At least it seems like I'm going through bird food by the bucketful.
Steller's Jays love peanuts
The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Snails, fish, insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located.
In a few weeks, the
FeederWatch season begins. I'm signed up for my 6th winter. It is a citizen science project that seems perfect for fellow Bucketeers. Follow me below the peanut for more.
As described on the website:
Project FeederWatch is a winter-long survey of birds that visit feeders at backyards, nature centers, community areas, and other locales in North America. FeederWatchers periodically count the birds they see at their feeders from November through early April and send their counts to Project FeederWatch. FeederWatch data help scientists track broadscale movements of winter bird populations and long-term trends in bird distribution and abundance.
The season runs from Nov. 14 - April 8 this year. The idea is to watch your feeders for however much time you wish on 2 consecutive days at least 5 days apart (e.g., not more often than once a week). It doesn't have to be a continuous block of time each day or a fixed amount of time each week. You count the largest number of individuals of a species that you can see at one time and record that number.
You can count any birds that visit your site because of something you provide, either directly or indirectly. Any birds visiting your feeders and birdbath are obvious candidates. A Cooper's Hawk that stops by because of the abundance of little birds also counts, even it is unsuccessful in catching anything. Birds that come around because of your wildlife-friendly landscaping such as my Red-flowering Current bushes (a favorite of Rufous Hummingbirds) and my Nootka Roses that are currently covered in rosehips are also fair game. But flyovers that are unrelated to anything in the site environment don't count and any remarkable observation on a day that hasn't been chosen as a count day also doesn't count for FeederWatch (although the Backyard Bird Race may be the perfect place for that!)
FeederWatch provides nifty presentations of your own data. For example, these graphs show a couple of interesting things (although they don't handle counts of zero correctly). First, the numbers of Anna's Hummingbirds staying the winter with us have increased over the years. Second, it's clear when the Rufous Hummingbirds show up in Spring.
Anna's Hummingbirds over the years
Rufous Hummingbirds
I'm really excited about the new season since I have several new species that I've attracted to my feeders. I'm going to provide some photos from my feeders as inspiration that will hopefully encourage you to check out FeederWatch.
I offer feeders with 2 flavors of suet, seed feeders with oil sunflowers and a blend designed for this area, a heated birdbath, a tray feeder that gets seeds and peanuts (a new addition intended to lure Jays) dumped into it, and 3 hummingbird feeders kept full and thawed all winter. But you can get started by simply scattering seed on the ground (but beware, it's likely your interest will escalate).
Lots of birds love suet. This is the first year that I've enticed a Pileated Woodpecker to the suet and it's pretty exciting.
This summer, some woodpeckers brought their babies to the suet feeders to teach them where food comes from. We had a Flicker family, a Downy family, and (not pictured) a Hairy family all come by.
Providing water can be important as it was during our summer drought. This birdbath has a built-in heater that I'll plug in when it get cold enough.
The seed tube tends to attract smallish birds like the Pine Siskins in the picture below as well as Chickadees and Nuthatches.
But sometimes, large birds try to use them. Let's see how many Band-tailed Pigeons can clumsily fit on one tube feeder!
Ground feeding birds (and the Douglas squirrels) enjoy whatever gets spilled out of the feeders onto the deck. However, the usual ground feeders have adapted to coming up to the tray feeder where they seem comfortable in spite of the height. This junco seems quite happy up there. The baffle you see actually works for our small squirrels.
My Anna's Hummingbirds are settling in to stay for the winter. The Rufous hummingbirds are long gone. Without any other sources of food available, keeping the hummingbird feeders full is a commitment I've made in order to enjoy their continued company.
Anna's Hummingbirds stay all winter
I hope you'll consider contributing to citizen science through FeederWatch at whatever level of effort you wish. If your feeders are visible from your computer, as mine are, you can be reading our Daily Buckets while you do your FeederWatch watching. It can make surfing the web seem almost virtuous.
But, this is a bucket, so fill it with whatever you are seeing, even if it's not birdseed.
~~~
"Spotlight on Green News & Views" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time and Wednesday at 3:30 pm PT on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.