Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Monday, February 11, 2008
Purple Finches and the Other GBBC
I resisted the temptation to put up a bird feeder at the country house for about a year and a half. I didn't want to create a squirrel vermin problem where none existed, and I figured the birds had been getting along just fine without my help. But along about mid-January when I couldn't see the end of winter, my desire to watch birds while sitting by the window with a cup of tea got the best of me. My self-imposed rule was that I wouldn't buy a new feeder. Not much of a rule, considering that I had several feeders which proved not quite squirrel-proof that were taking up space in the garage. It took the birds about a week to find the feeder, but when they did, it was the same old backyard birds that frequent the northern Virginia feeders - chickadees, titmice, juncos, nuthatches. I think I was secretly hoping for something more exotic in the country. Well, last weekend I got something interesting if not exotic - purple finches!
House finches are often mistaken for purple finches (tips for distinguishing them here), and I have house finches in abundance in northern Virginia, but rarely see a purple finch there. So I wasn't expecting much when I raised the binoculars to look at the reddish bird on the feeder. Hmmm, I thought, that looks like a purple finch. And another and another and... I had trouble counting them, but I think there were about 5 adult males and 5 or 6 females or juvenile males. These two look like they just had a spat and want to get away from each other. I know, I know - don't anthropomorphize.
I hope they hang around until this weekend for the Great Backyard Bird Count (not to be confusing with the other GBBC, the Garden Bloggers' Book Club). If you have a window and a spare half-hour or so, please consider participating. Sometimes you discover birds in your yard you didn't know were there. I've been counting for several years now, but I think it was my very first count where I saw my very first ruby-crowned kinglet. I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been trying very hard to see and list all the birds in the yard.
9 Comments:
These purple finches are cute. With extra bird feeders hanging about, I can imagine it would have been hard not to use them at your country place.
It looks as if there will be lots of people participating in the GBBC - I've read about it in several blogs.
I love purple finches...my mother always says they look like they fell in the jampot. We have a few house finches, usually quite a few purple finches, but a whole LOT of redpolls this year, too. I'm not good enough at identifying to take part in a bird count, not yet.
Kate: I was wondering what I was going to do with the surplus bird feeders - hated the idea of throwing them away. I think that participation in the GBBC has been increasing every year - I wonder if blogs have anything to do with that?
Jodi: Your mother nailed one of the identification tips for purple finches - I've read "sparrow dipped in raspberry juice" in a field guide. I wish a redpoll would visit here, but I'm not sure if they ever get this far south - I need to check the eBird reports. I think the GBBC welcomes observations from anybody, no matter their level of expertise. I'm guessing the birds are flocking to your feeders with all that snow.
Thanks for mentioning the backyard count, Entangled - maybe one of these years we'll do it. Bet we'd count more lumpy white-winged doves than anything else.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Re: the kinglet... it struck me while reading this that bird counts function a bit like Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. A great excuse to notice what you otherwise might have missed.
I love purple finches, too, and the cardinals that usually come earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon than the rest of the birds, almost always as a couple.
Okay, fine. I admit it... I feed the birds just for the pleasure of watching them, too! I'm sure they could get along quite fine without me, but... :)
Annie: We have plenty of mourning doves around this year. I've never seen a white-winged, but I assume they're similar? Lumpy applies equally well to the mourning doves, I think.
Blackswamp Girl: That's so true about events like GBBD and the other GBBC making us better observers.
I haven't seen a ruby-crowned kinglet here this season and I miss them. I always think they look perky, flitting from branch to branch.
I just recently read of a study done in England on whether feeding birds really helps them or not. The conclusion, if I remember correctly, was that it did help the birds that used the feeders, but may give those birds a competitive advantage over birds that don't normally come to feeders. I still like to think I'm doing a good deed, but really it's more about me than about the birds.
From what I've read, Entangled, there used to be a lot more native mourning doves around here until the White-wings started expanding their range. They make a kind of coo but not as pretty a sound as the real mourning doves.
Annie
Just last Sunday, I noticed a mob of robins. These must have been the migrants you saw earlier in the week. Strange they would come up to NJ when it was forecasted to become very cold which it did and worse because of the strong and persistent winds.
Annie: The mourning doves have been cooing for about a week or so here. I'm taking that as another sign of spring. :-)
Ki: I think they had to move on because they finished all the food here - they heard you still had berries for them. ;-)
Post a Comment
<< Tangled Branches: Cultivated, main page