back.  I have to wonder how would the Americanized HOSP  handle life across the big pond?  Would they be the same aggressive bird as here and then become a pest?  Or would they struggle to survive as their relatives?

Not sure if I am happy or not.  We got our first of the year House Wren in the yard today (29 April).  They are cute little things with a perky song.  But the males get bored and cause some ugly trouble for other birds.  He is fairly early this year compared to last.

Categories: di shpatza, Harris's Sparrow, Latin names

They Don’t Blow Away

Posted on Wednesday, 6 February 2013 by The Birding Bunch

Luke 17:
15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
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Do you know how much many feeder birds weigh? Especially the smallest ones? I believe our smallest visitor right now is the Black-capped Chickadee and this weighs a whole of .39 ounces. To give you an idea, this would be similar to the weight of a standard piece of mail with only one sheet of paper in an envelope. For those who use the metric system, they weigh 11 grams.

This one, an American Tree Sparrow is not much heavier at.7 ounces/20 grams.  See that white millet mess?
American Tree Sparrow
This was taken the day after our last winter storm. It wasn’t quite a blizzard, but still kept us home and indoors. The day after no new snow fell, but the winds… oh those winds… they continued. Most birds stayed in the front yard, somewhat sheltered, but we had a few hardy souls. The above bird was one of them.

It dawned on me… what is keeping this and other little birds from blowing away? I know they have strong feet to cling to branches and can withstand the strongest wind. But these are on the ground. ! I have to wonder if they are digging those little claws into the dirt.  On these cold, winter days, I don’t often see their feet while the birds are poofed up to keep warm.

I find bird feet fascinating.   They all use them for perching, standing, walking, and for take off.  Some are used for clinging, holding their food, catching their prey…  One thing I really like about these songbirds’ feet is how they look so sharp and dangerous, though they are not used in any kind of violent way.

Here are a few bird feet.

Female, Dark-eyed Junco. She is a ground forager, so her feet are used mostly for hopping around and perching. But if that strong gust comes along, she is prepared.
Junco's foot

Here is one of our darling, Black-capped Chickadee’s feet. This bird is a grab and go type of bird. They grab a seed or nut with their bill and take off.  Once they land, they hold the food with their feet and break it open with their bill.  See another bird who eats in similar fashion.
Chickadee foot

Not a great look at the foot. This is a female Hairy Woodpecker doing some contortions to get to the food. (LBE- Little Birding Expert- is making a better plug feeder so the woodies can have a more comfortable hold of the feeder)
Hairy Woodpecker's foot
Woodpeckers have some very strong feet because they need to cling to the side of trees and feeders to get to their food. Most birds have three toes in front, with one in the back. Woodpeckers are an exception. All North American woodpeckers (but for  the Three-toed Woodpecker) have two toes in front and two toes in back.

If you are curious, our largest welcomed feeder bird this winter (We won’t discuss Starlings) is the Hairy Woodpecker and they weigh a whopping 2.3 ounces/66 grams.

Bird weights from Sibley’s Field Guide to birds- Eastern North America

Categories: bird facts, di shpatza

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