My little guests

Sunday, 5:54 pm

By Kate

Apr

09

2006

Here are a couple of the guests who stopped by my bird feeders yesterday. They’re not high quality photographs by any means...shooting through glass with an inadequate zoom and no tripod leads to so-so pictures....


There were several pairs of American Goldfinches who arrived yesterday. This one is a female. The males are already bright yellow, but I couldn’t catch one sitting still long enough to snap more than a blur. Depending on the source, goldfinches are listed as either wintering over in this region or not wintering over in this region. In my particular area, they depart in the autumn and return in the spring. Yesterday was the first day they’ve been back to my feeders. And a welcome sight they were. They loooove the husked sunflower seeds and spend considerable time squabbling over who gets first dibs. They are fun to watch.


This little bird is a Chipping Sparrow, also a new arrival yesterday. She’s still wearing her winter colors. This was the only one who showed up at the feeders, but I’m sure there are more around. She was eating wild bird seed.  So cute and so little. They are always cheerful. The differences between sexes are hard to distinguish, so this one could be either male or female, but I think female because....

Chipping sparrows have a particular fondness for using hair to line their nests. And it just so happens I have a ready supply. After I saw this little sparrow, I gave Terry a quick brushing. She is losing her undercoat for spring and the hair is very soft and downy. I put a big wad of it on the railing and it wasn’t very long before the little sparrow tore into it, picking out manageable clumps and flying off with it. The females are the ones who build the nests.


One of my white breasted nuthatches. I happened to be standing in front of the sliding glass door, with camera in hand, when she showed up. She stood on the deck railing for several seconds looking straight at me. After she’d decided I posed no threat, she got on with her meal. She chose the black oil sunflower seeds in their husks. Male and female nuthatches are very similar and sometimes it’s difficult to tell between them. In this case, there was another nearby and he was a much darker gray. The females are lighter in color. They are here all year ‘round.