FOR THE BIRDS

December 1998

By

Helen O'Shea

CHRISTMAS FOR THE BIRDS - Making Bird Treats

This is a family activity that does not involve a lot of expense or fighting crowds at the mall. Here are some ideas from Attracting Birds to Your Backyard by Sally Roth , Rodale Press, 1998.

"…Making Christmas bird treats is the perfect reason for cleaning your kitchen cupboards. Start by ransacking the pantry shelves—perhaps you’ll find a half-empty box of raisins petrified to break-your-tooth dryness. If so, dump them into a bowl along with any leftover nuts, then add the last couple of inches from an old bottle of molasses and the remains of a couple of boxes of cornmeal. To give the treats a little more substance, add a few handfuls of fine-chopped suet. With all those ingredients in the bowl, the challenge is how to mix them together. I recommend rolling up your sleeves and mixing the ingredients with your hands. Grease your hands so they don’t stick to the gluey mess. .. Children usually love this part of the job. Once the mix is thoroughly mixed, mold it into small balls. .. Wrap each ball a few times around with light-gauge wire for hanging, then store the balls in the freezer until you need them. These suet balls are perfect for decorating… bare-branched shrubs." pp. 74 -75

Fruit at the Feeder: To fill your feeders without straining your budget, buy blemished or over-ripe apples or citrus at orchards in the summer or fall. You can ask your grocer to keep past-their-prime fruits for you. You can also put out mountain ash berries or other fruit that you have picked in the fall. p. 118

Peanut Butter Treats: "You can mix bulk peanut butter with cornmeal or rolled oats. Mixing peanut butter with fillers like these also makes the peanut butter supply stretch a little further.

Stir ½ cup of peanut butter into 2 cups of uncooked cornmeal or rolled oats. Spoon the mixture onto a tray feeder and stand back as chickadees, song sparrows, and woodpeckers flock to the feast." p.191

P.S. I am always careful to place my feeder in an area that is sheltered from the advances of crows.

Pearl Magee’s Trip to Gettysburg and at home

Pearl, Winston and Joey Magee headed southward to attend the celebration of the 135^th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg this past summer. On their rambles they observed Northern Mockingbirds, Cedar Waxwings, a male Cardinal, Eastern Bluebirds, 2 Great White Egrets, Hundreds of Canada Geese, a Brown Thrasher, a Red-headed Woodpecker, a Purple Martin at Gettysburg and a Rufous-Sided Towhee.

Back in Louisbourg Pearl observed a pair of Fox Sparrows at her dogwood berries in the yard on August 4. A Hermit Thrush also was there for 2 weeks until the berries were gone. October 23, she had a pair of Chipping Sparrows for 3 days. This was at the time of Hurricane Mitch. Three Evening Grosbeaks dropped by and a flock of goldfinch. In early October she saw an American Bittern at a pond at Albert Bridge. So far she has had 11 Mourning Doves. A flock of Crossbills have been in the trees near her property but have not approached closely. The 26^th of November she had a Chipping Sparrow in its winter plumage.

Out and About

Bill and I took a birding trip on November 8. We saw 30 Canvasback Ducks at Glace Bay Beach, 2 Surf Scoters and a White-winged Scoter at Port Morien, 7 mature and 3 immature White-winged Scoters at Mira Gut, 4 dozen Snow Buntings at Catalone Gut, and a pair of Northern Harriers at Bateston.

At My Feeders

On the same bitterly cold November 8^th I decided to put out two disselfink (tube) feeders with black oil sunflower seed and another one containing niger seed.

My feeders have been attracting their usual complement of Red-breasted Nuthatches, several Black-capped Chickadees, 3 acrobatic Blue Jays, and a flock of American Goldfinch that began with 3 and has now expanded to 30. I had to hang another disselfink with niger seed to accommodate the hordes of aggressive competitors for niger seed. I have had some highlights along the way. November 11 brought a Yellow-crowned Kinglet, a Brown Creeper arrived November 21^st , Slate-colored Juncoes appeared November 22^nd and the Mourning Doves vary between 3 and 15 in number.

Around the Harbour

November 15^th was a day of sleet and rain but a Greater Yellowlegs remained fishing at the Havenside Barachois. There were 17 American Black Ducks on the pond side of the Fortress Barachois and 11 below Jerrat’s Brook. 28 Black Ducks were in that location November 19^th.

That same afternoon, after the excellent tea & sale in Mainadieu, we drove around the harbour there and observed a Red-necked Grebe, 2 immature Cormorants, 2 female Common Eiders, a Common Loon and 2 Black Guillemots in winter plumage. There is an abundance of American Crows that far outnumber Herring Gulls and Great Black Backed Gulls.

Sheila Fudge saw a Pine Grosbeak by Kehoe’s Pond at the bottom of the Administration Road.

The flock of more than 150 Starlings can be seen moving all over the downtown Louisbourg area. I have seen them on the wires, in trees, and on the lawns of Derrick Burke, Olive Shaw, Guy and Henrietta Hiltz, The Stella Maris Glebe, Geraldine and Seward MacKeigan, John and Karen Cann, the Playground, Rannie Butts, Dan Joe Thomas and Francis Kennedy. There seem to be larva on the sidewalk and perhaps these are providing the lawn feast for the Starlings and American Crows.

There is another flock of 25 Pigeons that have been observed at the other end of town. Ruth Stevens has had them visit her yard and on December 6^th they were on the roof of the house of Phil Wilcox. Are they a separate flock? Are they part of the 50 seen on Wolfe Street and Lorway?

Minnie MacLeod had 21 Blue Jays in her yard in September but now has few birds.

There were 33 Red-breasted Mergansers were in the Fortress Barachois November 30. Around the harbour on Sunday, 6 December we saw numerous Black Guillemots, Icelandic Gulls, a dozen Oldsquaw Ducks, Black Scoters, Surf Scoters, Red-breasted Mergansers, Black Ducks and Common Loons.

Ashley Hill’s yard provided a female Dickcissel and 3 Song Sparrows on the morning of December 6^th. Maybe this will be a "hot spot" for sightings.

My Sighting of the Month

Walking along Huntington Avenue the morning of November 22, Bill and I observed a Prairie Warbler for about 15 minutes. It was in the rose bushes in Ashley Hill’s yard. This bird was first reported in Louisbourg by Gwendolen and John Lunn on 21 September 1964 (Robie Tufts, Birds of Nova Scotia, 3^rd Edition, p.366)

THE LOUISBOURG CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT IS DECEMBER 19.

Ideas for Christmas Gifts.

For a birder the best Christmas gifts are books and binoculars. Here are some books.

Roger Tory Peterson, Eastern Birds, ( A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America - Fourth Edition ), Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1980

The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Eastern Region, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1977.

Robie W. Tufts, Birds of Nova Scotia, ( 3^rd edition), Department of Education, Nova Scotia Museum, 1986

Donald and Lillian Stokes. Stokes Field Guide to Birds - Eastern Region, Little, Brown and Company, 1996.

Robert Burton, North American Birdfeeder Handbook, National Audubon Society, MacMillan Canada, Toronto, 1992.

Jon Dunn & Kimball Garrett, A Field Guide to Warblers of North America, Peterson Field Guides, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1997.

Steve Madge and Hilary Burn, Waterfowl, An Identification Guide to the Ducks, Geese and Swans of the World. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1988.

That’s all for this year. Have a good Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you have any ideas, comments or sightings don’t forget to call me at 733-2873.

Helen O’Shea

Extracted from © The Seagull, Helen O'Shea, For the Birds

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